adam.com Takes Legal Action to Protect its Intellectual Property; Terminates License Agreement with DrKoop.com

Business Wire, August 6, 1999

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 6, 1999--

adam.com (NASDAQ: ADAM) today announced that it has filed suit in United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia, against DrKoop.com (NASDAQ: KOOP) for breach of contract, and copyright and trademark infringement. The suit seeks a declaratory judgment that the license agreement between the two companies has been terminated. It also seeks injunctive relief and unspecified damages.

adam.com provides a variety of online medical and health information content, including an award-winning Medical Encyclopedia, to a number of Internet sites under certain license agreements. DrKoop.com, under its license agreement, is permitted to use adam.com's proprietary Medical Encyclopedia solely on certain specific, agreed upon Web site addresses. The company alleges in its complaint that DrKoop.com has breached the license agreement and infringed on adam.com's copyright and trademark rights by relicensing, repackaging, reselling or distributing adam.com's content to third parties, which includes many of those companies participating in DrKoop.com's Community Partner Program. With this action, adam.com seeks the immediate removal of its intellectual property from all of DrKoop.com's Web sites and those of its licensees.

"adam.com has developed and owns the single largest collection of interactive, multi-media medical and health content available," said Robert Cramer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of adam.com. "Our library of information and images represents decades of work and is an extremely valuable asset we are compelled to protect. Litigation is always the last resort, and we continue to hope that DrKoop.com will take the appropriate steps to resolve this matter as soon as possible."

About adam.com

adam.com (NASDAQ: ADAM) is a leading provider of online medical and health information and publisher of an award winning Medical Encyclopedia and a variety of interactive, multi-media educational materials. Through partnerships with leading Web destinations adam.com has become the most widely referenced medical resource on the Internet. The company's complete body of knowledge includes more than 10,000 pages of medical and health information covering over 1,500 topics and a 500 gigabyte library of medical illustrations, photos, animation, videos and interactive content. adam.com, formerly A.D.A.M. Software, is based in Atlanta with its major Internet operations in San Francisco.