Iris Biometrics Security Pioneer IriTech Announces Patent Complaint Settlement with Iridian Technologies

Business Wire, Sept 15, 2004

VIENNA, Va. -- Northern Virginia Firm Clears Major Hurdle to Begin Offering its Technology to Government and Commercial Users Worldwide

IriTech, Inc., one of only a small number of companies in the world that holds patents for iris recognition algorithms, announced that long-standing patent litigation cases in the U.S.A. and U.K. brought by competitor Iridian Technologies in November 2002 ended in April of this year in the U.S.A. and in June in the U.K. by a settlement on terms mutually agreeable to both parties.

As government and commercial entities continue to gravitate towards iris biometrics, IriTech has seen an increase in demand for its technology. Major government border control programs that may require iris biometrics, such as the US Government's US-VISIT and the United Kingdom's e-Borders program, have also accelerated industry interest in iris biometric security. The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) has recently selected iris identification as one of three biometric technologies to be adopted for international travel documents.

"This vote of confidence is testimony not only to the credibility and importance of iris recognition technology but also to its maturity and readiness for application today," said IriTech CEO Dr. Daniel Kim.

The algorithm developed by IriTech addresses many of the difficulties in iris identification caused by less than optimal input images that inevitably must be taken in various adverse conditions. IriTech's patent has effects until 2019. According to Dr. Kim, the company uses a variable multi-sector analytic method that selectively utilizes the good portions only of the captured image. "Even if the image of the eye is adversely affected by eye glasses, contact lenses, tears, eyelids, or eyelashes, IriTech's technology can operate with no discernible performance degradation as long as at least 50% of the image sectors are good at the time of registration and at least 25% are good at the time of identification," said Dr. Kim.

IriTech offers its technology through a number of hardware and software product offerings:

--Iris 2000 is the company's standard software application designed primarily for networked operations, but can also be used in standalone applications.

--Iris SDK is a BioAPI-compatible software development kit (SDK) to be used as modules in large security systems.

--Iris 642 is a high performance embedded system based on Texas Instruments' DM642 DSP processor that incorporates all of IriTech's iris and face Identification technologies. It will soon be expanded to work with most off-the-shelf embedded or mobile devices.

--IrisCam is IriTech's standard camera system that incorporates the company's unique stereo camera technology that captures iris and face images at the same time.

IriTech will be demonstrating its technologies at the Biometric Consortium Conference in Washington, DC on September 20-22, 2004. In addition to hosting a booth at the exposition, the company will be hosting a small reception and technology presentation for industry and press on Tuesday, September 21 from 5:00 to 7:30 pm at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel. Interested conference attendees should contact David Callahan at david@iritech.com.

About IriTech, Inc.

IriTech is a technology leader in iris biometric security, and is one of the very few companies in the world that holds original patents on iris identification technology. IriTech has been actively involved in national and international activities to advance iris recognition applications and acceptance and has been a significant contributor in establishing the recent ANSI Standard (ANSI INCITS 379-2004) for biometric formats. IriTech is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia with research and development in Seoul, Korea. IriTech can be reached at www.iritech.com or 703-891-0902.

(C)2004 IriTech, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.