Padcom, Inc. ("Padcom") was a privately held, venture-backed software company founded in 1989 and headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with regional sales offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, San Diego, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. It raised roughly $10 million in later-stage financing in February 2005, with Liberty Partners as a minority investor. Padcom ceased to exist as an independent company in June 2006, when it was acquired by rival NetMotion Wireless in an all-stock merger; the combined company kept the NetMotion name and Seattle headquarters. Financial statements were never public, so revenue figures are not verifiable.
Products / operations. Padcom developed mobile VPN and wireless roaming software. Its flagship line, TotalRoam (including TotalRoam Mobile Virtual Network), let mobile devices maintain a persistent IP session while roaming across dissimilar networks — 802.11 WLAN, CDMA 1xRTT, GPRS, CDPD and private RF systems — without dropping the application connection. It served public-safety, utility and field-service customers (e.g., Baltimore Police Department, Cox Communications) and worked with carriers including AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Padcom was an operating company, not a shell or licensor.
Litigation posture. Padcom was an active two-way litigant, consistent with the case data (1 plaintiff, 2 defendant). It sued competitors for infringement while simultaneously defending counterclaims and separate suits. Cases were filed in Delaware (Padcom's chosen venue), the Northern District of California, and the Western District of Washington — not the Eastern District of Texas.
Notable cases. In Padcom, Inc. v. NetMotion Wireless, Inc. (D. Del., filed Oct. 2003), Padcom asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 6,198,920, 6,418,324 and later 6,826,405 against NetMotion and reseller Database Solutions, alleging infringement plus tortious interference. NetMotion responded with a declaratory-judgment action in N.D. Cal. and a tortious-interference suit in Washington state court (removed to W.D. Wash.). Padcom won a March 2006 jury verdict finding its patents valid and infringed; the parties then merged in June 2006, resolving the litigation.