– Apptricity, provider of Mobile Enterprise software solutions, announced today that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Army have agreed to settle a copyright infringement claim for $50 million.
The claim stemmed from the over-deployment of unlicensed logistics enterprise software that is mission critical to managing troop and supply movements in theater operations around the world.
"Field commanders were focused on the mission-critical nature of Apptricity software and the need to protect warfighters and facilitate mission objectives," said Tim Garcia, Apptricity's chief executive officer. "Our battle-tested integrated logistics software performed so well that it went viral."
In 2004, the U.S. Army selected Apptricity to provide core components of its commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) supply chain software suite as the foundation of its Transportation Coordinators' Automated Information for Movements System II (TC-AIMS II). The system manages all aspects of transportation management, from the movement of military units to the loading of supplies on vehicles and rotary aircraft headed to forward operating bases.
The system enables Joint Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration capabilities associated with the movement of goods, equipment and troops from ports of debarkation to staging areas and then to forward tactical areas.
Apptricity software allows movements to be tracked in real time, rather than by map points, across multiple time zones. Tracking is granular to the level of an item's location in a specific compartment on a particular ground or air transport vehicle or at its destination. The software also incorporates dashboard capabilities that display intuitive, standard reports and sophisticated, customized slices of data. The result is command visibility on a single screen.
The Army has used Apptricity's integrated transportation logistics and asset management software across the Middle East and other theaters of operation. The Army has also used the software to coordinate emergency management initiatives, including efforts following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
In its copyright infringement claim, Apptricity sought compensation for approximately 100 server and thousands of device licenses the U.S. Army installed and fielded across its global network. Seeking to maintain and preserve their strong relationship, the parties entered into Alternative Dispute Resolution proceedings and cooperatively agreed to settle for $50 million. The figure represents a fraction of the software's negotiated contract value that provides a material quantity of server and device licenses for ongoing and future Department of Defense usage.
"Now that this process is behind us, it is envisioned the Apptricity and Army relationship will continue to grow exponentially," said retired Maj. Gen. Tim McHale, an Apptricity senior advisor.
"Apptricity is now incredibly energized to use the settlement resolution as a catalyst for aggressive investment in our team, our solutions and our untapped market opportunities," said Randy Lieberman, Apptricity's chief financial officer and lead on the government negotiations. "Our principal priority never shifted: ensuring that our intellectual property drives global efficiencies in commercial, educational and federal enterprises."
