Newsletter 43  Oct 2008

Following its acquisition this summer of mobile computing specialist Metrologic, Honeywell has filed a law suit in New Jersey against Datalogic SpA and Datalogic Scanning in connection with technology developed by Omniplanar, a Metrologic subsidiary.

Honeywell alleges copyright infringement and various other violations relating to Omniplanar's SwiftDecoder software. This uses various barcode decoding algorithms to find, auto-discriminate and decode barcodes regardless of condition or image quality. Honeywell alleges that the issue involves various Datalogic hardware devices. There was no comment from Datalogic at the time we went to press.

Honeywell Scanning & Mobility, the unit taking the action, also incorporates what used to be Hand Held Products, another manufacturer of imaging and mobility solutions, which it acquired in December last year.