Spherix Files Complaint for Patent Infringement Against Level 3 Communications, TW Telecom, and Fairpoint Communications Inc.

NEW YORK — Spherix Incorporated (Nasdaq: SPEX) — an intellectual property development company committed to the fostering and monetization of intellectual property and the advancement of technology, announced that the Company has filed two lawsuits for the infringement of intellectual property formerly owned by Nortel Networks.  The cases were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware against Level 3 Communications, TW Telecom and Fairpoint Communications Inc.  The infringement claims relate to U.S. Patent No. RE40,999 (“the ‘999 patent”), entitled “VLAN Frame Format”.  Patent ‘999 is, among other things, closely associated with the practice of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”) networking standard that supports virtual LANs (VLANs) on an Ethernet network.

Anthony Hayes, Chief Executive Officer of Spherix, stated, “The patent on which these new litigations are based reflect inventions realized in the laboratories of Nortel Networks as its engineers focused on advancing technology to enable new products and services to benefit the telecom industry and provide new and more robust services to commercial enterprises and consumers. The Company was entrusted, through a portfolio transfer transaction, to protect and monetize this patent and others in a large group of patents with a similar heritage. These patents were acquired from an affiliate of Rockstar Consortium, a consortium of technology leaders who paid $4.5B to acquire many of the Company’s patents, together with many additional patents ultimately distributed among consortium members.  At its peak, Nortel grew to more than 90,000 employees, had a market capitalization of nearly $300 billion, and had yearly revenues approaching $30 billion. In 2000 alone, Nortel spent nearly$4 billion on research and development with over 25,000 research-and-development employees.  Spherix’s patent portfolio has this exceptional pedigree and we will continue to work to monetize these assets to bring value for our shareholders and honor the creativity and vision of the inventors. We previously announced to shareholders that we intended to expand our monetization efforts and these suits are an early part of that effort. The Company is dedicated to granting rights to use its portfolio of industry leading inventions on fair and reasonable terms and welcomes inquiries from relevant industry participants to provide rights for use of such inventions without the necessity to access to the courts to enforce its rights and seek appropriate compensation.  In fact, there are provisions contained within these two new complaints offering the defendants the opportunity to enter good faith negotiations for fair and reasonable licenses, in lieu of the Company formally serving the defendants.  If these defendants, or other industry participants, would like to discuss licensing opportunities, they can contact the Company or Dean Becker, Chairman of Equitable IP Holdings, LLC, at: deanbecker@equitableip.com.”