Intellectual property company E-Pass has been allowed to re-commence its litigation against Microsoft and HP

The company began legal action against the software giant and Compaq early last year. E-Pass claimed that both companies infringe a patent it administers, number 5,276,311 which describes "a multifunction, credit card-sized computer that allows users to securely store a multitude of account numbers, PIN codes, access information and other data from multiple credit cards, check cards, identification cards and similar personal documents". E-Pass claims that Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs are in violation of its patent as they can deliver those functions. Having already sued Palm - or, rather, Palm's erstwhile owner, 3Com - for the same alleged infringement, the MS-Compaq case was put on hold pending the outcome of the earlier case. Initially, Palm won the day, but in August E-Pass prevailed in its appeal against the judgement. Palm won the case when the presiding judge, Judge D Lowell Jensen, ruled that its handhelds could not be called 'credit card-sized' and thus were not in violation of a patent that specified such a form-factor. However, the appeal judge, Judge Dyk, essentially ruled that his colleague had made an error of law in hinging his decision on the precise nature of the form factor, and sent the case back to the Federal Court to be reappraised. That re-opened the Palm/3Com case, and now, by extension, E-Pass has been allowed to re-open the MS-HP/Compaq fight.