Return Mail, Inc. obtained a patent for a computerized system of bar coding so that companies can track returned and undelivered mail. The U.S. Postal Service was interested in licensing the technology. Before they could ink a licensing agreement, the Postal Service walked away and developed its own system. And that’s when the litigation began.

Violent Hues Productions published a tourism guide that used a stock photograph depicting the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington D.C. The problem is Violent Hues used it without the permission of the photographer, Russell Brammer.

The Versata anti-reverse engineering language may have been fine at the beginning of the license agreement. But over time, the underlying technology changed and the language did not.