NEW YORK -- The Associated Press has sued Moreover Technologies Inc. and VeriSign Inc., asking a federal court to stop the two companies from accessing and electronically publishing AP's proprietary news reports without permission and infringing on the news organization's copyrights and trademarks.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, Oct. 9, seeks unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against Moreover and VeriSign. The Associated Press, the New York headquartered not-for-profit cooperative of several thousand U.S. newspapers and broadcasters, filed suit after Moreover Technologies and VeriSign failed to comply with the directives in a Sept. 11 cease-and-desist letter.

"The Associated Press spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year gathering and reporting the news, providing original coverage of vital breaking news that cannot be obtained anywhere else," said Tom Curley, AP President and CEO.  "We've done this for more than 160 years, often under tremendous time pressure and often at great risk to our journalists. When someone uses our content without our permission, they are free riding on our newsgathering and our reporting of news from around the world."

"AP’s proprietary news reports are a critical source of reliable information in today’s time-sensitive, information-centric, global economy," said AP Vice President and General Counsel Srinandan Kasi.

"As part of its policy of enforcing its intellectual property rights, AP maintains an active licensing program across content platforms and media types. Thousands of publishers, corporations, educational institutions, governmental bodies and other organizations, large and small, have been and are active licensees of AP content, in some cases continuously over several decades,” Kasi said.

Moreover Technologies, which is owned by the Delaware corporation VeriSign, openly claims that AP is among the sources of its major news coverage, according to the suit. “This suit is about two companies that are willfully misappropriating and infringing upon AP’s proprietary news reports on a continuous basis, and are falsely associating themselves with AP, to operate and promote their fee-based and ad-supported services, which they promise will deliver real-time news in as fast as two minutes of publication,” said Kasi.

About The AP
The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world's population sees news from AP.