BOCA RATON, Fla. - January 7, 2009 – ADT Security Services, the leading provider of Sensormatic Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) solutions, today announced a victory in a major lawsuit against a competing company that was found liable for patent infringement, misappropriating trade secrets and employing unfair trade practices.

The lawsuit involved ADT’s industry-leading Sensormatic anti-theft solutions which help protect over 80 percent of the world’s top 200 retailers from shoplifting and internal theft.

In its decision, the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida immediately prohibited ‘The Tag Company’ from making or selling any of its products in the U.S. that were produced using confidential information about patent-protected Sensormatic products. This includes ‘The Tag Company’s’ Series 58 acousto-magnetic label.

“We are pleased with the court ruling and the confidence it should give customers that they can continue to rely on the integrity and high performance of our Sensormatic anti-theft solutions,” said Scott Clements, vice president and general manager of Sensormatic Retail Solutions. “Protecting our intellectual property is central to our ability to continue investing in and innovating solutions that help retailers deter theft and improve profitability.”

In the suit, a federal court found that several former Sensormatic employees, who helped design, develop and market Sensormatic EAS systems had misappropriated and improperly used important proprietary information about those products to benefit ‘The Tag Company.’

The court also ordered ‘The Tag Company’ to pay damages and ruled that one of its consultants, Dennis Gadonniex, a former Sensormatic engineer who previously helped develop Sensormatic technology, violated his prior employment agreement by misusing confidential information. The court ordered Gadonniex to pay costs and attorney’s fees.

Often referred to as the world’s fastest growing business crime, product piracy and intellectual property thefts are estimated to cost the U.S. economy approximately $250 billion and up to 750,000 job losses each year, according to the Washington, D.C.- based International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition.

According to Paul Paradise, author of the top-selling book, “Trademark Counterfeiting, Product Piracy and the Billion Dollar Threat to the U.S. Economy,” companies are deploying many strategies to help combat the growing problem of intellectual property theft.

“We are seeing much more aggressiveness from businesses to fight back and defend their products,” Paradise said.

A recent survey conducted by the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) found that 84 percent of national chain stores reported an increase in shoplifting since the beginning of the recession. With more than 1,500 patents, Sensormatic systems are engineered for superior performance to help retailers protect profits while reducing shoplifting and internal theft.

ADT Security Services, a unit of Tyco International, is the largest provider of electronic security services to nearly six million commercial, government and residential customers throughout North America. ADT's total security solutions include intrusion, fire protection, video systems, access control, critical condition monitoring, electronic article surveillance, radio frequency identification (RFID) and integrated systems. ADT's Web site address is www.adt.com.