Soquel Group to License eMotion Patent Portfolio

San Francisco, CA – May 17, 2005 (For Immediate Release) eMotion, Inc, a leading provider of hosted solutions for managing and distributing digital media assets and marketing content today announced that the company has been issued US Patent No 6.895,407 which is directed to Digital Rights Management for establishing pricing and terms for the purchase or licensing of rich media based upon user multiple-choice questions. Specifically the ‘407 Patent, which is directed to a system in which license terms presented to a user in response to the user answering a series of use-related questions towards the purchase or licensing of Rich Media, expands eMotion’s Rich Media patent portfolio relating to digital rights management. The questions may be custom formulated by a copyright owner or administrator, and are designed so that rights information and pricing may be determined automatically based on answers to the questions.

“The granting of this patent validates our technology leadership in the rich media management market and protects the intellectual property behind our successful hosted solutions for managing digital assets for the enterprise, said Richard Fisher,” CEO of eMotion. He continued: “Any organization concerned with assigning and licensing rights to digital media can benefit from access to this new patent.”

In addition, eMotion announced the availability for licensing of its patent portfolio through an arrangement with The Soquel Group. “eMotion has a uniquely rich history in digital asset management. This latest patent joins a group of patents that represent technology innovation that can provide tremendous value to hundreds of organizations,” said Robert Blumberg, Managing Director of Soquel Group.

Previous eMotion digital media patents are directed to (i) production of digital video from large archives of individual video clips, US Patent No. 5.553,281, and (ii) annotation of digital media, including video, using graphics, voice and text annotations, US Patent No. 5,600,775. These patents concern use of a relational database management system (RDBMS) to store and access video clips and their meta-data attributes. These previous patents describe what has increasingly become a standard technical approach that is used in a growing number of media applications that enable users to work flexibly with video and other rich media. As such, these patents are enablers for video and film production systems that rely on a RDBMS to store media content. The ‘281 Patent is directed towards a general media production system that enables a produce to search on a database of video clips based on key words and attributes, extract segments from the video clips and edit them. The 281’ Patent is directed generally to asset management for a database that can be selectively processed. It describes systems including a database query, display of results and designating portions of selected results and processing them. Essentially, nearly any sophisticated video production system that handles a large volume of video clips is likely to use this approach, either now or in the future. The ‘775 Patent focuses more on collaboration for video and film production by enabling users to tag the media with annotation and metadata. This approach is also becoming commonplace and is most likely to be implemented using an RDBMS, as is the case with eMotion’s own products. The patents describe systems directed to video, music, still imagery and documents. The patents have priority dating back to 1994.

In addition, eMotion has received Notices of Allowance for three additional patent applications, and anticipates issuance of the patents within the coming months. These patents are directed to a number of key topics related to rich media management of vocabulary of search terms, adjustment of search rankings upwards and downwards based on past searches and analysis of time-coded metadata.

About eMotion

eMotion, Inc. is the leading provider of hosted digital asset management software and services that allow the marketing and communications departments of global companies to quickly and dynamically manage, repurpose and distribute valuable digital media around the world. eMotion serves some of the largest brands in the world including ABC Television, AFLAC, Bechtel, Coors Brewing Company, Diageo, Discovery Communications, Inc, Exxon Mobil, and Genentech, The company has offices in San Francisco and Vienna, VA. Additional information about the company can be found at www.emotion.com.

About Soquel Group

Soquel Group provides strategic services to innovative technology companies. Its goal is to help clients reach the market more effectively and increase their return on their products, services and intellectual property. Soquel Group offers services in the following areas: strategic marketing, patent portfolio development and commercialization and business development. Soquel Group has successfully consulted for dozens of companies in the areas of digital media, data management and software. The Company’s principal office is in Santa Cruz, CA. Additional information about the company can be found at www.soquelgroup.com.

For further information please contact:

Sean Banahan
eMotion Marketing
282 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel: (415) 546-2118
Email: Sean.Banahan@emotion.com

Robert Blumberg
Soquel Group
P.O. Box 691, Soquel, CA 95073
831-426-8200
Email: rblumberg@soquelgroup.com