Source: Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P.

LOS ANGELES, April 18 -- It was announced today that over a dozen energy companies have each obtained a license under the patent portfolio held by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. and licensed through A2D, L.P. These companies joined together in a consortium in order to attain licenses on favorable terms. The companies include: Allegheny Power, FirstEnergy Corporation, Florida Power & Light Company, Illinois Power Company, National Grid USA, Nicor Inc., NSTAR Electric & Gas Corp., Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, Puget Sound Energy, Inc., Questar, Southern California Edison Company, Tampa Electric Company, and Wisconsin Energy Corporation.

The license covers services offered by each company in the "Energy and Utility Services" field of use. These services, including customer service provided to consumer and business accounts, are delivered through automated systems as well as the combination of automated systems and live agents. Other terms of the license were not disclosed.

The 50 United States patents held by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., cover a wide range of interactive technology including automated forms of: customer service, securities trading, merchandising, prepaid services, telephone conferences, registration, home shopping, as well as functions involved in securing information from databases by telephone, interactive cable transactions, and various other uses of toll free and local numbers. Nineteen additional patents are currently pending in this portfolio.

According to Linda Gilleland, Director Customer Communication Organization, Southern California Edison Company, "The technologies in this portfolio have proven to be beneficial in the utility industry. We find that use of these technologies has helped our company reduce operating costs while increasing the availability of our customer services."

According to Mr. Michael Nairn, Business Systems Manager, Florida Power & Light Co., "We are committed to enhancing the services we offer to our residential and business customers. By employing the technologies covered by these patents, we have processed calls more efficiently."

Ronald A. Katz, Chief Executive of Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. added, "We are extremely pleased to welcome this extraordinary group of energy and utility companies to the growing list of companies who have purchased license rights under this portfolio."

Companies with license rights under the Katz portfolio include: American Century, American Express, AT&T Corp., Bank of America Corporation, BB&T Corporation, Capital One Services Inc., Certegy Inc., Compaq Computer Corporation (now merged with Hewlett Packard), Edward D. Jones & Co., L.P., Equifax Inc., Excel Communications Inc., Fiserv Inc., First Data Corporation, First Tennessee National Corporation, First Union Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Home Shopping Network Inc., International Business Machines (IBM), Mellon Financial Corporation, Merck & Co., Microsoft, MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc., QVC, Inc., Shop At Home, Inc., Sprint Corporation, Synovus, The Gallup Organization, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., The Vanguard Group, Inc., Universal Card Services Corporation, Wells Fargo & Company, and WorldCom, Inc.

Mr. Katz is the named inventor on a large number of patents primarily in the fields of telecommunications and computing. He formed Telecredit, Inc., the nation's first on-line real time credit and check cashing authorization system, and was awarded a patent as co-inventor of that technology.