Norwegian geoscience firms Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and Electromagnetic Geoservices (EMGS) have reached a settlement agreement over patent disputes.
Instead of not allowing each other to use each other's technologies, the firms have now also granted mutual licenses to use the each other's patents and work jointly on future EM surveys.
The dispute dates back to late 2013, when EMGS filed a complaint in the UK against PGS in the High Court of Justice alleging PGS had infringed an EMGS's European Refracted Wave Patent. EMGS also started similar proceedings at Oslo City Court, relating to PGS' Towed Streamer EM technology, for infringement of EMGS's Norwegian patent.
Then in March 2015, PGS filed a complaint in the US Courts against EMGS alleging that EMGS, by its survey activities in the Gulf of Mexico and on the US outer continental shelf and by interactions with US customers and importing certain data products into the US, infringed a PGS patent, Detection of Subsurface Resistivity Contrasts with Application to Location of Fluids.
Both firms now say all the disputes have been settled and an agreement reached which grants PGS a license to the EMGS patent for operation of its Towed Streamer EM system. EMGS is similarly granted a license to the PGS patent. The settlement agreement also opens up for joint EM and seismic surveys in the future.
Both firms say they support the validity of both the EMGS Patent and the PGS Patent. The companies are covering their own legal costs.
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