SEC Company Response from DSS, INC. (DSS) (CIK 0000771999) (DSS) — Jun 20, 2008
DSS, INC. (DSS) (CIK 0000771999)
Date: June 20, 2008 · CIK: 0000771999 · Accession: 0001144204-08-036127
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
Referenced dates: June 6, 2008
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CORRESP
1
filename1.htm
Unassociated Document
June
20,
2008
VIA
EDGAR
Securities
and Exchange Commission
100
F
Street, NE
Washington,
D.C. 20549
Attention:
Kari
Jin
Kathleen
Collins
Re:
Document
Security Systems, Inc. (the “Company”)
Form
10-K for Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2007 Filed March 17,
2008
Dear
Staff:
On
behalf
of Document Security Systems, Inc., this letter responds to the comments of
the
staff (the “Staff”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”)
to the filing of the above-referenced annual report (the “Filing”), which were
included in the Staff’s letter dated June 6, 2008 (the “Staff Letter”).
In
this
letter, we have reproduced your comments and have followed each comment with
our
response. The numbered paragraphs of this letter set forth below correspond
to
the numbered paragraphs of the Staff Letter. References in the responses to
“we,” “our,” “Company” or “us” mean Document Security Systems, Inc.
Consolidated
Statements of Operations, page F-4
1. We
note your response to our prior comment 2 with regards to your reasons for
not
classifying amortization of patent costs in cost of revenues. Your response,
however, did not address why you believe the amortization of certain other
intangibles, particularly your royalty rights and barcode technology license
agreement, would not be considered cost of revenues. Tell us why you believe
that classification of such amounts in operating expenses is appropriate and
specifically tell us how you considered the guidance in Question 17 to SFAS
86
Staff Implementation Guide by analogy. Also, tell us the gross carrying value
of
the bar code technology that is included in other intangibles.
Response:
The
Company acknowledges that our response did not specifically address our
intangible assets of royalty rights and barcode technology license agreements.
As of December 31, 2007, the Company’s royalty rights had a net carrying value
of $18,000 and $4,500 of amortization per fiscal quarter, which the Company
did
not consider material for the purposes of our prior comment, or for separate
identification in the financial statements. However, the Company acknowledges
that under the guidance of Topic 11- B, the Company’s amortization of its
royalty rights could be considered a direct cost of the Company’s royalty
revenue and would classify as such if considered material. The Company’s barcode
license is for US rights to barcode technology for the application of GSDATA1,
a
new global standard adopted for 2009 for barcodes that can hold significantly
larger amounts of information. The Company expects that the adoption of this
technology by global supply companies will lead to a significant industry
upgrade cycle of barcode and related equipment and software in late 2008 and
2009. The Company is currently developing products that integrate this barcode
technology with its document security technologies and is identifying a
marketing strategy to address this potential market. The Company has not sold
any products that utilize the barcode technology to date. Based on the guidance
of Topic 11-B, the Company expects that if the Company can bring this technology
to market, then the amortization of its barcode technology license could be
considered a direct cost of this revenue. As of December 31, 2007, the gross
carrying value of this license was $521,000, a net carrying value of $465,000
and generates approximately $26,000 in amortization expense per fiscal
quarter.
2. We
note your responses to our prior comment 3 where you indicate that the Company
considered Rule 5-03(b) of Regulation S-X and concluded that there are no direct
costs associated with royalty revenues. In the future, please include a
discussion in MD&A of the reasons why there are no costs associated with
your royalty revenues to enable an investor to better understand the Company’s
results of operation and current presentation in the statement of Operations.
We
refer you to Item 303 of Regulation S-K and SEC Release
33-8350.
Response:
The
Company will include discussion in the MD&A on direct costs, or lack
thereof, associated with its royalty revenues in its future filings.
3. We
note your response to our prior comment 4 where you indicate that the Company
capitalizes legal expenses from your patent infringement and related litigations
based on the guidance in TPA 2260.03. Please explain in greater detail how
you
overcame the concept of the TPA and paragraph 247 of Concepts Statement No.
6
that these costs are costs of successfully
defending the Company’s patent. In this regard, we note from page 7 of your
response that prior to the trial stage, the Company assumes a probability factor
of less than 50% and when a case reaches the trial stage, the Company places
a
probability factor of winning the trial at 50%.
We
also note your statement that losses in invalidity cases in additional member
nations may cause the overall potential infringement proceeds of the ECB
litigation (assessed
at no more than 50% probability of success)
to
be reduced to a level that will result in a potential impairment. It is unclear
how your assessments of probability factors of 50% or less at various stages
throughout the process would lead the Company to conclude that you will
successfully defend the patents and therefore should be capitalizing your patent
defense costs. Please provide further analysis to support your
conclusions.
Response:
The
Company’s underlying basis for capitalizing its legal defense costs is our
expectation that our patent infringement suit against the European Central
Bank
(the “ECB Litigation”) will be successful. We would not pursue such an expensive
or time consuming undertaking unless we had a strong basis for success in our
case. Prior to filing the ECB Litigation, the Company consulted extensively
with
legal counsel and performed extensive due diligence with our legal counsel
for
approximately one year to analyze the merits of our patent infringement case,
and only after these efforts did we take their recommendation to proceed with
the ECB Litigation . The Company continues to believe strongly that it will
be
successful in proving that its patents were infringed upon by the ECB and,
as a
result, will receive court-ordered damages. As a result, we feel that the
criteria for capitalizing patent defense costs presented in TPA 2260.03 and
Concepts Statement No. 6 has been met. In our previous response to Question
4, a
50% probability factor was discussed in context to our discussion of the
methodology of our impairment testing. We use probability factors in our
impairment test to account for unknown variables that affect the assumptions
used in both our discounted and undiscounted cash flow analysis. In the ECB
Litigation, the timing of the potential proceeds and the amount of the potential
proceeds are the primary estimates used in the Company’s impairment test. As the
ECB Litigation progresses and certain milestones are successfully met, the
accuracy of these estimates increases, and therefore, under the Company’s
methodology, the probability factor increases. The Company believes that it
has
used conservative probability factors to date in its estimates of impairment
given the high degree of uncertainty surrounding estimates involved in
calculating the future cash flows in the analysis. As the ECB Litigation reaches
trial stage, the Company will be able have a much higher degree of confidence
of
the timing and the potential amount of the proceeds from the ECB Litigation.
At
that point, the Company will increase the probability factors used in its
impairment analysis to take into account the higher degree of confidence in
its
estimates. In addition, as discussed in the our previous response, for
impairment testing, the
Company reduces the overall potential damages proceeds in the ECB Litigation
by
the percentage of total Euro banknote circulation estimated by the Company
in
the country for which it receives an adverse patent validity ruling. Thus,
for
the purposes of impairment testing, the Company determines whether the potential
proceeds from successful rulings in all of the countries for which its patent
has been held as valid is greater than the aggregate of the capitalized
costs.
As
stated
above, the Company believes very strongly that it will be able to prove that
its
patented technology has been infringed and will be successful in the ECB
Litigation. However, the Company does not know the amount of damages that it
will be able to recover in the ECB Litigation. Thus, the Company could be
successful in its lawsuit, but recover damages that are less than the legal
costs expended on the case. As a result, the Company believes that it should
capitalize its legal defense costs as long as the Company believes, based on
the
available evidence, that its case will be successful. Furthermore, the Company
should continuously assess the recoverability of capitalized legal defense
costs
under the guidance of FAS 144 as new developments in case occur.
4. In
addition, we note that in the first quarter of fiscal 2008, the Company
wrote-off capitalized legal costs of $292,000 associated with the unsuccessful
UK appeal. Please explain further why the impairment charge was limited to
the
costs incurred for the appeal of the UK validation claim. If the Company has
received a final ruling from the UK courts with regards to the validity of
your
patent then it is unclear to the Staff why all costs incurred with regards
to
your UK litigation were not considered impaired. Please explain further. Also,
please provide a breakdown of the total capitalized patent defense costs by
jurisdiction (ie: UK, France, Germany, etc.) and tell us the amount of
additional costs capitalized during the quarter ended March 31, 2008 and the
costs capitalized from the quarter-end through the date of your
response.
Response:
December 31,
2007
Additions
March
31,
2008
Additions
June
10,
2008
Infringement:
General
775,836
-
775,836
-
775,836
Germany
87,299
129,749
217,048
16,663
233,711
Invalidity:
Austria
2,943
-
2,943
6,343
9,286
Belgium
188,123
-
188,123
-
188,123
Dutch
115,886
76,742
192,628
2,172
194,800
French
187,027
-
187,027
-
187,027
Germany
235,799
-
235,799
-
235,799
Italy
161,380
4,940
166,320
(4,343
)
161,977
Luxembourg
29,008
-
29,008
-
29,008
Spain
59,415
2,042
61,457
2,448
63,905
UK
1,508,375
-
1,508,375
-
1,508,375
Experts,
Other
309,926
-
309,926
3,700
313,626
Total
3,661,017
213,473
3,874,490
26,983
3,901,473
As
discussed in our previous response, the Company believes that the ECB
Litigation, including the related validity litigations, is unique due to the
fact that essentially the same case must be heard in nine different member
nation courts within the European Union (“EU”). While the Company was granted an
EU patent, there is no centralized system of patent enforcement in the EU.
Despite the unique circumstances of the EU Patent system, it is the Company’s
belief that the underlying economics of our case are similar to typical patent
infringement cases brought in the US, in which both the infringement and related
invalidity cases are considered one course of action. As displayed in the chart
above, the Company has incurred various levels of expenses in each jurisdiction
of the case. The costs assigned to the UK have been the largest primarily due
to
the fact that it was the first trial and thus, it was the case that incurred
the
bulk of the legal expense for the development of the core legal arguments that
are used throughout the cases in all of the other jurisdictions. In addition,
the Company negotiated a billing cap of $1,200,000, which the Company paid
in
shares of its Common Stock, with it lead counsel for costs associated with
the
various patent validity jurisdictions with the understanding that the bulk
of
the legal fees associated with these cases in all of the jurisdictions would
be
incurred to prepare for the UK trial. Accordingly, management has considered
the
amounts incurred as a unified asset related to the defense of the patent.
As
discussed in our previous response, the Company evaluated the effect of losing
the UK patent validity case on the overall recoverability of its legal costs
in
its case against the ECB, and determined that the potential proceeds from a
successful decision against the ECB in the remaining jurisdictions where the
patent was still deemed valid, after subtracting the potential proceeds from
the
UK was still greater than the costs incurred to date in all of the
jurisdictions. The Company capitalized costs associated directly with
appeals to the extent there is an evident increase in the value of the
patent. The UK appeal cost were written off upon the notification of the
unsuccessful appeal decision.
5. Please
update the Staff as to the status of your ECB litigations through the date
of
your response.
Response:
The
following current status of the ECB Litigation is from the Company’s Form 10-Q
fo