Brown

Background Leckrone, an attorney, founded TPL in 1988 and was its chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), and sole owner. His objective was to assist in developing technologies

1 and products by contributing funding in exchange for “rights to use the result.” Chester A. Brown, Jr. (Brown) was at various times a consultant to and an employee of TPL, as well as an investor in patent portfolios which TPL had the right to commercialize. In 1999 Leckrone was seeking funding for the commercialization of a portfolio of “Hearing Health Care” (HHC) patents. Brown and his wife, Marcie Brown, invested $50,000 in the HHC portfolio, in exchange for one percent of the gross proceeds of any licensing of the portfolio. Plaintiffs invested another $50,000 in 2000 and then again in 2001. In 2003 Brown became a consultant to TPL, serving as Chief Operating Officer on a project to commercialize the AsyncArray Devices (AAD) technology. The AAD entity was later renamed IntellaSys Corporation (IntellaSys). By 2006 Brown was functioning as the CEO of IntellaSys. In August 2003 plaintiffs agreed to contribute another $25,000 for the HHC portfolio. This time the consideration was 3.5 percent of the gross…