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Loss of patents marks latest woes for San Antonio tech startup – San Antonio Express-News


Vysk Communications Inc. CEO Victor Cocchia said his San Antonio tech startup is poised to land some big deals that will finally have it on the path to success.

Yet there are questions now as to whether the company can even conduct business.

Vysk, a developer of iPhone privacy cases designed to prevent eavesdropping and hacking, no longer controls some of its intellectual property. Records also show it has “forfeited” its right to do business in Texas and Delaware, where it incorporated six years ago.

Those are just the latest woes for Vysk, which has been dogged by lawsuits, adverse judgments, tax liens and wage claims in recent years. Cocchia dismissed those matters as old news.

Cocchia touted imminent deals with Congress and a government in the Middle East, but then refused to reveal Vysk’s corporate address or the number of workers it employs.

“We have tons of things that are going on that are great,” Cocchia said. “We have other major governments right now that we’re in negotiations for contracts with. So Vysk this year is going to explode. We’re going to beat our expectations.”

In September, though, Vysk lost 10 patents that appear to represent some of the company’s core intellectual property. The design patent for its QS1 Quantum Security case is among them.

According to Vysk’s website, the “QS1 case turns the world’s most popular smartphones into the world’s most secure form of communication.”

Overall, Vysk has more than 25 patents in multiple countries and has plans to file 16 patent applications this year, Cocchia said.

The 10 patents were assigned to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office following a court order obtained by Iceman Softworks, a California company that entered into an agreement to develop a suite of apps to work with Vysk’s case.

Iceman sued Vysk last year alleging it wasn’t paid for some services.

“The patents — it’s just an example of another person trying to steal from us,” Cocchia said. “We feel very confident we’ll prevail. We’re protecting our patents. This is just another frivolous suit that we’ll beat just like all the other frivolous ones.”

Vysk, however, never filed an answer to the lawsuit, and a roughly $300,000 default judgment was entered against it. Cocchia wouldn’t say why Vysk never responded to the lawsuit, referring the question to a lawyer, who couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday.

To collect on its judgment, Iceman obtained a court order directing Vysk to turn over the the 10 patents to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. The patents were assigned the same day, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records show.

The sheriff’s office will sell the patents if a buyer emerges, according to Sean D. Johnson, an Austin lawyer representing Iceman.

“At this point, we’re trying to drum up some parties that might be interested in bidding on the patents,” Johnson said. He didn’t know if there was much interest in the patents.

The turnover order also directed Vysk to turn over its domain name, Vysk.com. A transfer has not occurred, though, Johnson said, declining to say why.

Vysk incorporated in Delaware in 2013, but state records obtained Thursday reflected the company’s status as forfeited as of Aug. 19 for failing to appoint a registered agent. Its corporate charter in Texas also was forfeited.

“That was just an unfortunate clerical, administrative error,” Cocchia said. “We’ve rectified that. We have our registered agent in Delaware. We’ve made all the filings.”

Kevin Lyons, a spokesman for Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, said Friday that’s Vysk charter was forfeited Sept. 21 because it never filed 2018 and 2019 franchise tax returns. They must be filed each year by May 15. Companies that generate less than about $1.13 million owe no tax but still must file returns, he said.

Vysk’s sales tax permit was suspended in March. That usually occurs when a company doesn’t pay sales tax, Lyons said. If a company has no sales, it still must file returns.

“They’re technically not supposed to be selling anything because they don’t have a sales tax permit,” Lyons said.

The San Antonio Express-News reported last year that Vysk been hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in court judgments and had amassed more than $2.2 million in delinquent payroll taxes.

More recently, the Internal Revenue Service hit Cocchia individually with more than $950,000 in civil penalties for failing to pay employment taxes.

“We’ve been paying. We paid $1.2 million toward it already. Again, those are all old,” Cocchia said. He expected he would settle with the IRS “soon.”

Vysk’s case has been tested by more than two dozen countries, militaries and agencies, he said.

“They tried to penetrate us, they tried to listen to phone calls, … they tried to infiltrate the network, they tried to crack and break the phone,” he said. “We’re the only ones that have passed every single test.”

Vysk has had trouble maintaining a headquarters, shuffling around the San Antonio area — including a brief stay at a Monte Vista residence that was owned by a company controlled by Cocchia.

Cocchia would only say that Vysk is subleasing space “right around 410 and 281.”

Publicizing Vysk’s “warts,” Cocchia warned, could cost it the deal it’s working on with Congress.

“You’re going to blow this deal with Congress,” he told a reporter. “It’s a massive deal. I mean, Congress needs to be protected.”

A nondisclosure agreement prevented him from sharing any specifics of the deal, he said, when asked if he was working on providing Vysk’s privacy cases for members of Congress.

“You can infer what you want, but we’re under a nondisclosure,” he said. “I can’t reveal details. But just face it, our government needs protection. And there’s nothing else in the world that works.”

The Express-News was unable to confirm whether Vysk is nearing a deal with Congress.

Vysk announced plans five years ago to build a headquarters and distribution operation employing more than 300 people in San Antonio.

The plans never came to fruition, which Cocchia attributed to a shift from selling to the retail market to selling to governments.

“We continue to create new patents,” he said. “We continue to create new business. You know what? We’ve put $45 million into this and now we’ve gotten these government contracts.

“All we’ve tried to do is create jobs here in San Antonio and put money into the economy here in San Antonio,” he said.

Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD





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