ShoreTel IPO Marred By Patent Infringement Suit

Shares of ShoreTel were expected to begin trading Thursday morning after the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company priced its IPO at $10.50 per share on Wednesday, raising $83 million.

As of press time Thursday, however, ShoreTel shares, expected to debut on NASDAQ under the symbol "SHOR," had not begun trading.

Mitel Wednesday said it had filed a lawsuit against ShoreTel in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The suit alleges that ShoreTel has infringed on four Mitel patents, according to a company statement. Mitel did not disclose the focus of the patents or what damages or actions Mitel is seeking against its competitor.

"Mitel has invested significant resources into intellectual property in support of its communications innovations and we intend to assert our rights against those that infringe on that intellectual property," said Christian Szpilfogel, from the office of the CTO at Mitel, Ottawa, Ontario, in the statement.

ShoreTel representatives did not respond to requests for comments.

Solution providers working with ShoreTel said they see the IPO as a good move for the vendor and expressed hopes that the money raised will help the vendor continue to develop technology and grow product sales, which partners said have already been building even without the cash infusion.

"We hope to see more engineering resources, more marketing resources and more sales development," said Dave Casey, principal at Westron Communications, a ShoreTel partner in Carrollton, Tex., that has doubled its ShoreTel business over the last 12 months to about $2 million annually. "They've run a pretty lean staff in terms of sales and marketing, so we hope to see a boost."

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