CollegeNet sued Culver City, California-based Xap in September 2003 in CollegeNet's home court of Portland, Oregon, asserting 6,460,042 and 6,345,278, patents related to on-line forms, such as for college admissions applications.

CollegeNet convinced a jury that Xap lied when it told its customers that student data would not be sold to marketers and other solicitors. Xap sold names, addresses, birth dates, and social security numbers of at least 600,000 students. That was in violation the Lanham Act.

Xap's President, Liz Dietz, said that's all in the past. What's not in the past is Xap's patent infringement appeal. Dietz: "We remain confident in the end we will prevail." Taking that to philosophic observation, John Maynard Keyes reminds: "In the long run, we are all dead." Now, students, who was John Maynard Keynes?

CollegeNet didn't do its homework, as its patents didn't make it through the case unscathed: numerous asserted claims were found invalid by both 102 anticipation & 103 obviousness. Other claims stood up, though one just squeaked through under the doctrine of equivalents.

The jury awarded $4 million for patent infringement, and $4.5 million over Xap's antitrust weaseling.

In August of 2005, CollegeNet won a CAFC ruling reinstating a $1.2 million award for infringement by Virginia-based ApplyYourself. In that case, the jury verdict was overturned by the district judge over claim construction, necessitating the appeal. The CAFC agreed with the jury.