MMRGlobal Health IT Patent Portfolio Featured in Leading Civic News Site

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 11, 2012) -  MMRGlobal, Inc. (OTCBB: MMRF) ("MMR"), a leading provider of Personal Health Records (PHRs), MyEsafeDepositBox storage solutions and MMRPro document management and imaging systems for healthcare professionals, today called attention to an article about health IT featured this week in CivSource that focused on MMR's health IT patent portfolio and implications to government-supported initiatives. According to CivSource, a leading news and information site for civic leaders of government, "Health IT may be headed down the same path as other parts of the IT landscape, forcing vendor relationships in order to avoid legal fees instead of focusing on maximizing value and outcomes based care -- the original goals of many of these reforms." The article began by making the point that many health IT legislative initiatives, including those supported by the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS), are moving forward. These initiatives include grant money for electronic medical records, or 90/10 funding from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to modernize systems (click here for article).

"We are pleased that a publication directed at community and civic leaders recognizes the importance of health IT and resultant costs of care to government," said Robert H. Lorsch, MMRGlobal Chairman and CEO. "Simply put, we believe MMR's patents as well as our products and services contribute to reduced healthcare costs. Additionally, Personal Health Records represent a great way for local governments that often self-insure to reduce medical costs by controlling duplicate testing and procedures through the required deployment of PHRs to employees and their families. MMR's IP, particularly its MyMedicalRecords PHR, also represents an untethered solution to the management of healthcare for children in the foster care system and inmates in correctional facilities. Our PHR connects with any doctor or hospital regardless of the systems on the other end and without the need to install a costly EMR system."

MMRGlobal has begun efforts to enforce and license its health IT patents through the law firm, Liner Grode Stein Yankelevitz Sunshine Regenstreif & Taylor LLP, and has already started contacting hundreds of hospitals, vendors and facilities this week. This is in addition to notices the Company has already sent to potential licensees at various stages since the filing of its patents. MMR's patent portfolio is related to Personal Health Records and electronic healthcare records and includes U.S. Patent Nos. 8,121,855; 8,117,646; and 8,117,045; and two Notices of Allowance including U.S. Serial No. 13/352,026 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office which expands the Company's "Method and System for Providing Online Medical Records" to cover the exchange of protected health information to and from patients, doctors, pharmacies, insurance providers and other healthcare professionals in various forms, including, but not limited to, email, text, phone, facsimile and web-based portals. The MMR patent portfolio is believed to be relevant to virtually any provider who transmits electronic health records in that it will limit their ability to communicate protected health information without potentially infringing on MMR's patents. 

MMR also has additional patents pending with more than180 additional claims. These additional claims have the potential of expanding the scope of the Company's intellectual property pertaining to the provisioning of Personal Health Records. The Company's patent portfolio also includes numerous other issued patents and pending applications in the U.S. and countries of commercial interest including Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and European nations.

CivSource, citing a Deltek report, says that demand has pushed the health IT industry into overdrive based on the federal government spending $4.5 billion on health IT in 2011 and $6.5 billion this year. States and municipalities with large health systems are on pace to spend millions themselves adding to their own health IT capabilities.

According to CivSource editor and publisher Bailey McCann, "MMRGlobal, another US based health care company recently announced the expansion of its patented suite of electronic health care tools. The announcement is notable as patent wars have been an ongoing issue in the broader IT community for several years, with some developers arguing that the rush to patent actually limits technological innovation and can increase costs, while others see patents as a means of ensuring profitability. An interesting and telling phrase was included in the MMR announcement, 'the MMR patent portfolio is believed to be relevant to virtually any provider who transmits electronic health records in that it will limit their ability to communicate protected health information without potentially infringing on MMR's patents.' In essence, anyone operating in this space may be obligated to establish a vendor relationship with MMR lest they draw the wrath of its patent enforcers."

"Indeed, MMR President and CEO Robert H. Lorsch, is open about his plan on this score, 'we have invested heavily in the development of our patent portfolio and are now positioned to reap the benefits of such investment by compelling doctors, pharmacies, insurance providers, electronic medical record providers and other healthcare professionals to choose negotiating a license with us for the use of our intellectual property or face potential infringement actions. With Meaningful Use requirements for patient engagement taking effect in 2014, which stipulate that patients have online access to their medical records within a certain period of time following the receipt of healthcare services, we believe the MMR portfolio is extremely relevant.'"

It is becoming clear that intellectual property could represent significant value to companies in the health information technology space. Allscripts, a leading U.S.-based healthcare firm, announced an open app challenge, offering cash prizes for crowdsourcing improvements in their EHR program as part of an effort to bypass patents and other intellectual property rights. Incubators like Health Tech Hatch have emerged as online resources dedicated to help launch and fund early stage innovations in healthcare. Commented Lorsch, "What we are seeing is a rebirth of incubators like Idealab incubating in healthcare, the one industry we all use at one time or another.

CivSource provides coverage of news from around the country on state and local politics, management and business. The article referenced here by Bailey McCann was published on October 9, 2012 and is available at http://civsourceonline.com/2012/10/09/health-it-revives-old-startup-battles-patents-v-open-source/.

About MMRGlobal, Inc.
MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records ("PHRs") and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The MyMedicalRecords PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user's account. The Company's professional offering, MMRPro, is designed to give physicians' offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients in real time through an integrated patient portal. MMR is an Independent Software Vendor Partner with Kodak to deliver an integrated turnkey EMR solution for healthcare professionals. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId™/Specifid™ vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit www.mmrglobal.com. View demos and video tutorials of the Company's products and services at www.mmrtheater.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
All statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature, including, without limitation, potential intellectual property enforcement actions, infringement claims, litigation or licenses, future performance, management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, estimates or projections, constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as "need," "possibility," "potential," "intend," "offer," "development," "if," "negotiate," "when," "begun," "believe," "achieve," "will," "estimate," "expect," "maintain," "plan," and "continue," or the negative of these words. Actual outcomes of intellectual property enforcement actions, infringement claims, litigation or licensing transactions, results of operations and the timing of selected events may differ materially from the results predicted, and any reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Such statements are necessarily based on assumptions and estimates and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those relating to the possible invalidity of the underlying assumptions and estimates and possible changes or developments in economic, business, industry, market, legal and regulatory circumstances and conditions and actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties, including customers, suppliers, business partners, potential licensees, competitors and legislative, judicial and other governmental authorities and officials. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: unexpected outcomes with respect to intellectual property enforcement actions, claims of intellectual property infringement and general intellectual property litigation; our ability to maintain, develop, monetize and protect our patent portfolio for both the Company's health IT and biotechnology intellectual property assets in the U.S. and internationally; the timing of milestone payments in connection with licensing our intellectual property; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; changes in our relationships with our licensees; the risk the Company's products are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community and consumer retail market; business prospects, results of operations or financial condition; risks related to the current uncertainty and instability in financial and lending markets, including global economic uncertainties; the timing and volume of sales and installations; the length of sales cycles and the installation process; the market's acceptance of new product and service introductions; competitive product offerings and promotions; changes in government laws and regulations including the 2009 HITECH Act and changes in Meaningful Use and the 2010 Affordable Care Act; future changes in tax legislation and initiatives in the healthcare industry; undetected errors in our products; the possibility of interruption at our data centers; risks related to third party vendors; risks related to obtaining and integrating third-party licensed technology; risks related to a security breach by third parties; risks associated with recruitment and retention of key personnel; other litigation matters; uncertainties associated with doing business internationally across borders and territories; and additional risks discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company is providing this information as of the date of this release and, except as required by applicable law, does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.