TMWD Tumbleweed Communications Corp (MM)

Tumbleweed(R) Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:TMWD), a leading provider of secure messaging, secure file transfer, and identity validation products, today announced that it has been granted U.S. Patent No. 6,901,509 by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The new patent, titled "Apparatus and Method for Demonstrating and Confirming the Status of Digital Certificates and Other Data," describes an invention that can be used to determine whether data items of any type are present on a digitally-signed list, without requiring that the verifier retrieve the entire list. The new patent is a continuation of U.S. Patent No. 6,532,540, which is itself a divisional of Patent No. 5,903,651, the application for which was filed on May 14, 1996. Tumbleweed's patent portfolio includes 22 granted U.S. patents and 20 pending U.S. patent applications. The patent portfolio broadly covers secure communication over Internet standards. About Tumbleweed Tumbleweed provides security solutions for email protection, file transfers, and identity validation that allow organizations to safely conduct business over the Internet. Tumbleweed offers these solutions in three comprehensive product suites: MailGate, SecureTransport, and Validation Authority. MailGate provides protection against spam, viruses, and attacks, and enables policy-based message filtering, encryption, and routing. SecureTransport enables business to safely exchange large files and transactions without proprietary software. Validation Authority is the world-leading solution for determining the validity of digital certificates. Tumbleweed's enterprise and government customers include ABN Amro, Bank of America Securities, Catholic Healthcare West, JP Morgan Chase & Co., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), St. Luke's Episcopal Healthcare System, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense, and all four branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. Tumbleweed was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For additional information about Tumbleweed go to www.tumbleweed.com or call 650-216-2000. SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT Tumbleweed cautions that forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on plans and expectations as of the date of the press release, and that a number of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from the guidance given at this time. These factors are described in the Safe Harbor statement below. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect to the breadth and applicability of Tumbleweed's patent portfolio. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "potential," "continue," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed's Form 10-K filed March 16, 2005 and Form 10-Q filed May 10, 2005. Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release, which represents the Company's expectations only as of the date of this release and should not be viewed as a statement about the Company's expectations after such date. Although this release may remain available on the Company's website or elsewhere, its continued availability does not indicate that the Company is reaffirming or confirming any of the information contained herein.