NEW YORK The Associated Press said today that it is suing online news distributor Moreover and its parent company VeriSign. The news cooperative is seeking to stop the companies from accessing and publishing AP material and infringing on copyrights and trademarks.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today. AP sent the companies a cease-and-desist letter on September 11.

"The Associated Press spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year gathering and reporting the news, providing original coverage of vital breaking news that cannot be obtained anywhere else," Tom Curley, president and CEO of the AP, said in a statement. "When someone uses our content without our permission, they are free riding on our newsgathering and our reporting of news from around the world."

A spokesperson for VeriSign said the company could not comment on pending litigation.

AP is seeking unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against the companies.

Moreover claims that AP is a source for its major news coverage, according to AP. "This suit is about two companies that are willfully misappropriating and infringing upon AP's proprietary news reports on a continuous basis, and are falsely associating themselves with AP, to operate and promote their fee-based and ad-supported services, which they promise will deliver real-time news in as fast as two minutes of publication," Srinandan Kasi, AP vice president and general counsel, said in a statement.

VeriSign, based in Mountain View, Calif., offers services that enable and protect billions of interactions every day across voice, video and data networks.

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