Oct. 13--CARLSBAD -- Shares of Patriot Scientific Corp. dropped 5 percent Monday after the intellectual property licensing company announced its board had removed its chief executive, Rick Goerner, and two other senior officials.

Patriot stock closed at 30 cents per share, down 2 cents for the day. Earlier, shares had fallen as low as 25 cents per share. The company's market valuation is $117 million.

Patriot announced the moves after the close of trading Friday.

Goerner was replaced on an interim basis by Cliff Flowers, the company's chief financial officer. Also, Patriot's board removed Paul Bibeau as vice president of business development, and Renney Senn, a senior executive at Patriot Data Solutions Group, a subsidiary.

In a statement, Patriot said the company would continue to support PDSG and "capitalize on opportunities emerging in the health care, justice and public safety markets that it serves."

For the last several years, Patriot Scientific has focused its efforts on collecting licensing fees for patents it calls the Moore Microprocessor Patent portfolio. The portfolio is named for Charles H. Moore, chief technology officer of TPL Group, which shares the license with Patriot.

Companies signing for licenses include Lego Group of Denmark, Nokia, HP, Casio and Sony.

However, Patriot shares have remained low, in part because the company has more than 400 million shares outstanding, an unusually large number by industry standards.

By comparison, San Diego telecom giant Qualcomm has 1.66 billion shares outstanding, a little more than four times that of Patriot. But Qualcomm's market value is about $69 billion, more than 600 times greater than Patriot's.

Call staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at 760-739-6641. Read his blogs at bizblogs.nctimes.com.

To see more of the North County Times or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nctimes.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

News Provided by Acquire Media Corporation