SAN DIEGO - June 14, 2002 - Trade Service Corporation ("Trade Service") today announced it has filed an action in Federal Court against Material Express.com and Pinnacle Information Corporation, doing business as Vision Infosoft, alleging that these businesses have unlawfully copied protected elements of Trade Service's data and content products.

In its complaint, Trade Service alleges that Material Express.com and Vision Infosoft have misappropriated the layout and arrangement of Trade Service's industry leading Electrical Price File Maintenance Service® ("PFMS"), along with copying various data elements from the PFMS and TRA-SER® products, all of which are protected under the United States copyright laws. Trade Service contends that Material Express.com and Vision Infosoft have used the protected elements from Trade Service's PFMS and TRA-SER and incorporated these elements into the APeX electronic price updating service offered by Material Express.com and the EPIC electronic pricing and catalog information service offered by Vision Infosoft. As a result of Material Express.com and Vision Infosoft's alleged infringement upon Trade Service's intellectual property rights, Trade Service is asking the court to order Material Express.com and Vision Infosoft to cease all use of the protected elements from Trade Service's PFMS and TRA-SER, as well as to award other damages to be determined by the court.

Tony Dubreville, Trade Service President and CEO, said in taking this action, Trade Service is doing what any company in a similar position would find absolutely necessary. Over many years, significant monetary and intellectual investments have been made in our content and data products and, next to our employees and customers, the data and content products are our most valuable asset."
Dubreville added " We will continue to take all of the steps necessary to protect our assets."

About Trade Service
Trade Service Corporation is the leading provider of standardized product and price information to the electrical, plumbing/PVF, HVACR, industrial MRO, and office products industries. Since 1931, the company has been the leader in content acquisition, aggregation, management, publishing, and distribution, offering a variety of products, services, and systems to meet the content needs of over 20,000 distributors, contractors, government agencies and “buy side” Fortune 1000 subscribers. The range of solutions provided includes printed directories, electronic catalogs, pricing data for business system updating, and robust attributed content to fuel full-functioning Internet storefronts. For more information, visit www.tradeservice.com.