Tumbleweed Granted New Patent For Secure Messaging

Tumbleweed's growing patent portfolio for secure e-business communications offers companies a full range of delivery alternatives to reach out to customers online

REDWOOD CITY, CA - May 10, 2002 - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Tumbleweed® Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:TMWD), a leading provider of secure content management solutions for enabling the business Internet, today announced that it has received a new patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that covers a method of securely messaging content over an electronic network. Patent No. 6,385,655 also covers the preservation of content formatting during electronic delivery, and security to restrict content access to authorized users only. The patent, which was applied for on October 2, 1997 and granted on May 7, 2002, contains 103 claims.

Tumbleweed's patent portfolio includes 7 granted U.S. patents and 20 pending U.S. patent applications in addition to another 60 pending worldwide. The patent portfolio broadly covers secure communication, including the binding of content to electronic identity, over Internet standards.

About Tumbleweed
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of solutions for managing secure communication and collaboration to enable the business Internet. Tumbleweed's robust policy-based framework empowers organizations to safely share and protect critical information, increase customer loyalty and privacy and dramatically reduce costs. Tumbleweed is trusted by 1,000 blue-chip customers including American Express, Chevron, Datek Online, the European Union's Joint Research Council, First Union Wachovia, John Deere, Merrill Lynch, Nike, Northern Trust, NTT, Salomon Smith Barney, Travelers and US Food and Drug Administration. One hundred of the Fortune 500 are Tumbleweed customers. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., with offices around the world.

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 capabilities of Tumbleweed's products and the any potential future software sales. 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 30, 2002. Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release.