Tumbleweed Granted New Patent For Electronic Communication

Tumbleweed's Continuation Patent Expands Portfolio to Cover Controversial Communication Methods

Redwood City, CA - November 26, 2002 - Tumbleweed® Communications Corp.(Nasdaq:TMWD - News), a leading provider of secure messaging applications for businesses and government organizations using the Internet, today announced that it has been granted U.S. Patent No. 6,487,599 by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The new patent, titled "Electronic Document Delivery System In Which Notification Of Said Electronic Document Is Sent To A Recipient Thereof," is a continuation of U.S. Patent No. 6,192,407 titled "Private, Trackable URLs For Directed Document Delivery."

"Essentially, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office affirmed today that Tumbleweed's patents cover the use of personalized, trackable URLs to deliver 'data' and 'electronic information' as well as 'documents' -- a term used in the earlier patent claims," said Bernard J. Cassidy, Tumbleweed's Vice President and General Counsel. "We believe that the new patent will strengthen our position in litigation, including Tumbleweed v. PayPal, Inc. and Tumbleweed v. Yahoo!, Inc. The defendants will not be able to avail themselves of the argument, which has been advanced by some companies, that their communication methods don't infringe our patents because they deliver data -- but not documents. We believe the Patent Office has plainly recognized that Tumbleweed's inventions, as described in our patents, broadly extend to the electronic delivery of any type or form of data."

Tumbleweed's patent portfolio includes 9 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 secure messaging applications for businesses and government organizations using the 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 hundreds of blue-chip customers including American Express, Amgen Inc., Bank of America Securities, Catholic Healthcare West, ChevronTexaco Corp., Dell Computer Corporation, National City Corporation, Oppenheimer Funds, Inc., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), TD Waterhouse Investor Services, Inc., the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Navy. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

Tumbleweed cautions that forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on its plans and expectations at the time of the issuance of the press release, and that a number of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made at the time of issuance. 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 any legal or judicial interpretation of Tumbleweed's patents. 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 and Form 10-Q filed November 14, 2002. Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release.