Another month and yet another patent lawsuit for RIM. Its not like RIM is getting singled out in the patent madness since the mobile industry is going crazy over it but they keep on dragging on. The latest is from Dolby which is suing RIM for patent infringement of “many RIM products” including their smartphones and PlayBook.
This lawsuit is revolving around RIMs use of the AAC codec for audio from what I can tell. RIM has been supporting the AAC codec for awhile now so I am not sure why Dolby woke up now. It seems like they were trying to reach a patent licensing agreement and Dolby is using this lawsuit as a stick to get RIM to settle. According to Dolby:
“Litigation was regrettably our last resort after RIM declined to pay for the use of Dolby’s technology,” said Andy Sherman, executive vice president and general counsel of Dolby. “We have a duty to protect our intellectual property.”
Dolby was even “kind” enough to issue a press release about their lawsuit:
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dolby Laboratories (NYSE:DLB), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Dolby International, has filed patent infringement lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany against Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RiMM), a Canadian manufacturer of wireless handset and tablet devices. The lawsuits seek recovery of financial damages and injunctions to halt sales of the many RIM products that infringe Dolby’s patents.
“Litigation was regrettably our last resort after RIM declined to pay for the use of Dolby’s technology”
The lawsuits explain that RIM infringes Dolby patents covering highly efficient digital audio compression technologies which allow manufacturers and consumers to provide and enjoy high quality audio while using extremely limited amounts of transmission and/or storage space for such audio. RIM employs Dolby’s patented technologies in its Blackberry smart phones and Playbook tablet devices, without having obtained licenses from Dolby, the lawsuits say. All other major smart phone makers have agreed to license the Dolby technologies which are the subject of this litigation.
Dolby’s patented technologies, which have been incorporated into the international standard known as High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (“HE AAC”), provide the core of HE AAC. Demonstrating the value of the Dolby technologies, HE AAC is widely used in consumer electronics devices such as smart phones, portable music players, and computer tablets to play back music and other digitized audio that has been compressed to less than 10% of its original digital file size.
“Litigation was regrettably our last resort after RIM declined to pay for the use of Dolby’s technology,” said Andy Sherman, executive vice president and general counsel of Dolby. “We have a duty to protect our intellectual property.”
The U.S. lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The German lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.
via TechCrunch
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