suit
Latest
Funai wins order blocking Vizio imports, Vizio maintains business as usual
Just when it looked like the long-running patent dispute was tipping Vizio's way, the U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of Funai, issuing an order to block imports of Vizio HDTVs. According to Bloomberg the ban is still eligible to be reviewed by President Obama while the patent case itself is still being reviewed by an appeals court, but if Vizio wants to keep its shipments flowing it will have to post a bond of $2.50 per television. We've put a call in to Vizio to find out what this means for its immediate future -- and that sweet LED backlit display from CES -- and confirmed that while this order goes into effect immediately, you should still be able to find sets on shelves and they will continue to do business as usual during the presidential review period, but feel free to read its press release in response after the break for more details.
Richard Lawler04.10.2009
Samsung declares victory over Sharp in LCD patent dispute
Samsung and Sharp, like any good pair of competitors, have been slapping each other around for years now. Specifically, Sharp tagged Samsung with an LCD patent infringement lawsuit back in the latter half of 2007, and at long last the courts have made a decision. In short, Samsung wins. The Wall Street Journal has an exceptionally brief writeup noting that Sammy has declared victory in the case as a Tokyo court "upheld a Samsung Electronics' countersuit filed last June that claimed that Sharp LCD TV products infringed on Samsung's patents." There's no word on what affect this will have on either firm, but feel free to cheer / cry at the office today in order to truly show your fanboy colors at work.
Darren Murph03.23.2009
New Jersey sues Verizon over deceptive FiOS practices
Verizon Communications has just been slapped with a lawsuit from New Jersey's Attorney General, who alleges that the company engaged in "deceptive and misleading" sales, billing and customer service practices related to its FiOS services. Mind you, this is far from the first time we've heard outrage over poor FiOS service, but Verizon New Jersey president Dennis Bone asserts that the majority of the issues raised by the attorney general are "related primarily to the start-up of the FiOS business nearly two years ago in New Jersey and have been largely addressed." Of course, just because things are sailing smoothly now doesn't mean that justice shouldn't be served, but we will concur that we've heard far less grumbling of late compared to years ago. Who knew offering up free TVs to get folks to sign up would lead to this much turmoil?
Darren Murph03.22.2009
USPTO issues final rejection of Funai's patent, VIZIO celebrates
One has to wonder: is this cat fight finally nearing the end? Shortly after VIZIO hit Funai with an antitrust and unfair lawsuit (not to mention pleading with the FCC to expedite the hand slapping), said outfit has just announced the "final rejection" of all claims in Funai's controversial patent. As the story goes, the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has "issued a second rejection of all claims in Funai Electric Co.'s United States Patent No. 6,115,074," leading Rob L. Brinkman, VIZIO's VP Operations and Administration, to say the following: "Based on this final rejection by the USPTO, we believe that Funai's '074 patent will ultimately be deemed invalid." We've seen no reaction from Funai thus far, but it seems like sneaking away to the nearest corner may actually be best considering the circumstances.
Darren Murph03.15.2009
World of Warcraft and Second Life are next, says Worlds.com CEO
As you are probably already well aware, virtual environment business Worlds.com is currently engaging in a legal action against MMOG developer/operator NCsoft for patent infringment, based on a patent that more or less covers almost every client-server based multiplayer game and virtual environment out there. It doesn't end there, however. Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin has told Eric Krangel at Business Insider that if the suit against NCsoft succeeds, industry leaders World of Warcraft and Second Life are next. The company's legal representatives in this action, General Patent Corporation also yesterday announced that Worlds.com has been granted a third patent that extends the reach of their existing two.
Tateru Nino03.12.2009
Toshiba forced to pay up in class action DLP lawsuit
Just what Toshiba needed, right? As if the economy wasn't hammering the company's bottom line badly enough, United States Magistrate Judge Steven M. Gold of the Eastern District of New York has just entered a decision that'll force it to pay up over $1 million in order to settle a class action lawsuit it just lost. Originally filed in 2007, the suit alleged "that the lamps of certain Toshiba DLP televisions were susceptible to premature failure causing purchasers to repeatedly expend hundreds of dollars for replacement bulbs, which allegedly suffered from the same defect." After a thorough investigation, it was found that Tosh would be responsible for reimbursing those who purchased a bulb replacement that failed prematurely, and the warranty on replacement bulbs has been pushed from six months to a full year. Naturally, the law firm representing the 265,000 or so affected individuals was quite stoked with the outcome, as should you be if you're in that mix.
Darren Murph03.01.2009
Seagate drops patent suit against SSD maker STEC, runs home crying
Well, that was pretty anticlimactic. Seagate, which filed suit against SSD-maker STEC back in April -- claiming the company infringed on four of its patents for SSD interfaces -- in March after talking quite a sizeable game about similar possible actions against the big boys (Intel and Samsung), has just dropped the claim. Seagate said that the case against STEC was "no longer worth pursuing" because economic conditions are now so bad that STEC isn't really selling many of the SSDs in question. That all sounds a little like saying "Monopoly stinks, let's play something else" when you're losing so bad you only have Baltic Avenue left, but maybe that's just us.
Laura June Dziuban02.25.2009
VIZIO looks to FCC to slap Funai's hand
Whoa, Nelly. Looks like we've got ourselves an old fashioned paper fight going on here. Just days after VIZIO filed an antitrust lawsuit against Funai, the former company has now taken things a step further by requesting that the FCC require Funai to "comply with patent licensing conditions imposed by the FCC when it adopted the digital television standards for the United States." Additionally, VIZIO has asked the entity to "order Funai to cease its unreasonable and discriminatory patent enforcement policies while the FCC considers a pending petition for declaratory ruling." There's no word on whether the FCC is open to oblige, but you can rest assured that there are more than a few bitter-beer faces clogging up corner offices at Funai Electronics.
Darren Murph02.24.2009
Intel takes NVIDIA to court over chipset licensing
Oh, brother. Another Intel / NVIDIA paper fight? As fate would so fittingly have it, these two giants are meeting up yet again, this time in the courtroom. After talks "of over a year" failed to amount to anything, Intel has filed suit against NVIDIA that -- according to Intel -- "seeks to have the court declare that NVIDIA is not licensed to produce chipsets that are compatible with any Intel processor that has integrated memory controller functionality, such as Intel's Nehalem [Core i7] microprocessors and that NVIDIA has breached the agreement with Intel by falsely claiming that it is licensed." Of course, NVIDIA's official stance is that Intel is simply trying "stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business." We have all ideas that the whole truth (and nothing but the truth) lies somewhere in between, but we guess that's why we have people called "lawyers" heading to work each day. If you're daring enough to dig deeper, all the links you need are neatly positioned below.[Via HotHardware]Read - Intel's takeRead - NVIDIA's official responseRead - Further Intel comments
Darren Murph02.18.2009
VIZIO files antitrust and unfair competition lawsuit against Funai
Aw, snap! Just months after Funai took the reins from Philips in North America, along comes a lawsuit for its lawyers to deal with. VIZIO, still feeling proud after its all-business Super Bowl ad, has thrown a potent antitrust and unfair competition lawsuit in Funai's direction. The outfit alleges that Funai, "acting alone and in concert with others, unlawfully restrained trade and monopolized the market for the licensing of technology used to interpret and retrieve information from a digital television broadcast signal, as well as the market for digital television sets and receivers." Specifically, VIZIO seems perturbed that Funai inappropriately acquired the rights to one single US patent, and ever since it has "unfairly discriminated against VIZIO in the licensing and enforcement" of said patent to the "detriment of trade and commerce." There's no mention of how many bills VIZIO thinks will fix the problem, but Funai better not try filling stacks of hundies with Washingtons in between.[Image courtesy of TooMuchNick / WireImage]
Darren Murph02.14.2009
Obama sported bulletproof suit for inaugural proceedings?
Apparently, the Photosynth glitching and iPhone-like GPS blip on CNN weren't the only high tech actions in play at President Obama's inauguration yesterday. According to one of our favorite daily reads, Officer.com, the Prez was wearing "bullet-resistant clothing," which experts (and sci-fi fanatics) are taking to mean a bullet-proof suit. The folks over at Slate speculate that he might have been adorned in an outfit manufactured by MIguel Caballero, a Colombian company that specializes in bullet-resistant gear like leather jackets, windbreakers, and yes... ruffled tuxedo shirts. We'd like to imagine that stuffed into the pocket of that handsome outfit he was sporting was a Kevlar handkerchief -- but listen up Obama: Sasha and Malia are not going to be down with that bulletproof backpack.Update: VBS.tv went down to Colombia and actually tested out Caballero's wares -- check out a video after the break.[Via Wired]
Joshua Topolsky01.21.2009
Netflix and Walmart sued over online movie rentals
Industry big shots Walmart and Netflix have both been named in a consumer lawsuit which accuses them of "trying to build a monopoly for online DVD rentals." The complaint, which was filed by San Francisco-based Andrea Resnick in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that both firms "unreasonably restrained trade, sending up prices." As the story goes, the duo decided back in 2005 that Wally World would shut down its online rental business and refer those customers to Netflix, and the plaintiffs allege that these actions would end up promoting Walmart's DVD movie sales. Netflix spokespeople declined to comment, though Walmart spokeswoman Daphne Moore did acknowledge that it had received the gripe and would respond to the court at the appropriate time.
Darren Murph01.17.2009
Court blocks Sprint from offering service in iPCS areas
It didn't manage to block the Sprint / Clearwire merger, but iPCS is still scoring little victories for itself in its continued fight with Sprint over alleged violations of the exclusivity agreement it's had in place with the (much, much larger) carrier for nearly a decade. An Illinois court has now ruled that Sprint can't offer service in areas where iPCS has a presence, while Sprint's partners have their fate decided in the hallowed halls of justice starting March 30. iPCS covers seven states, so it's actually a pretty big blow to Sprint to have the footprint ganked from their icy clutches; guess they'll just have to make it up with Android-powered sub wins.[Via Phone Scoop]
Chris Ziegler01.07.2009
NCsoft prepares the defense against Worlds.com
As we announced and analyzed earlier in the week, NCsoft is being sued by Worlds.com for patent infringement on recently granted patent 7,181,690 -- the system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space.An NCsoft representative recently spoke with the Korea Times, saying that the offices in Korea have not begun analyzing the patent, nor have they received the court papers yet. However, the company does look to be preparing a defense, according to Virtual Worlds News."We can't comment on potential litigation except to say that NCsoft takes all legal action seriously -- even if the company believes a lawsuit has no merit," an NCsoft representative told Virtual Worlds News. "We intend to defend ourselves vigorously"For the full story, head on over to Virtual Worlds News and check out their write up.
Seraphina Brennan01.01.2009The patent that stole Christmas
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/The_patent_that_stole_Christmas'; As you probably know by now, Worlds.com has filed suit against NCsoft for infringement of one of two key patents that it holds. We talked about those patents and Worlds.com's securing the services of General Patent Corporation for the purposes of enforcement earlier this month. We can learn a few things from the suit against NCsoft, including (we think) how Worlds.com/General Patent sees its own position with respect to these claims (they don't seem to think it's as firm as it could be). You might also be wondering about prior art (which is abundant). Well prior art, in and of itself, is simply not enough. Not on its own.
Tateru Nino12.30.2008.jpg.cf.jpg)
Worlds.com files suit against NCsoft for patent infringement
You might remember earlier in the month we reported on Worlds.com placing down patents on two technologies that we commonly use in the MMO industry -- scalable chat and system and method of enabling users of interacting in a virtual space -- and how much havoc this could play with our favorite games. We also made the assumption that lawyers were going to begin marching from Worlds.com with suits in hand, beginning their demands of money.It turns out our assumption was right. Worlds.com has filed the necessary paper work to bring a suit against one of the big names in our industry: NCsoft. The suit was filed on Christmas Eve, December 24th, and charged NCsoft with infringement of patent 7,181,690, the system and method of enabling users of interacting in a virtual space, which was granted in early 2007. The suit cites all NCsoft titles, from Lineage to Aion, as the grounds for the patent infringement.As a small side note, patent 7,181,690 was filed in 2000 -- over a year after EverQuest launched and dominated the fledgling industry with somewhere around 300,000 subscribers.We contacted Worlds.com for comment on the 14th of December in connection with our first story, but they have not returned our requests for comment.We'll keep our ears to the ground as more developments appear in this story.Update: We have additional commentary on this patent suit.
Seraphina Brennan12.29.2008
Nintendo sued over DS Lite charger
Back in January of 2007, a fire raged through a Kentucky home. The victims of the fire were compensated according to their insurance coverage. But, now that insurance company has filed a complaint (warning: pdf link) against Nintendo with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky yesterday, stating "The [DS] was defective in design, manufacture and/or because it failed to warn consumers as to dangers associated with it... due to defects existing within the Product which caused a risk of overheating and fire, the Product was recalled by Nintendo."The Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company is seeking the 263,000 they paid out to the family, as well as court costs and interest. %Gallery-22256%
David Hinkle12.22.2008
Sharp, LG to pay big fines for LCD price fixing
There may have been a long shot in Hades that Sharp and LG would navigate their way out of paying a full $120 million / $400 million fine for their respective roles in a recent LCD price fixing bust, but that shot has apparently failed. It was announced this week that both firms would indeed be sentenced to pay the full fine "for their role in a price-fixing scheme that forced millions of US consumers to overpay for gadgets using liquid-crystal displays." The other culprit, Taiwan's Chunghwa Picture Tubes, has already agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and will be sentenced in January. Happy holidays, huh?
Darren Murph12.18.2008
Buffalo's wireless injunction stayed, now free to sell WiFi products in US
Man, we can bet there's some serious celebrating going on at the Buffalo offices today. After being barred from selling its networking gear here in America last June, Buffalo has finally been freed from its CSIRO-given chains. Who's to thank? A federal judge who has stayed the permanent injunction in the ongoing US patent litigation, which opens the doors for the company to sell "IEEE 802.11a, 802.11g and 802.11n compliant products in the United States." Finally, we USers can look forward to buying helicopter inspired routers on our home turf.[Thanks, Mark]
Darren Murph12.04.2008
Canon cleared to resume work on SED TV (now that the world doesn't care)
We're hard pressed to think of a display-related story that has lingered on longer than SED (well over four years at last count), and believe it or not, this still isn't apt to be the last you hear of it. If you'll recall, Canon recently declared victory after winning a lawsuit against Applied Nanotech that was previously holding it back from making progress, and now Applied Nanotech has waved the final white flag by giving up its right to appeal. Comically enough, it may actually be too late for Canon to even salvage the win, with president Tsuneji Uchida noting that "at times like this, new display products are not introduced much because people would laugh at them." Shh... nobody tell him the world's been laughing at SED for years.[Via OLED-Display]
Darren Murph12.02.2008