Philips ignites patent battle with Dell, HP, Lenovo, Intel and others
Koninklijke Philips NV has filed a spate of suits against competitors Dell Technologies, Lenovo, HP, and Intel in a US district court, accusing them of infringing copy-protected patents.
According to the seven suits, filed yesterday, September 17, at the US District Court for the District of Delaware, Philips alleged that its rivals infringed up to four patents with their “digital-video capable devices” including computers, monitors, servers, and other products.
Philips also accused LG Electronics, Realtek Semiconductor and MediaTek of infringement in complaints filed at the same district court.
The disputed patents, US numbers 9,436,809; 10,091,186; 9,590,977; and 10,298,56, all entitled “secure authenticated distance measurement”, apply to technology used in the high-bandwidth digital content, which is used to verify streaming content.
In the suit filed against Dell, Philips said that the “defendants have directly infringed, and continue to directly infringe” these patents by “making, using, selling and/or offering to sell, in this district and elsewhere in the US”, and by importing “certain infringing digital video-capable devices” into the US.
Philips also held, in its complaint against Intel, that its rival actively ignored its assertion of the patents, stating that Intel proceeded to “actively induce, and materially contribute to, its customers’ infringement of the asserted patents” by making, using, selling, offering for sale, marketing, advertising, and/or importing digital video-capable integrated circuits and associated firmware that are incorporated into defendant’s digital video-capable devices”.
These actions, claimed Philips, “infringed the asserted patents, and, consequently, instructed customers to infringe the asserted patents.”
In the suit against Lenovo, Philips also stated that Lenovo provided instructions, user guides, and other documentation regarding the use and operation of the patented technology.
It added that “when others follow such instructions, user guides, and/or other documentation, they directly infringe one or more claims of the ’564 patent,” and that by providing such instructions, “the defendants know and intend that others will follow those instructions, user guides, and other documentation, and thereby directly infringe one or more claims of the ’564 patent”.
Philips also asserted MediaTek televisions infringed its patents, as did LG’s TVs and smartphones. The electronics company has requested that the court rule that the disputed patents are valid and enforceable, that the accused companies infringed the patents, and that it should be awarded damages.
WIPR has approached all companies for comment.
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