Sony wins patent battle over turntables
Alice test applied to determine patent eligibility | Patent-in-suit concerns a phonographic turntable that includes a built-in audio conversion device.
A US district judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Sony brought by competitor inMusic Brands alleging patent infringement over turntables.
Florida-based inMusic, which encompasses brands including Denon DJ, Numark and Stanton, claimed that Sony had infringed its patent covering a turntable that contains an analogue-to-digital audio converter.
However, when the case reached the New York southern district court, Judge Alvin Hellerstein deemed inMusic’s patent to be invalid and dismissed the claims against Sony on Monday, March 13.
InMusic filed a patent application in 2004 which was issued in 2009 as US number 7,567,498, with a specification describing the invention as: “relat[ing] to a phonographic turntable which includes a built-in audio conversion device, which is typically to USB, firewire, or other computer digital communication protocol, inside the turntable”.
In the prior art description, inMusic identified some pre-existing systems for converting analogue audio produced by a turntable into a digital format, including the Sony/Philips Digital Interface (S/PDIF). The description did not identify the output specifics of the S/PDIF but said it was not “a standard protocol such as USB or firewire”.
InMusic claimed that two of Sony’s turntables, the PS-HX500 and PS-LX310BT, infringed claims 1 through 6 of its ‘498 patent. Both products contain a rotator, tonearm and controller that generates an output digital audio signal, along with a USB port and jack for outputting the digital audio signal.
‘Lacking inventive concept’
Applying the Alice test to determine patent eligibility, Judge Hellerstein found the claims in the ‘498 patent to be “nothing more than a list of conventional components performing their basic functions” and said that inMusic had not provided a technical description of the conversion of analogue to standard digital protocol. As such, he concluded that: “what is claimed is simply a generic environment in which to carry out the abstract idea”.
The only novelty of the patent was in outputting converted digital audio in a standard protocol such as USB or firewire, Judge Hellerstein said, and this was insufficient to constitute an inventive concept.
The claim was “recited at a high level of generality and merely invokes well-understood, routine, conventional components to apply to [the] abstract idea identified above”, he summarised.
The case against Sony was dismissed. Sony was represented by Lewis Popovski of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.
