Sony, Mediostream Settle Dispute over Invalidation of Video Recording Patent

Case Filed: Nov 30, 2010

Case Closed: Feb 13, 2014

Judge: Richard Seeborg

Case Summary:

Sony filed a preemptive action asking California district court to determine that it would not infringe Mediostream’s patent covering a way of recording video data directly onto disks. Mediostream is a company that provides PC-based software for recording video to DVDs and CDs.

The declaratory judgment states that Sony does not infringe any valid claim of US7843508 or in the alternative, that the claims of the Mediostream patent are invalid.

According to the complaint, Mediostream initially filed a suit against Sony claiming infringement of patents US7009655 and US7283172. The ‘508 patent is a continuation of ‘655 and ‘172 patents and because of the familial link the patents share the same written description. Sony asserted that Mediostream has rewritten the claims of ‘655 and ‘172 patents into the ‘508 patent to strengthen its infringement and validity of the initially filed suit against Sony. Because of this, there is an actual controversy regarding the non-infringement, invalidity and unenforceability of the ‘508 patent, the complaint stated. Therefore Sony denied infringement of ‘508 patent and disputed its validity.

The patent at issue, US7843508 entitled ‘Method and system for direct recording of video information onto a disk medium’, issued on Nov 30, 2010 and expiring[i] by Jul 23, 2022 is assigned to Mediostream as per the face page.

According to court records, the case was terminated on Feb 13, 2014. Sony filed a stipulation with proposed order of dismissal, following which the court agreed to the stipulation ordering:

·        all claims to be dismissed without prejudice

·        all counterclaims to be dismissed with prejudice

·        parties to incur their own costs and fees

See 3:10-cv-05410 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.