Case Filed: Jun 18, 2013
Case Closed: May 15, 2014
Judge: Rodney Gilstrap
Court: Texas Eastern District
Court
Case Summary:
Longview, Texas-based telecommunications
company, Bluebonnet sued Sony for patent infringement in relation to call
forwarding feature that the company claims to have patented in 1996.
Patent-in-suit:
The patent US5485511 entitled ‘Method
and apparatus for determining the telephony features assigned to a telephone,’
issued on Jan 16, 1996 and expires[i]
by Sep 08, 2014. Bluebonnet is the current assignee[ii]
of the patent (source: MaxVal’s Assignment
Database) and originally assigned by Siemens Rolm Communications.
The patent describes a phone
communicating with a central switch to generate a list of options, which are
then displayed for the user.
As in complaint:
Bluebonnet alleged that Sony manufactured
products and/or systems including Xperia
Arc S that infringed one or more claims of the ‘511 patent.
Additionally, Bluebonnet accused Sony
of inducing users to violate the patent by, (1) providing instructions to their
customers that explain how to use the features of the accused devices
(specifically those features that allow call forwarding and the display of
whether the feature is activated), and (2) by touting the accused features of
the smartphone.
The telecommunications company
also accused Sony of taking “inadequate steps to determine whether it would be
infringing the intellectual property rights of others” and being “willfully
blind to the existence of the 511 patent.”
Bluebonnet sought a permanent
injunction that would prevent Sony from infringing on its patent and a judgment
that Sony accounts for and pays to Bluebonnet all damages and costs incurred
because of Sony’s infringing activities.
Case conclusion:
Bluebonnet and Sony announced to the
court that they have resolved the case amongst themselves. Therefore the
parties requested that the court dismiss claims against Sony with prejudice and
counterclaims against Bluebonnet without prejudice.
Accordingly, the court granted
the motion and ordered attorneys’ fees, costs and expenses taxed be incurred by
the parties themselves.
Other cases by BlueBonnet:
Since 2013, Bluebonnet has filed
a pile of suits against companies such as Apple, Motorola, Google, Sony, and
more claiming call forwarding technology.
See 2:13-cv-00505
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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.
[ii]
MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service
where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target
applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.
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