Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Google, HTC and Others Win Appeal over DRM Techniques

Case Filed: Jan 09, 2014
Case Closed: Jul 16, 2014
Origin Case: 3:13-cv-00194
Case Summary:
Ho Keung Tse, an inventor filed two separate lawsuits in the Eastern District of Texas alleging infringement of a US patent covering user identity verification technologies to protect software from unauthorized use. The first such suit was against defendants Google, Samsung Telecommunications America and HTC, and the second was against Blockbuster. Both actions were transferred to California Northern District Court as the cases were related.
Patent-in-Suit:
The patent involved in the suits was: US6665797 entitled ‘Protection of software again against unauthorized use,’ issued on Dec 16, 2003 and expiring[i] on Dec 01, 2015. According to the complaint, Ho Keung Tse is the sole inventor and owner of the ‘797 patent, duly and legally issued by USPTO. The patent relates to protection of software against unauthorized use or copying.
As in Complaint:
The complaint alleged that Google uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) software and methods, covered under the claims of the ‘797 patent, to protect purchased application programs (apps) from use by an unauthorized user. The cited product was Google Play Store. Samsung and HTC were named in the suit alleging that their smart phones are installed with the accused product. 
Blockbuster was accused of using user identity verification methods for verifying the validity of users’ financial account information, allowing users to have free trials and also preventing them from repeatedly using the free trial services by submitting Blockbuster fake financial account information.
Plaintiff wanted damages awarded for willful and deliberate patent infringement, justifying an increase of damages of up to three times.
District Court Proceedings:
Defendants Google, Samsung, HTC and Blockbuster filed a motion for summary judgment of invalidity based on a lack of written description for which the inventor filed an opposition. The court heard arguments on the motion in Sep 2013 and granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Accordingly, in Dec 2013, judgment was entered favoring defendants and against plaintiff.
Appeal Court Proceedings:
In Jan 2014, Ho Keung Tse filed an appeal as district court judgment was not in favor. After hearing the case, the appeal court also affirmed the judgment favoring defendants.
See 2014-1222 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. 

1 comment:

  1. Fron 4.0 ICS, Android has started some universal key combinations to take a print screen and HTC follows the same.htc one covers

    ReplyDelete