Apple Vs Open TV — David Vs Goliath In Dusseldorf

A company with intellectual property litigations wins a case against Apple.

The Kudelski Group is a Swiss company that has, of recent times, emerged as an umbrella organisation for video and digital tv technologies, gaining almost 4,500 patents and patent applications in its Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio.

Open TV (a subsidiary of the Kudelski Group) had sued Apple in 2014, alleging that various Apple products infringe its patents, including the iPhone and iPad.

Apple of course defended itself vehemently. While Open TV may be no David, Apple sure is a Goliath. Yet, in Dusseldorf, Germany, all it needed was a court ruling in to make Goliath fall.

In an unprecedented ruling against the tech conglomerate, a district court in Dusseldorf said Apple products sold in Germany must not use streaming software which infringes Open TV’s patents. “The claim is predominantly valid and well-founded”, the Dusseldorf court added in its ruling.

Some Background

As a subsidiary of the famed Kudelski group, OpenTV and Nagravision have a long history of dragging down tech stalwarts in intellectual property litigations. This case was just another ruling on a string of earlier high-profile cases such as Kudelski group vs Google, Disney, Cisco and most recently Netflix.

As for compensation, Kudelski writes in its litigation document — “OpenTV and Nagravision seek damages in an amount adequate to compensate OpenTV and Nagravision for Apple’s infringement, a permanent injunction barring Apple from continuing to infringe OpenTV’s and Nagravision’s patents, and OpenTV’s and Nagravision’s attorneys’ fees and costs associated with this action”.

Throughout his career, Stefan Kudelski, the head of the group received numerous awards and honors for his technological achievements, including four Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and Gold Medals from the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers, the Audio Engineering Society, Lyra and Eurotechnica.
Mr. Kudelski also was recognized by the FBI for his technology contribution in audio recording.

After Mr. Kudelski’s death in 2013, he was honored in the “in memoriam” presentation during the 86th Annual Academy Awards in March 2014, and was described by a single word: Inventor.

This is not the only case against Apple Inc. filed by Kudelski group, they had earlier (in 2014) filed a patent suit against the Cupertino giant in the U.S, alleging Apple was infringing patents for accessing interactive content on smartphones and computers. That case is still active.

Apple responded by filing to have the OpenTV patent invalidated in the Federal Patent Court in Munich.
The Duesseldorf court stated that it was sufficiently confident that Apple would not succeed in having the Munich court invalidate OpenTV patents.

It is currently unclear what steps Apple will be taking to comply with the ruling or whether it intends to appeal against the ruling. Although this is not the only brush of Apple with the courts in such matters.

In late February, a Tyler, Texas district court ordered Apple to pay USD 532.9 million to patent licensing firm Smartflash LLC, in a separate iTunes-related lawsuit for infringing upon the Texas-based company’s patents related to digital rights management, data storage and managing access through payment systems.
Apple argued that Smartflash was exploiting the patent system and vowed to appeal the decision.

Asked about the Apple challenges to the OpenTV patents, a spokeswoman for the Munich court said two nullity cases relating to patents for video delivery and integrated interactive video and Internet were pending.”In respect of the course of the usual procedure in nullity proceedings, an oral hearing might possibly take place in the first quarter of 2017. As the proceedings are not public at this stage, it is not possible to submit further information”, she said in an email.

We will surely keep an eye on further proceedings and keep you apprised.

Originally published at Chip-Monks.