Apple wins DRM patent lawsuit leveled by ContentGuard

Apple Insider ^ | November 20, 2015 | 3:27pm | By Mikey Campbell

[Swordmaker]

Apple came out unscathed from a legal battle involving digital rights management IP owned by ContentGuard, a subsidiary of non-practicing entity Pendrell Corp. that sued the iPhone maker for infringing on five patents.

The jury handed down its decision in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on Friday, finding Apple not in infringement of five DRM-related patents owned by ContentGuard, reports Reuters. While not responsible for damages, Apple was not able to prove the patents-in-suit invalid.

Apple was accused of illegally applying patented DRM technologies to its digital content distribution services, including music, movies and TV shows sold through iTunes and e-books marketed in iBooks. The Cupertino, Calif., company denied those claims.

Today's decision comes after ContentGuard first asserted its clutch of patents in a fishing expedition against big tech industry players in 2013, including Amazon, Samsung, BlackBerry, Motorola and HTC, among others. Google and its online music, movie and eBook storefronts were added to the list of defendants in 2014, according to Law360.

ContentGuard saw limited success in its endeavors, however. Aside from a favorable ruling from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board in June, which spurred Amazon to settle a month later, the patent holder lost cases against Google and Samsung. Like Apple, both Google and Samsung were unable to convince juries that ContentGuard's patents are invalid.

Now owned by Pendrell and Time Warner, ContentGuard is the result of a DRM business partnership between Xerox and Microsoft struck in 2000.

[Swordmaker]

Apple wins Digital Rights Management patent infringement suit against a non-practicing entity (read Patent Troll) patent holding company in the East Texas Rocket Docket. The jury found Apple, like google and Samsung before them, did not infringe the five patents when selling and distributing iTunes, movies, iBooks, and other digital contents from Apple's iTunes stores. -- PING!

Pinging dayglored, ThunderSleeps; and Shadow Ace for their ping lists as this impacts their users as well.

Apple Wins Patent Infringement Suit
Against Patent Troll
Ping!

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[ThunderSleeps]

Perhaps only mildly interesting to Android users. However it is good news that ContentGuard was defeated, again. Apparently they are just a patent/lawyer house looking to sponge money off the industry. - ANDROID PING!
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[PA Engineer]

This is good news, however I despise the patent troll process. This would be a great area for loser pays.