Lawsuits All around: Intravisual sees Patent Infringement amongst 10 Corporations

March 30, 2010 - PRLog -- Intravisual, a Texas based corporation has filed a complaint against the following 10 corporations: Fujitsu Microelectronics America Inc, Marvell Semiconductors Inc, NEC Electronics America Inc, NVIDIA Corporation, NXP Semiconductors USA Inc, Qualcomm Inc, Samsung Semiconductor Inc, STMicroelectronics Inc, Texas Instruments Inc and Trident Microsystems Inc.

All 10 companies named in the suit, filed March 15, 2010 are allegedly infringing upon Intravisual’s patent, 6,614,845 (‘845). The patent, “Method and Apparatus for Differential Macroblock Coding for Intra-Frame Data in Video Conference Systems”, was issued in September 2003.

The complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and states that all the corporations listed are infringing the Intravisual patent because they are using H.264, “Advanced Video Coding for Generic Audiovisual Services”, a standard for compressing and decompressing digital video.  A Patent Calls independent report on patent ‘845 notes, “H.264 is used in such applications as Blu-ray Disc, videos from YouTube and the iTunes Store, direct-broadcast satellite television service, cable television services, and real-time videoconferencing.”

The corporations are accused of using video decoders that comply with the H.264 standard in their products that are integrated into other downstream electronic products which are then sold into national distribution networks.

The Patent Calls independent report also states that there are many manufacturers, service providers and devices that are potentially utilizing elements of the subject patent. Those devices include computers, smart cell phones, Blu-ray video players, closed circuit televisions, internet video distributors and satellite television providers.

Intravisual is asking for a permanent injunction against all corporations involved as well as damages and pre- and post-judgment interest.

A Qualcomm spokesperson had this to say, “We are aware of the complaint and are taking a look at it.”

STMicroelectronics had not seen the complaint yet, and therefore did not want to comment.
Fujitsu did not want to comment, except to say that they had not heard of Intravisual before the complaint and they are studying the matter.

Texas Instruments also declined to comment.

This complaint is the second of the day for STMicroelectronics. They are also accused, by Avago Technologies, of patent infringement over optical sensors used in digital mice.

Patent Calls tried to reach all parties involved, ones not mentioned here did not reply by press time.

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