Digital Rights Management has already established itself as a thorn in the side of many end users, but it has also managed to cause great consternation in the manufacturing sector regarding patents related to technological innovation.
One such example is the company ContentGuard, a subsidiary of Pendrell Corporation (NASDAQ:PCO, Stock Forum), which currently holds four patents which were called into question in patent ligation against such technology giants as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL, Stock Forum), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN, Stock Forum), BlackBerry (TSX:BB, Stock Forum) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG, Stock Forum).
ContentGuard's battle had far-reaching implications as these unlicensed entities had given themselves an unfair competitive advantage in their sector over the many companies who had already complied and licensed the aforementioned patents.
The gloves came off in February 2013 when one of the few handset manufacturers who had yet to license ContentGuard's patents, initiated an inter parties review (IPR) to determine the patents' validity.
Today's announcement was a milestone victory in the company's fight as the patents that had been questioned were affirmed by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in final written decisions released on June 26, 2014 and July 1, 2014.
The company was especially pleased as, according to the news release, these decisions went against the grain of the PTAB who had, based on USPTO data as of April 2014, upheld only 5% of patentees' validity claims since the IPR process had been adopted in the fall of 2012.
Company vice president for licensing and strategic development, commented on the landmark decisions, “We were confident in the strength of ContentGuard's DRM patents and in the fundamental DRM patents that were the subject of this review given our rich history of innovation in rights protection technologies and our deep portfolio of more than 300 patents worldwide.”
He then concluded, “These rulings confirm the relevance and importance of ContentGuard's innovations in the DRM space and validate our continuing development of leading edge ephemeral content management mobile apps and content protection solutions with the knowledge that our intellectual property rights are protected.”
ContentGuard was in the news recently when the company named Keith Hayes as Mobile Product Manager at the end of March.
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