Companies seeking injunction for Bell’s IPTV technology

Whether a patent encompasses technology used by BCE Inc.’s IPTV service will be a central issue as a patent case two-plus years in the making gets its date in court Tuesday. The Federal Court in Toronto was scheduled to hear the patent infringement case brought against Bell, and its Atlantic Canada arm Bell Aliant, by television providers MediaTube Corp. and NorthVu Inc. The statement of claim was initially filed on April 23, 2013. At issue is patent 477, which the plaintiffs allege to be theirs and under use by Bell in its IPTV products. The system underlying the patent allows TV signals to be more efficiently managed by sending only those signals the user selects, instead of requiring “all available audio/video content to be sent simultaneously to all communication interface devices,” according to the claim. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants engaged them and the owner of the patent, Ross Jeffery, on a number of occasions to discuss and exchange information on the technology, first in February 1999 when a non-disclosure agreement was allegedly made with Jeffery and information passed to Bell and Clayton Mangione, who would later develop Bell’s Fibe TV. Following that, they claim that in January 2004, Bell sought to assess NorthVu’s IPTV technology (which had by this time acquired the patent application) and exchanged information about incorporating Internet protocol video capabilities into Bell’s system with PureNet.TV Canada Inc., which had tested NorthVu’s technology and signed a confidentiality agreement with Bell. According to the plaintiffs in their response to the defence statement, they “built and operated the working prototype IPTV system between Aurora and Markham” and “a functioning IPTV network” between two Bell Canada locations in Toronto and Thornhill, “which was ready for hook-up by Bell Canada to customers in Thornhill.” In May 2010, after MediaTube acquired the assets of PureNet and got a license to use the patent, an agreement was allegedly made for MediaTube to occupy space in a Bell central office to install its equipment for an IPTV system. The defendants deny these allegations and allege in their statement of defence that the plaintiffs approached them, not the other way around, to solicit “Bell’s services and know-how at times that Bell was already working with and .” Additionally, they claim that their IPTV platform is licensed from Ericsson AB (previously owned by Microsoft) and that the technology based on the patent in question was already widely known. Their story begins in June 1997 when Next Level Communications (NLC) showcased the technology at the SuperComm ’97 technology tradeshow in New Orleans, La., according to the statement. In October 1997, the statement continued, a telecom company called U.S. West (now CenturyLink Inc.) bought equipment and services from NLC, which was showcased to Bell personnel, including Mangione, when they visited U.S. West in May 1998. The defendants allege the technology was made available — through discussions with NLC directly and during the U.S. West visit — and the defendants “were not bound by any obligations of confidence in their utilization and inspection of the NLC technology,” it said in the statement. From mid-1998 to 1999, it claims to have worked with NLC “to deploy trial systems using the NLC technology in its Ottawa laboratory” and in August 1999 in a Toronto condo called Palace Pier. “The inventors assembled a group of known ideas about analog audio-visual signals, identified a commonly desired result, and purport to monopolize any subsequent system or method that delivers that result,” the defendants allege in their defence statement. They also deny that the plaintiffs invented the technology and that the contested patent “does not relate to or disclose an IPTV system.” According to a November 1999 share offering filing on the Nasdaq, NLC began operations in July 1994 and began selling equipment in 1999. Approximately 82 per cent of its total revenues at the time were from sales to U.S. West and Bell Atlantic, according to the prospectus. MediaTube and NorthVu said their patent was filed on July 30, 1999, with the application published on February 17, 2000 and effective from November 20, 2007 until July 30, 2019. They’re are seeking upwards of $350 million in damages and a permanent injunction to prevent Bell from using technology based on the patent, which they say has generated revenues for them in excess of $2 billion. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca

Companies seeking injunction for Bell’s IPTV technology

News | June 20, 2016

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Companies seeking injunction for Bell’s IPTV technology

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