ActiveVideo Networks said that a district court has issued an order invalidating asserted claims of two Verizon Communications patents in a patent- infringement battle between the two companies.
ActiveVideo initially filed the litigation against Verizon last May, claiming Verizon’s FIOS system infringed upon five ActiveVideo patents.
In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Raymond A. Jackson invalidated all asserted claims of the two patents: United States Patent No. 5,682,325, which was included in a suit against ActiveVideo, and United States Patent No. 6,381,748, which was included in suits against both ActiveVideo and Cablevision.
“The decision is important to ActiveVideo and to our customers,” said Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo. “Obviously we’re pleased at the elimination of Verizon’s claims against our company, but it is equally important that the ruling removes claims by Verizon against our customer, Cablevision.”
On April 7, Judge Jackson issued an order – a “Markman order” – interpreting the claims of five ActiveVideo patents included in the company’s suit against Verizon. The patents, which involve interactive TV services such as VOD, include:
- United States Patent No. 6,034,678, titled “Cable television system with remote interactive processor”
- United States Patent No. 5,550,578, titled “Interactive and conventional television information system”
- United States Patent No. 6,100,883, titled “Home interface controller for providing interactive cable television”
- United States Patent No. 5,526,034, titled “Interactive home information system with signal assignment”
- United States Patent No. 6,205,582, titled “Interactive cable television system with frame server.”
“ActiveVideo’s patent portfolio covers the core technology required for delivery of video-on-demand and interactive services offered by Verizon on its FiOS network,” Miller added. “We are confident that we will recover not only damages for Verizon’s infringement, but also enjoin Verizon from using ActiveVideo’s patented technology. Beginning in 2005, we shared our technology with Verizon and tried to reach an agreement to deploy our CloudTV solution on the FiOS network. Verizon declined to do business with us and instead has infringed our patents.”
A Verizon spokesperson had no immediate comment.
Trial is set for July 12.