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from the if-you-aren't-retaining-pay-a-retainer dept.
El Reg has the story on chipmaker Broadcom sueing Netflix for shrinking the set-top box market, which it claims could not be done without infringing its patents.
In a lawsuit [PDF] filed late last week in California, the San Jose-based Broadcom – which designs and sells chipsets used in millions of set-top boxes – argued that "Netflix has caused, and continues to cause, substantial and irreparable harm to the Broadcom Entities [that] sell semiconductor chips used in the set top boxes that enable traditional cable television services.
"Upon information and belief, as a direct result of the on-demand streaming services provided by Netflix, the market for traditional cable services that require set top boxes has declined, and continues to decline, thereby substantially reducing Broadcom's set top box business."
The claim is that Netflix must have used Broadcom's "novel" patents to run its service
"Upon information and belief, Netflix could not displace traditional cable television services, or could not do so as effectively, without the use of the Broadcom Entities' patented technology"
Broadcom wants a jury trial, royalty fees, attorney fees, and damages.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Thursday March 19 2020, @09:04AM (6 children)
Some of these patents are well expired, others expire this week, and only one has an expiry date well in the future. Some cover QoS, but the problem there is that TMTOWTDI, so is their patent infringed, or are they just hoping to convince a jury that it might be if you squint the right way when looking at it? One is specific to DVDs, not streaming.
Given that they only contacted Netflix to try to extort a license agreement last September, Netflix will probably argue that Broadcom "sat on their rights " for years and the claims should be "tolled " - disallowed because such a long period of inaction precludes any claim. After all, they can't claim that they weren't aware of Netflix - it was seriously chewing into their sales.
The link to the lawsuit PDF which doesn't work in the article [regmedia.co.uk] - please fix. Or not. :-)
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 19 2020, @12:58PM
Thus the filing date of the lawsuit, threat of a jury trial, and prayer for a settlement.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:56PM (2 children)
What is TMTOWTDI?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday March 19 2020, @05:30PM (1 child)
There's More Than One Way To Do It
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Thursday March 19 2020, @06:42PM
Thanks.
I'm going to make a note of that right under my definitions for AF and BAE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @06:47AM
Hilarious. You claim to know all sorts about the law and have given all sorts of wrong information about it. But this one takes the cake. You literally gave the exact opposite definition of "tolled" [wikipedia.org]. Netflix would be claiming the exact opposite as they want the SoL to run, not toll. They want the legal claims to have expired and the equitable ones are estopped by laches. This is CivPro 101 stuff and you can't even get that straight. No wonder most of what else you say about the law is so wrong.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Friday March 20 2020, @07:07PM
They are hoping to go on a fishing expedition via discovery and further hoping they will discover some sort of actionable infringement. The expedition and exercise may lead to inspiration for future improvements to be made to Broadcom's business.
Another "acceptable" outcome would be a settlement allowing further income from these expired patents in the form of "rent".