PLANO, Texas, July 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- ContentGuard
Holdings, Inc. ("ContentGuard"), a subsidiary of Pendrell
Corporation (NASDAQ: PCO), announced today that the Patent Trial
and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO) issued final written decisions on June 26, 2014 and July 1,
2014 finding valid all claims of the ContentGuard digital
rights management (DRM) patents at issue. These decisions follow
patent trials conducted before the PTAB in February 2014.
The inter partes review (IPR) proceedings at the USPTO, through
which these trials were conducted, were initiated in February 2013 by one of a handful of handset
manufacturers who have not yet licensed ContentGuard's DRM
technologies. These unlicensed companies have put themselves
at an unfair competitive advantage over the many companies who have
licensed these technologies.
These decisions are extraordinary considering the track record
of patentees in IPR proceedings. According to some estimates, based
on data available from the USPTO, as of April 2014 only 5% of patent claims in IPR
proceedings that had been instituted since the IPR process was
adopted in the fall of 2012 have been upheld by the PTAB in the
face of validity challenges.
"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," commented James Baker,
ContentGuard's vice president for licensing and strategic
development. "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."
These innovations have their origin with a team of Xerox PARC
inventors who are widely recognized as pioneers of DRM as we know
it today.
Three of the four patents found valid at the PTAB trials, United
States Patent Nos. 6,963,859; 7,269,576; and 7,523,072 are
currently involved in patent infringement litigation ContentGuard
brought against Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN),
Blackberry (NASDAQ: BBRY), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), HTC, Huawei,
Motorola Mobility and Samsung Electronics, following long standing
efforts to avoid litigation through the grant of licenses.
Another patent in the action, United States Patent No. 7,225,160,
was also the subject of such a request for IPR, which concluded in
August 2013 with valid claims
confirmed. Additionally, a sixth patent in the IPR action
concluded in November 2013 with valid
claims confirmed.
ContentGuard is represented in these proceedings by Sterne
Kessler and McKool Smith.
About ContentGuard
ContentGuard develops software and services for the emerging
Internet privacy segment targeting both consumer and business
solutions, and licenses its intellectual property to other
companies who use its inventions in their products and services.
ContentGuard's innovative mobile content protection app is now
available for download for Android and iOS devices, and
ContentGuard implements the innovations represented by each of the
patents involved in the IPR proceedings in its products and
services. Spun out of Xerox PARC, ContentGuard is a leading
inventor, developer of content privacy and control technologies
with more than 300 issued patents worldwide. ContentGuard
currently has license agreements in place with leading technology
companies including LG, Microsoft, Nokia, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony,
Toshiba, Casio, Hitachi, Time Warner, and Xerox. ContentGuard
is owned by Pendrell Corp (NASDAQ: PCO) and Time Warner, and is
headquartered in Plano, Texas. For
more information on ContentGuard products, visit
www.ContentGuard.com.
SOURCE ContentGuard