Apple has just won over a patent infringement lawsuit that was filed by ContentGuard Holdings, a subsidiary of Pendrell Corporation. This leaves the smartphone company to not pay any damages regarding the case. The decision was granted by the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on November 20, that the company did not infringe five digital rights management (DRM).
Tech Times reported that ContentGuard sued Apple for illegally applying the DRM technology to its digital content distribution services. According to the claim, this technology was used in retailing devices like iBooks and iTunes in distributing songs, movies, and books with DRM protection. Apple denied such accusation and affirmed that the claim was invalid. Samuel Baxter, ContentGuard's lawyer, expressed his disappointment regarding the ruling.
For the same reason, the holding company also sued Samsung and Google Inc. in 2014 with a claim that the two companies infringed several of its anti-piracy patents, Apple Insider said. In a different case, the claim was proven to be untrue and the cases were dismissed in September 2015.
On the other hand, Jeff Kagan, independent technology analyst, said in Sci-Tech Technology, "Technology is one of the toughest areas to understand. This is obviously a clear victory for Apple." He added that ContentGuard seemed to have difficulty in battling world's biggest companies because of its previous unsuccessful lawsuits.
For the unfamiliar, ContentGuard was found in 2000 from the partnership between Microsoft Corp. and Xerox Corp. The holding company is now owned by Time Warner and Pendrell with 1,200 patents worldwide through its subsidiaries. Furthermore, the company has technology partnerships with LG, Microsoft, Nokia, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Casio, Hitachi, Time Warner and Xerox, except for Apple, a related report mentioned.
As of the moment, there is no statement from ContentGuard regarding the dismissal of the case. Apple also did not provide any details if it will file a counter case regarding the false accusation of the holding company.
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