Apple has been found guilty of infringing on video streaming patents owned by Swiss company Kudelski’s OpenTV. The case was ruled on by a German court, which stated that any Apple products sold in Germany must not infringe on OpenTV’s patents.
The problem? The Apple products which allegedly infringe on said patents include the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, App Store, and Mac.
Exactly how this will be resolved isn’t clear, since I can’t imagine any circumstances in which Apple is forced to pull virtually all of its products from the German market. No damages have yet been awarded in the case.
This isn’t the only legal case Kudelski is currently pursuing against Apple. It’s got another ongoing suit — also filed back in 2014 — alleging that Apple is infringing on a patent describing a way of interactively accessing content using smartphones and computers.
Previously the company has filed multiple suits against Netflix, Cisco, Google and Disney — all of which have resulted in licensing agreements. Unless Apple has grounds to appeal this case, I’d presume the same will follow here.
As I noted when I originally reported on this lawsuit, Apple is the most-sued major U.S. technology company, and has been since 2000 — with hundreds of supposed infringement cases made against Cupertino during that time frame.
Via: TechCrunch
