Posts Tagged: "video"

InterDigital will end up acquiring more than 21,000 global patent assets from Technicolor, more than doubling InterDigital’s current portfolio of 19,000 patent assets. This includes more than 2,500 Technicolor patents which cover video coding technologies… As part of this transaction, Technicolor and InterDigital will also enter into a perpetual grantback licensing agreement, which will give Technicolor freedom to operate its remaining businesses and benefit from existing and future patents.

Early this October, Facebook announced a partnership with three entities that will be integrated with the Rights Manager suite to offer rights management as a service on the Facebook platform: Friend MTS; MarkMonitor; and ZEFR. These entities will reportedly enable more automation of Rights Manager services for content creators who are already enrolled in Facebook’s content protection program. The integration of Rights Manager with these new services is expected to take place over the coming months.

It’s not everyday that a copyright case involves claims of false imprisonment but an order granting summary judgment entered on August 30th in the Eastern District of Texas granted a legal win to American TV personality and psychologist Dr. Phil and his production studio in just such a case. Judge Rodney Gilstrap decided to grant summary judgment sua sponte to Dr. Phil and Peteski Productions in a case against a former segment director for The Dr. Phil Show after the director recorded an iPhone video from archived footage of The Dr. Phil Show to build evidence for a emotional distress suit against Dr. Phil.

On April 13, 2017, Broadband iTV, Inc. (“BBiTV”) filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States, requesting that the Court to take the case to resolve three recurring issues relating to patent-eligibility and the procedure by which courts analyze patent-eligibility… BBiTV appeals from the Federal Circuit’s Rule 36 affirmance of two summary judgment decisions in which the district court found claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,631,336, entitled “Method for converting, navigating and displaying video content uploaded from the internet to a digital TV video-on-demand platform,” to be directed to the abstract idea of “using the same hierarchical ordering based on metadata to facilitate the display and locating of video content.” Amicus briefs in support of the Petition are due by May 15, 2017.

In a handful of IPRs, the Petitioner has relied on a video, and asserted that the video constitutes a printed publication… One factor raised in these cases is the mode by which the video was distributed. Two different modes can be identified: a first in which the video was actively distributed on a physical medium such as a CD; and a second in which the video was passively accessible as by availability on the internet.

Ansel is currently only available for a parkour adventure game called Mirror’s Edge Catalyst sold on Origin. It is supported by PCs, provided the computer has an Nvidia card, and more games supporting Ansel are likely in the making. The company, best known for its graphics cards, announced the GTX 1080 earlier this year. This card has twice the frame buffer and a quarter more memory speed than its predecessor, the GTX 980. The memory interface with this card is 256-bit and it supports virtual reality (VR) platforms. This means that PC headset can be used for 360-degree pictures. Nvidia has also put out the GTX 1060, a more mid-priced item, but still packing a lot of punch. This model actually triples the frame buffer rate of its last model, the GTX 960. Its memory speed is only 2 gigabytes per second less than the GTX 1080, and the GTX 1060 is also compatible with PC headsets. At a price tag of $300 rather than $700 for the GTX 1080, it’s a good choice for low-end gaming platforms.

Reports from Japanese media indicate that Osaka-based Funai Electric (TYO:6839) will cease production of videocassette recorders (VCRs) by the end of the month. The company cited a few issues such as a difficulty to source parts and dwindling sales which dropped to 750,000 units in 2015; at its peak, Funai was selling 15 million VCR units per year. The death knell for videotape technologies has been sounding for some time. Last year, Tokyo-based electronics conglomerate Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE) announced its decision to discontinue both Betamax videocassettes and Micro MV cassettes used for recording. The Video Home System (VHS) standard suffered a significant blow in 2008 when the last major VHS distributor discontinued sales. Although few are bemoaning the loss of videotape thanks to the convenience and higher quality of discs and VOD, production of the world’s last VCR turns our focus backwards in time to see the rise and fall of this early home video technology.

A keynote speech delivered on the first day of F8 by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg along with other company executives laid out a 10 year road map for the company. ”We stand for connecting every person for a global community, for bringing people together, for giving all people a voice, for the free flow of ideas and culture across nations,” Zuckerberg said. He supported this with soundbites he has repeated in the past, including the four billion people around the world without any Internet access. Striking some chords of global economic goodwill, he then stated that for every 10 people who gain access to the Internet, one person is lifted out of poverty.

Data mining and predictive analytics designed to enhance the decision making process for law enforcement officials have been utilized in Richmond, VA, for more than a decade now. These techniques can provide police officers with predictions of high crime areas that can be reviewed prior to starting a shift when used in conjunction with a geographic information system (GIS). Using this digital platform for predictive crime analytics, Richmond saw a greater than 20 percent reduction in major crimes between 2005 and 2006 while reducing its standing among the most dangerous cities in America. Similar data mining and analytics systems put in place by police in the city of Memphis, TN, have had a similar payoff, helping to reduce serious crime in that city by 31 percent in the four years between 2006 and 2010. That city’s Blue CRUSH predictive analytics system was developed in partnership with the University of Memphis’ criminal justice department using software developed by American tech giant IBM (NYSE:IBM).

The navigation and guidance technologies protected by Rovi’s IP holdings have been incorporated into a wide array of electronics such as set-top boxes, digital video recorders, tablets and other mobile devices. As a result, the company is engaged in a range of licensing and litigation activities relative to its patent holdings. The corporation has brought suit against Netflix in recent years for alleged infringement of patents held by Rovi which protect interactive program guide (IPG) technologies. Recently, Rovi renewed a product and patent licensing agreement for many of those same IPG technologies with major Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp.

A strong sense of innovation runs through the entire operations of the Walt Disney Company and the many forms of entertainment media developed by the corporation. For decades, Disney has benefitted from the work of its Imagineering teams, groups of designers and engineers who develop rides and many other features for Disney’s 11 theme parks located worldwide as well as cruise ships, water parks and hotels. Disney’s amusement parks have long had a particular focus on the subject of innovation as can be seen in the many attractions of the Tomorrowland and Epcot theme lands over the years, from the Carousel of Progress to the high tech interactive facility known as Innoventions.
Surprising to some may be that the effects of the Supreme Court ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank has negatively impacted the patent holdings of Disney as a series of patents protecting lip-sync animation technologies were declared invalid in September by a U.S. district judge in California, which found that the patents only protected an abstract set of rules.