A lower court ruling that some television makers did not infringe a V-chip patent held by Acacia has been upheld by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appellate court upheld the September 2002 finding in Sony Electronics, et.al. v. SoundView Technologies, in which a federal judge ruled that Sony and other television manufacturers could not be called infringers under the so-called doctrine of equivalence – a patent law doctrine in which differences between the setmakers’ blocking devices and the SoundView device are proven insubstantial.
Acacia acquired SoundView earlier in the decade and almost immediately launched patent infringement claims involving the V-chip, which led to over a dozen television makers paying a one-time licensing fee, putting an estimated $24.1 million into Acacia in 2001, and helping Acacia earn a reputation in some places for profit by litigation, as the Orange County Register had reported at the time.
The appellate ruling means Acacia will recognize $1.5 million of V-chip related deferred revenues and $668,000 of V-chip related deferred costs in the third quarter of this year, the company said announcing the appellate ruling. Also, Acacia will note an “impairment charge of $1.6 million associated with the write-down of goodwill related to the V-chip.”
Acacia said, however, that the appellate ruling will have “no impact” on previous V-chip patent revenues.
