A German court recently declared that the DVD media manfacturer, Optical Disc Service (ODS), was infringing upon certain patents licensed in the MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License. According to the suit, ODS was manufacturing DVD-Videos without licensing the required patents.
District Court in Germany (Landgericht Dusseldorf) today announced verdicts finding that German DVD disc manufacturer Optical Disc Service ("ODS") has infringed certain patents licensed in the MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License offered by MPEG LA as a result of ODS's manufacture of DVD discs. The verdict of infringement as a result of DVD disc manufacturing issued in eight of nine cases brought by six patent holders who are Licensors to MPEG LA's MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License. See http://www.mpegla.com/news/n_05-08-02PR.pdf. The patent holders alleged that using the MPEG-2 Standard in recording video onto DVD discs constituted acts of infringement. The MPEG-2 Standard is the core technology underlying the efficient creation, transmission, storage and display of digitized moving images and sound tracks on which DVD and other digital technologies are based; and the DVD-Video Standard (DVD Specifications for Read-Only Disc, Part 3: VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS) requires DVD Video discs to contain information formatted in accordance with the MPEG-2 Standard.
ODS has been ordered by the court to stop its current DVD production and pay damages to the patent owners. If you'd like to read more, MPEG LA's entire press release can be found here.
