Bosch Responds to ObjectVideo Lawsuit

The ObjectVideo lawsuit continues to make its way through the legal process. First, Sony responded to the lawsuit and now Bosch is responding. In this note, we examine the response and counterclaims that Bosch has made.

To start with, let's review the key elements of Bosch's Counterclaim court filing (Note: of the 41 page filing, the most informative section starts at page 29):

• Bosch denies any infringement.
• Bosch claims key patents are invalid.
• Bosch claims that the statue of limitations has passed.
• Failure to mark: Bosch claims that ObjectVideo did not properly inform the public about the Intellectual Property rights emboded in its products (see a survey article on 'failure to mark [link no longer available]').
• Prosecution history estoppel: A legal technical issue, Bosch is essentially claiming that ammendments ObjectVideo made to their patents should reduce the scope of the patent's coverage (see overview of Prosecution history estoppel).
• Inequitable Conduct and Unclean Hands: Bosch, citing Sony's defense, claims issues with ObjectVideo's failure to disclose material information during the application process.

Relative to the Sony counterclaim, Bosch has added a number of legal objections. However, Bosch has not cited any new additional 'prior art'.

The main conclusion we take from this is that Bosch is planning to contest the claims. How strong the counterclaims are remains to be seen.