Defense Building Against ObjectVideo's USITC Case

JH
John Honovich
•Published Oct 03, 2011 00:00 AM
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Two months ago, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) initiated an investigation regarding claims by Object Video against Bosch, Samsung and Sony. The US civil court case was stayed and the focus now shifted to the USITC. In this note, we examine how all 3 defendants are expanding their defense and counter claims against ObjectVideo will new assertions and new evidence.

At the end of September, the paties met for their First Settlement Conference. However, Object Video was unable to reach any settlement with any of the parties.

Indeed, all 3 parties have built up their defense against Object Video. Let's run through each ones response:

  • Bosch: In Bosch's response (see pages 30+ for their affirmative defense), Bosch focuses on prior art invalidating the patents. Indeed, Bosch lists dozens of examples from the 1990s in Appendix C,D and E of their response. Bosch also claims that Object Video was publicly selling their video analytics more than one year before the first patent application (which could also invalidate the patent).
  • Samsung: In Samsung's respone (see pages 41+ for their affirmative defense), Samsung presents a long list of previous documents (pages 42-50) that they contend are prior art.
  • Sony: In Sony's respone (see pages 64+ for their affirmative defense), Sony argues that the patents are not sufficiently specified (see 25 USC 112 [link no longer available]) and therefore should be invalid. For instance, with regards to virtual tripwires, Sony claims that it is "indefenite, not enabled and/or lack adequate written description." Interestingly, Sony also emphasizes that their products "are capable of operating without the accused functionalities" and that they have "substantial non-infringing uses". This is a point we suspect from the beginning. It would be fairly trivial, worst case scenarios, for Sony to simply drop these analytics. That noted, Sony has obviously decided to invest in fighting back against these claims.

Each defendant makes a slightly different case (though all 3 charge OV with inequitable conduct for failing to disclose known information in the patent applications). We obviously cannot tell how strong their cases are but it is a bearish sign for OV that all 3 defendants continue to fight nearly a half year after OV filed their first case.