Vizio’s TVs infringed parts of one of four LG...
Vizio’s TVs infringed parts of one of four LG patents at the heart of a legal battle between the companies, an International Trade Commission judge ruled in a preliminary decision. Administrative Law Judge James Gildea said Vizio violated four claims…
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of a patent granted Zenith’s Sol Cherrick in 1996 that covers a TV whose hardware/firmware can be remotely disabled by a series of transmitted codes. Among the claims that Vizio was held to have infringed was one describing a TV with a character generator that could produce a single hue over the entire display. Another claim was a method for disabling closed captioning. Gildea ruled that Vizio didn’t infringe claims in three other patents, including one granted LG Electronics’ In Hoon Kim in 2006 that covers channel tuning of digital TV. Among the claims that Vizio didn’t infringe was one for making a decision to search a previously stored channel map, Gildea said. LG filed the ITC complaint this year, alleging that Vizio’s sets violated four TV-related patents granted 1996-2006 and asking to commission to bar Vizio from importing infringing TVs. Vizio countered by filing a complaint with the ITC against LG in July, alleging that LG’s TVs violated its portfolio of six QAM-related patents that it acquired from Motorola in April 2009. The patents were granted to General Instrument 1993-1997 and covered a range of QAM technology. Vizio officials weren’t available to comment.