‘Intentional Fraud’ Landed Philips Its 4 HDCP Patents, Alleges Intel
Intel denies “each and every” Philips allegation that its video processors infringe four Philips high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP) patents and that it violated Section 337 of the 1974 Trade Act when it imported the components into the U.S. (see 2010190036). So said the chipmaker Friday in docket 337-TA-1224 at the International Trade Commission, responding (login required) to the Philips complaint and the Oct. 16 notice of the Section 337 investigation into the allegations.
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The HDCP patents are “unenforceable” due to Philips’ “inequitable conduct,” said Intel. Philips and its “prosecuting agent,” Michael Epstein, published an “open copy protection system” (OCPS) proposal more than a year before filing its first HDCP patent application in June 2003 and distributed the document widely to an industry working group, it said.
The OCPS proposal was “material to the later prosecution and examination” of the four HDCP patents, said Intel. Philips and Epstein knew about the proposal but failed to disclose “this material prior art” to the Patent and Trademark Office, it said. “Based on these facts, the most reasonable inference is that Philips’ failure to disclose such material prior art during prosecution was an intentional fraud” on the PTO, it said.
If the PTO or its examining attorney had been aware of the OCPS proposal when considering the HDCP patent applications, Philips’ patent claims “would have been rejected and would not have issued in the form that they did,” said Intel. Philips didn’t respond to questions Monday. Epstein’s LinkedIn profile identifies him as Philips’ director-standardization. Attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful.
Philips is not “entitled” to the cease-and-desist and exclusion orders it seeks in the complaint, nor should it get “any form of remedy and/or relief” in the investigation, said Intel. Philips was one of the seven original founders of HDMI, with which HDCP compliance testing was intertwined, it said. Based on Philips’ “conduct” as an HDMI founder, Intel “reasonably inferred that Philips widely accepted and encouraged widespread use of HDCP such that Philips would not enforce any alleged rights against HDCP 2.0 compliant devices,” it said.
Intel relied on Philips’ conduct “to its detriment, investing heavily in developing and integrating HDCP 2.0 technology into its own products,” said the chipmaker. “Intel and its customers would be materially prejudiced if Philips were allowed to proceed with Philips’ patent infringement claim.”