Federal Court Affirms Both Validity and Verizon Infringement of ActiveVideo Patents

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ActiveVideo Networks said today that it is poised to accelerate deployments of CloudTV™, a virtual set-top box platform for TV navigation, guides and other content, following Friday's appellate court decision to uphold an award of $260 million or more in a patent infringement suit against Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ).

According to Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo, the decision provides immediate benefits to the company, most notably the assurance to both customers and potential infringers that ActiveVideo is unchallenged in its rights to core technology patents.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday affirmed both the original jury award in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, as well as subsequent interest and royalties awarded by Judge Raymond A. Jackson of the District Court.  The Court of Appeals also remanded to the District Court calculation of an ongoing per-subscriber royalty, should an analysis of Verizon's current FiOS system reveal continued infringement of ActiveVideo patents. The decision reaffirms ActiveVideo's rights as the inventor of industry-leading technology in the delivery of advanced television applications such as video-on-demand (VOD) and interactive TV.

"The technologies developed by ActiveVideo are today powering a wide-range of innovative services from the network cloud," said Miller.  "We're gratified that the Court of Appeals has upheld our company's rights to its inventions, and look forward to helping the multichannel and CE industries benefit from the deployment of CloudTV-based services."

In the decision announced Friday, the Court of Appeals upheld three key ActiveVideo patents that are fundamental to interactive television services such as video on demand, including: 

• United States Patent No. 6,034,678, titled "Cable Television System With Remote Interactive Processor;"
• United States Patent No. 5,550,578, titled "Interactive And Conventional Television Information System;" and
• United States Patent No. 6,100,883, titled "Home Interface Controller for Providing Interactive Cable Television."

The Court vacated the jury finding of infringement on a fourth patent, United States Patent No. 6,205,582, titled "Interactive Cable Television System with Frame Server," but affirmed the full jury award of damages and all subsequent monetary awards.

ActiveVideo filed suit against Verizon in May, 2010, alleging infringement on the four patents by the Verizon FiOS system.  The initial $115 million award in August, 2011 followed a three-week jury trial; Judge Jackson subsequently issued two rulings awarding ActiveVideo $24.1 million in supplemental damages and interest, and monthly royalties of $2.74 for each FiOS subscriber.  ActiveVideo has been represented throughout the case by Morgan Lewis & Bockius, LLP.

The scalable, enterprise-class CloudTV H5™ platform utilizes highly-optimized HTML5 browser technology running in remote servers to execute and render complete user experiences in the cloud.  The fully-formed experiences are streamed to consumers' devices via MPEG-2 or H.264. Key presses on consumers' existing remote controls are sent to the remote server, controlling the application and the user experience.  The latency between a consumer key press and the application response is so minimal that users do not perceive that the application is coming from miles away. 

This innovative, patented technology makes it possible to create and deliver pixel-accurate applications and navigation user experiences across any digital set-top box or connected device.  Because the application is fully executed and rendered on the cloud-based server, application designers can create complex animations and functionality without worrying about device capability. 

Designed to interface seamlessly with existing cable operator network infrastructure and with no addition to or replacement of consumer premises devices, the "total cloud" approach can be completely deployed at low cost and with unparalleled service velocity.  As television operators move more and more to a unicast distribution network, they can take advantage of the CloudTV platform to drive personalized, on-demand video to every customer. 

CloudTV is available on approximately 10 million screens in the United States and abroad with Cablevision Systems, Oceanic Time Warner Cable and other operators, as well as on Philips-brand NetTVs. Earlier this year, ActiveVideo also announced that Comcast is using CloudTV in an enhanced video-on-demand (VOD) user experience trial.

About ActiveVideo Networks
ActiveVideo Networks™ has created CloudTV™, a virtual set-top box platform that enables the development and streaming of rich Navigation, Advanced Guides and TV Content to any set-top box, CI Plus television or connected CE device. CloudTV is a low-bandwidth, low-latency, high-scalability solution that allows unequalled time-to-market speed and cost-effectiveness in the deployment of new television experiences The CloudTV approach of placing the intelligence in the network, not the device, powers an open development and publishing environment for content creators, service providers, and CE manufacturers to quickly and easily create new television experiences for their viewers. ActiveVideo Networks is based in the heart of Silicon Valley, with offices in Los Angeles and Hilversum, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.activevideo.com; find us at www.facebook.com/ActiveVideoNetworks; follow us at www.twitter.com/activevideo; view our videos at www.youtube.com/AVCloudTV.

SOURCE ActiveVideo Networks