Federal Court tosses patent suit against Bell for IPTV technology

What began more than three years ago as a $350-million claim of patent infringement against BCE Inc. devolved into a pale imitation of its former self and will lead to plaintiffs MediaTube Corp. and NorthVu Inc. paying for the whole affair, according to a decision from a Federal Court judge. TV providers MediaTube and NorthVu claimed Bell and its Atlantic Canada arm Bell Aliant used their patent 477 — which allows TV signals to be more efficiently managed by sending only those signals the user selects — in its IPTV offering, Fibe TV. In its statement of defence, Bell said the plaintiffs approached them and that the technology was already widely known. “The stage was thus set for a high-stakes fight. However, as a patent infringement action, this case has become something of a damp squib,” George Locke wrote in his reasons for decision, dated Jan. 4, which dismissed both the original action and Bell’s counterclaim. “As the litigation advanced to and through trial, a number of important issues were taken off the table.” Over the course of the 18-day trial, which was heard in Toronto beginning Sept. 12, MediaTube and NorthVu narrowed their allegations of infringement with respect to Bell’s FibreOp TV system from dealing with all fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) subscribers, to just those with fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) connections, which Bell said was only four per cent of the FibreOp subscription base. The plaintiffs also, as new information came out during the discovery process, “acknowledged that the evidence established that Bell Aliant had never infringed the 477 Patent,” withdrew their punitive damages claim and also “acknowledged that the other aspect of Bell Canada’s Fibe TV service called multicasting (which operates all the time) does not infringe except for its stand-by utility (that is, it could allegedly be made to infringe by modification of Bell’s system).” In coming to his decision, Locke agreed with Bell that the plaintiffs had the necessary evidence to come to the conclusion there was no infringement by February 2016. “The plaintiffs admit that they overstated Bell’s acts and do not challenge Bell’s submission hat they had access to information to conclude that Bell was neither dishonest nor fraudulent,” he wrote, highlighting that MediaTube and NorthVu withdrew their punitive damages claim before Bell presented any evidence during the trial. Locke said he found “that the plaintiffs commenced the present patent infringement action against Bell Canada without a clear theory of infringement, and the theory they did eventually form was weak.” He added: “Just as with regard to the case against Bell Aliant, the contortions of the claims in issue would be required to find infringement indicate that the plaintiffs should have known that Bell Canada did not infringe.” Locke ordered the plaintiffs to pay Bell’s costs and also ordered them elevated by 50 per cent to “reflect the weakness of the plaintiffs’ case for infringement.” — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca CORRECTION: A previous version of this story referred to the case as a copyright suit.

Federal Court tosses patent suit against Bell for IPTV technology

Broadcast | January 6, 2017

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Federal Court tosses patent suit against Bell for IPTV technology

Broadcast | January 6, 2017

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