Patent infringement claim made against Shaw’s BlueSky TV

A Swiss corporation and two of its subsidiaries are alleging that Shaw Communications Inc.’s new IPTV service is infringing on a handful of its patents, according to a statement of claim filed in federal court Friday. Shaw launched BlueSky in January, touting it as having “more product and feature benefits than any other television service available in Canada,” including voice control. The service first rolled out in Calgary and is currently available in about 30 communities surrounding Calgary and Vancouver. Kudelski S.A. and its group of companies, including OpenTV and Nagravision S.A., “has become a world leader in digital security and convergent media solutions for the delivery of digital and interactive content,” the statement of claim said. The plaintiffs claim that the patents at issue with BlueSky “relate generally to features for providing interactive television services to subscribers, including: security features, user experience features, viewership monitoring features, and interactive content features,” and are asking the court for an injunction to keep Shaw from rolling BlueSky out to more customers. Specifically, the claim highlights the base of BlueSky applications such as the restart feature, its multi-room PVR function, its reminder feature, its ability to allow users to filter the programming guide, the pay-per-view option, video-on-demand capability, and audience-measuring tool as all incorporating elements of six patents held by the plaintiffs. In addition to an order to “prevent the continued making, using, selling and making available for others to use in Canada Shaw’s infringing BlueSky TV products and services,” the plaintiffs are also asking the court to order Shaw to deliver to them “all systems and components thereof in their power, possession or control that would offend the injunction above and allow the plaintiffs to enjoy the exclusive rights afforded them by virtue of the Asserted Patents.” Kudelski said in the statement of claim that they have already suffered damages of more than $50,000 and counting. In an email statement Tuesday night, a Shaw spokesperson said that they could "confirm that a claim was served on Shaw last Friday, Feb. 24 and Shaw has engaged counsel and is assessing the claim but otherwise" the company has "no comment at this time." Bluesky uses a Comcast Corp. platform called X1, which is also set to be the base of Rogers Communications Inc.’s upcoming IPTV service. In December, one of Kudelski’s subsidiaries filed a patent infringement complaint against Comcast in U.S. District Court alleging “wrongful and unlicensed use of Plaintiff’s patented technologies in its products and services, including Xfinity digital video, audio, and other content services provided to Comcast’s customers with Xfinity X1 set-top boxes and other Comcast hardware provided to Comcast’s customers.” Three weeks later, Comcast filed its own complaint seeking declaratory judgement of patent non-infringement. “The Kudelski Group has identified monetizing its intellectual property as one of its priorities and has made repeated use of the courts of this district to attempt to enforce its patents,” the Comcast complaint said, citing previous filings made against Time Warner Cable Inc., Hulu, Netflix Inc., Apple Inc. and Yahoo Inc. — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Patent infringement claim made against Shaw’s BlueSky TV

Broadcast | February 28, 2017

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Patent infringement claim made against Shaw’s BlueSky TV

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