Via Announces Settlement with Vestel

Vestel executes AAC Patent License Agreement and pays fees for unlicensed past practice

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Vestel Elektronik San. Ve Tic. A.S. (Vestel), a major European supplier of TVs and other electronics products, has agreed to pay royalties to Via Licensing Corporation (Via) for its past and future use of the patents in Via’s Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) patent pool, settling a series of patent infringement lawsuits filed in 2015. In four separate infringement actions against Vestel’s German subsidiary, Via AAC pool licensors Fraunhofer IIS, NEC Corporation, Orange S.A., and Koninklijke Philips N.V. each sought injunctions to ban the importation of Vestel’s infringing products containing AAC into Germany.

“We are very pleased that Vestel has chosen to take a license and pay for its past use of AAC. Via and the AAC licensors welcome Vestel into the AAC patent pool,” said Joe Siino, President of Via. “The course of the litigation and Vestel’s agreement to take a license support our view that patent pools are the most cost-effective and procompetitive way to achieve a fair and level playing field for the marketplace.”

This global settlement was achieved after four separate oral hearings in the district courts in Mannheim and Düsseldorf, Germany. The outcome of these public hearings signaled a clear victory for the AAC pool licensors, where the panel of judges at these courts considered the licensors’ patents to be infringed and Vestel’s purported FRAND defense to be unsuccessful. The Mannheim Court highlighted that the Via AAC pool’s license was reasonable and that the pool licensors had conducted themselves appropriately before filing the lawsuits. The court commented that the Via pool has established a benchmark for the Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing of essential AAC patents.

“The licensors in Via’s AAC pool are the very innovators whose groundbreaking research, capital investments, and inventions brought the world this important technology. Via’s licensors have made these patented inventions available to the industry through Via’s pool on FRAND terms,” said Andrew Fischer, Director of the AAC Patent Licensing Program. “Via and the licensors are committed to ensuring that licensees are not unfairly disadvantaged by any infringing entity which is competing on an unequal basis by failing to obtain the necessary rights to the essential AAC patents.”

About Via Licensing Corporation

Via Licensing Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc., a company with more than 50 years of experience in innovation and technology licensing. Via is dedicated to the development and administration of licensing programs for mandated, de facto, and emerging standards on behalf of innovative technology companies in the audio, broadcast, wireless, and automotive markets. For more information about Via, please visit via-corp.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160718005222/en/

Via Licensing Corporation
Sean Durkin, 1-415-645-4700
[email protected]

Source: Via Licensing Corporation

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