Vizio Smartcast Infringes 2 Patents for Manipulating Smartphone Content, Says ComplaintÂ
Vizio’s Smartcast system for beaming content to a TV through a smartphone app violates two patents for manipulating wireless content from a mobile device, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. Before patents 9,547,981 (granted in January 2017) and 8,135,342 (March 2012), “state of the art cell phone designs emphasized their use as standalone devices,” alleged Sockeye Licensing, which owns both patents. The patents “taught particular methods by which the cell phone could connect with and control a higher resolution display device, streaming video thereto,” it said. Each Vizio Smartcast TV “includes casting circuitry that provides a screen mirroring or casting functionality,” it said. “This allows a user to cause a Netflix movie to be downloaded from a Netflix server to the user’s smartphone, and then wirelessly cast from the smartphone to the casting circuitry for display on the TV,” violating the two patents, it said. Vizio didn’t comment Wednesday.