Sony BD Goods With Cinavia Watermarks Infringe 2007 Patent: Complaint
At least eight models of Sony Blu-ray players, plus all PlayStation 3, PS4 and PS5 game consoles with Blu-ray drives, infringe an October 2007 patent (7,289,961) on audio watermarking from two University of Rochester engineering professors because the products come embedded with Cinavia copy protection watermark detectors, alleged a complaint Wednesday (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware.
Cinavia, developed and licensed by Verance, has been mandatory in all new Blu-ray players since 2012 after the final Advanced Access Content System (AACS) license for Blu-ray copy protection was approved in 2009 (see 0906180101). Cinavia prevents playback of movies that were illegally camcorded in theaters or copied from an authentic Blu-ray release onto a blank disc. Blu-ray movies aren’t required to bear the watermark, but Blu-ray players are required to detect it. Cinavia is deployed by more than 100 "leading entertainment and technology companies, in over 300 million consumer devices worldwide, and over 50 million movies and television programs," says the Verance website.
Sony’s Blu-ray players use Cinavia detectors to “extract the watermark from the audio signal embedded in media content,” in direct infringement of the 2007 patent under the "doctrine of equivalents," alleged the complaint by MZ Audio Sciences, its name derived from the first initials of the patent's two inventors. Mark Bocko directs the University of Rochester’s Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences. Zeljko Ignjatovic is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university, it said. Bocko and Ignjatovic developed their technology for military and civilian uses through a grant from the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, the complaint said.
The doctrine of equivalents is a legal rule in patent law under which a party can be liable for infringement even if it doesn't literally infringe every limitation of a patent claim, blogged Gottlieb Rackman, unrelated to the MZ Audio-Sony case. The Bocko-Ignjatovic inventions "have the advantage over prior art of being undetectable and robust to blind signal processing attacks and of being uniquely robust to digital to analog conversion processing," said the complaint. Though earlier audio watermarking technologies "were susceptible to hacking," the Bocko-Ignjatovic inventions "involve application of the watermark to the audio channel in a way that resists hacking," it said.
The suit names Sony Pictures as a co-defendant for marketing Blu-ray movies with embedded Cinavia watermarks and Sony Digital Audio Disc Corp. in Terre Haute, Indiana, for replicating those discs. The complaint doesn’t name Verance as a defendant, but it faults Sony‘s “leadership role in promoting and adopting the infringing technology” through the AACS licensing program and the Blu-ray Disc Association.
Sony was “an early first adopter and evangelist for widespread adoption and use of the Cinavia technology,” said the suit. “Sony and Verance worked so closely together on the technology and its promotion that Cinavia created a revolving door between Sony and Verance for employees and senior executives whereby Sony has employed multiple former Verance executives, and Verance leadership has similarly included a number of former Sony executives.”
MZ Audio seeks monetary damages “in an amount adequate to compensate for Sony’s infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty” for Sony’s use of the Cinavia technology, said the complaint. “Unless a permanent injunction is issued enjoining Sony” from continuing to infringe the patent, MZ Audio “will be greatly and irreparably harmed,” it said. Neither Sony nor Verance responded Monday to our emailed requests for comment. We also queried lead MZ Audio lawyer Brian Farnan for comment on his legal strategy, but he also didn't respond.