Andre Yoskowitz
22 Dec 2010 22:32
The patent holding group of Alcatel-Lucent has sued Apple, Canon, LG and TiVo this week, claiming each has violated patents on certain AT&T video codecs.
According to the complaint, all Apple devices and software violate the four hardware and software patents, including Mac computers, iOS devices, Final Cut, iLife and QuickTime
64 LG mobile phones allegedly violate the patents, as do Canon's Vixia camcorders and most of TiVo's DVRs and remote desktop apps.
The lawsuit even goes as far as to allege that LG's very new Optimus Android smartphone line violate the patents. Notably absent is the LG Optimus 7, which runs on Windows Phone 7. It appears that a past lawsuit brought against Microsoft may cover WP7 devices.
Each of the patents is related to encoding and decoding techniques for video.
It is important to note that two of the patents in the suit have already expired and may not be enforceable.