According to Verance, Digimarc’s infringement occurred through
“Digimarc's participation in the submission of a digital
watermarking technology for consideration as an industry standard
for copy protection of audiovisual works”.
Verance has also notified the standards body reviewing the
submissions that it will not license its patents to Digimarc or any
affiliated company for use in this standard, pending the resolution
of the ongoing litigation between the two companies.
"Verance generally prefers to resolve patent licensing issues
through direct business negotiations," said Bob Cerasoli, president
and CEO of Verance. “However, we cannot permit this blatant
misappropriation of our intellectual property and will not license
any party to use Digimarc's proposed system so long as their
litigation against us continues.”
In a statement yesterday, Digimarc’s CEO Bruce Davis
responded:
"Verance seems to believe they can use a
barrage of misinformation, unfounded assertions, and inflammatory
rhetoric to divert attention from the pervasive infringement of our
patents throughout their products and services. These new claims
have no merit. We remain comfortable that the courts will affirm
our views regarding the infringements by Verance and the matters
raised in their counterclaims."
Digimarc is a member of the Video Watermarking group (VWM
group), a partnership that includes several consumer electronics
companies. On 2nd November 2001, according to Verance, the VWM
group formally submitted their digital watermarking technology to
the DVD Copy Control Association, which is seeking to establish a
copy protection standard for use with the DVD-Video format.
Digimarc has filed three patent infringement suits against
Verance related to its digital watermarking technology. Verance
denies it has infringed the patents' claims and has charged
Digimarc with violation of federal and state antitrust laws, unfair
competition laws, fraud, and breach of contract.
