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123webguru News Desk
Best Buy Is Named in Lawsuit Over Patents
OTTAWA, May 21 - Patent fights over computer chips and software are everyday events. But the company that holds the patents covering V-chip television technology has taken an uncommon step in an infringement suit it initiated earlier this month in Toronto: rather than suing a maker of television sets, Tri-Vision Electronics is going after Best Buy Canada, which sells them.
"This is one case we'd prefer not to be involved in," said Murray Eldon, a spokesman for Tri-Vision International, the parent holding company, which is based in Toronto. "We believe the proper place to license is at the end of the assembly line."
The V-chip, or ViewControl, as it was originally known, allows parents to program televisions to block violent or other objectionable programming from their children based on either motion picture ratings or United States parental television guidelines that are transmitted along with most shows.
The United States and Canada require the technology to be included in all new television sets.
The process was invented in 1991 by Timothy D. Collings, who was then a professor of engineering at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Professor Collings subsequently received patents in North America and Europe.
He assigned those for commercial development to Tri-Vision, which makes set-top boxes and other devices for cable television companies.
Mr. Eldon estimated that 13 companies that do business in the United States and 23 in Canada, including Sony and Samsung, were license holders.
One holdout in Canada has been the Xiamen Overseas Chinese Electronic Company in Fujian Province in southeast China, which operates under several brand names including Xoceco and Prima Electronics.
As Mr. Eldon tells it, Tri-Vision found Xoceco to be elusive.
"In that case we had a great deal of difficulty getting an address or a telephone number to send a fax," Mr. Eldon said. "We've had absolutely no communication."
That is when Tri-Vision took, as Mr. Eldon described it, "the next step" and demanded a license from Best Buy Canada, a wholly owned unit of the Best Buy Company, which operates stores under its own name as well as the Future Shop brand throughout most of Canada.
In its filing with the Federal Court of Canada, Tri-Vision asks for an order stopping Best Buy from selling Prima televisions, including those it now has in stock.
The company also seeks damages based on the profits generated by past sales of Primas.
Lori DeCou, a spokeswoman for Best Buy Canada, which is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, declined to comment on the company's dealings with Tri-Vision or the lawsuit. She did say that Best Buy was a customer of Prima Electronics, Xoceco's Canadian subsidiary, and that it had no other relevant business dealings.
While Mr. Eldon says that Tri-Vision cannot find Prima Electronics to get in touch with it, the six-year-old company is listed in telephone directories, employs about 20 people in Canada and operates warehouses both in British Columbia and Toronto.
"They clearly didn't work very hard," said Stanley F. Swinden, the vice president of sales at Prima, adding that the Prima and Tri-Vision had exchanged communications. He declined to describe them in any detail, but added, "They know perfectly well who we are."
Teresa Scassa, associate director of the Law and Technology Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said the idea of holding a retailer responsible for patented technology contained in a product it sold was not beyond the law in Canada.
"This is on the unusual side of things," she said. "But it's certainly clear that you can sue anyone in the supply chain, down to the consumer who bought the product. And they can be liable whether they know the product is infringing or not."
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