Sony Wins Knock-out Jury Verdict

Following a three-week jury trial in a San Francisco federal court, Lerner David delivered a complete victory for its client Sony against allegations by Television Interactive Data Corporation ("TVI") that Sony's Blu ray players, DVD players, and PlayStation3 consoles infringed four TVI patents relating to "autoplay" technology. Lerner David lead trial counsel, Greg Gewirtz, presented evidence at trial that Sony had created and implemented autoplay in Sony's own optical disc players well before TVI's patents were even filed. After hearing all of the evidence, the jury found that Sony did not infringe any claim of the four patents that TVI accused Sony of infringing, and that all of the claims were invalid as both anticipated and obvious over the prior art. 

In finding the claims invalid and not infringed, the jury completely rejected TVI's request for damages of $84M plus enhanced damages for alleged willful infringement. LDLKM achieved this result after about a dozen other consumer electronics companies settled with TVI, with Sony being the only defendant to take the case to trial. As Mr. Gewirtz made clear during closing arguments, Sony had decided to fight TVI in court to obtain "true justice" based on "true principle." Lerner David was pleased to have the opportunity to vindicate Sony's position.

The asserted patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 5,597,307, 5,795,156, 6,249,863 and 6,418,532.