Los Angeles, Calif. — Rovi Technologies has filed a lawsuit against Hulu, alleging claims that the streaming television company violated several of its patents related to search products and program guides.
Filed in a U.S. District Court of Delaware, the company is seeking compensation for its alleged patent infringements as well as attorney fees and related costs, as CNET reported Monday.
“Hulu’s infringement presents significant and ongoing damages to Rovi’s business,” the company said in the filing, which further contends that Rovi has been unsuccessful in its attempts to reach a licensing agreement. Rovi already has numerous licensing agreements for program guide-related patents with companies that include Apple, Microsoft, Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner and Verizon.
Rovi, which was born when Macrovision acquired TV Guide-Gemstar, sued Amazon and Amazon’s iMDB subsidiary in January, similarly citing an inability to reach a licensing arrangement.
Hulu is jointly owned by NBCUniversal, News Corp., The Walt Disney Company, Providence Equity Partners and members of the Hulu team. The company became available for acquisition earlier this year, and among the parties said to be interested are Amazon, Yahoo!, Google and Apple. such as Hulu, to enable satellite and cable providers greater exclusivity with programming.
Rovi has scheduled its second quarter 2011 earnings release for August 9. On July 20 the company announced a multi-year agreement to expand its relationship with Best Buy’s CinemaNow to include Canada. CinemaNow in the U.S. is powered by Rovi’s RoxioNow platform and cloud services.
Related Links:
CNET – http://tinyurl.com/3bn37d9
Rovi Corp et al v Hulu LLC, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware – http://tinyurl.com/3k5hubf
