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Fifty-one CeBIT stands raided on patent claims

Due process? Was ist das?

Toytown Germany > Discussion forum > Germany-wide > German news
BadDoggie
Heise reported last week that 180 police searched 51 CeBIT stands and closed them, taking various items taken as evidence (English version). The International Herald Tribue is now running the story. The raids were due primarily to claims of patent infringement and were't about pirated goods as initially reported by many news agencies.

QUOTE
Auslöser für die Aktion waren den Angaben der Staatsanwaltschaft zufolge Strafanzeigen der Rechteinhaber. Bei der Razzia sei es vorwiegend um Patente für Datenkompressionsverfahren, DVB-Standards und DVDs gegangen, sagte Kriminaloberrat Oliver Stock, der die Aktion koordiniert hatte und sich über einen "erfolgreichen Abschluss" freute.

The Hanoverian State's Attorney initiated the action after a complaint by the Italian company Sisvel (which also had a booth. Sisvel filed the patent complaints on behalf of companies like Philips and France Telecom. They claim that their agreements with these large firms allow them to demand licensing fees for consumer electronics devices in Europe.

Companies from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands were searched, and Sisvel claimed that some were repeat offenders. No court order had been issued at the time of the raids nor has any of the demonstrators been found in court to be violating any patent or patent agreement. In fact none of the patent claims has even been tested in court. The claimed patents belong to the MPEG1-layer3 ISO standard.

Declining exhibitor attendence has been discussed on Toytown before.

woof.
Kat
I hope they can and do sue for compensation. Typical of the bullshit way people can get screwed by harrassment suits here.
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