OpenTV files suit against NFL

Kudelski Group’s OpenTV unit has filed a patent infringement suit against the US National Football League’s NFL Enterprises in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

The lawsuit alleges that NFL infringed seven US patents owned by OpenTV and identifies the infringing products and services as NFL’s streaming, interactive video content experience provided on NFL.com and other NFL services, including NFL Network/NFL Redzone, NFL Now, NFL Game Pass, NFL Mobile, the NFL App, and NFL Fantasy Football.

OpenTV has been active in pursuing perceived patent infringement cases. Last year it ended a suit against Apple after the latter struck a patent licensing agreement with the technology outfit.

OpenTV has previously pursued companies including Hulu, Netflix and Yahoo.

Kudelski dropped its case against Hulu in August after reach an agreement with patent risk management services firm RPX Corp.

Netflix and Kudelski Group came to an agreement in January last year whereby the pair agreed to set aside the dispute and work together, with Kudelski pre-integrating Nagra anyCAST content protection and OpenTV products with the Netflix service.

In the case of Yahoo, OpenTV launched a counter-suit after the internet giant attempted to prove it did not infringe other patents and tried to have one patent invalidated. Kudelski and Yahoo reached a deal last year after Yahoo agreed to make a one-time upfront licence fee payment.