Nagra and Netflix set aside legal battle and team up

Nagra owner Kudelski Group and Netflix have set aside their long-running dispute over patents and have agreed to work together.

Under a new agreement struck between the pair, Kudelski will pre-integrate its Nagra anyCAST content protection and OpenTV products with the Netflix service and the pair will all pending patent litigation in the US and agree to a long-term stay of the pending Dutch patent litigation.

The agreement follows significant court victories for Netflix in its legal battle with Kudelski at the end of last year.

In December, the Hague District Court ruled that Netflix did not infringe an OpenTV patent, and ordered the latter to pay legal costs. A Dutch case relating to a second patent was still outstanding.

Separately, a California Federal judge near-simultaneously dismissed claims made by OpenTV that Netflix had infringed two of its patents relating to customizing adverts, ruling that they were not patent-eligible under the patent Act.

The judge declined to rule on a third OpenTV claim on the grounds that the eligibility of the patent, which related to the use of HTML and other technologies to create and control interactive TV services, was still open to dispute.

The US case dates back to 2012, when OpenTV sued for invfingement of seven patents and separately filed an infringement action related to patents held by OpenTV France. The two cases were subsequently merged.