An agreement has been forged between Apple and the Kudelski group, with Apple paying to license a suite of media streaming patents, to conclude an international patent battle.
OpenTV's parent company, the Kudelski Group revealed the "comprehensive patent license" on Tuesday. Under the terms of the agreement, the parties agreed to dismiss all pending patent litigation. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The initial U.S complaint was filed in the Northern District of California court systen in May 2015. OpenTV was seeking compensation or royalties, along with supplemental damages for willful infringement.
The five patents that named in the OpenTV suit were awarded in the late 1990s to early 2000s, prior to the Kudelski Group's purchase of the company in 2010. The complaint centers around the iTunes implementation of storing, securing, and distributing programming to consumers to iOS devices, OS X hardware, or the Apple TV.
In March 2016, The Dusseldorf District Court ruled in favor of the Kudelski Group's OpenTV, and ruled that products using the infringed patents must not be sold in Germany. Tuesday's agreement lifts the potential ban, which was working its way through the appeal process.
The core technologies that Apple has now licensed are also at the heart of CNN Enhanced TV, DISH Network interactive shopping, and QVC real-time shopping. The Kudelski Group claims that OpenTV technologies have been integrated into over 160 million devices, mostly set-top boxes.
The Kudelski Group has licensed the OpenTV technology to Cisco, Disney, and Google. Multiple cases are still pending against other tech firms.