Columbia University and a group of six companies has sued Compaq
Computer for alleged patent infringement. The lawsuit, filed in a
Delaware district court, claims that Compaq products infringe a
patent that covers the MPEG-2 video compression standard.
The companies joining Columbia University in the action are
France Telecom, General Instrument Corp of the US, Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co, Philips, Victor Co of Japan and Mitsubishi
Electric Corp.
MPEG refers to the Moving Picture Experts Group. The MPEG-2
standard enables the storage and playing of full-length films on
DVDs, digital satellite TV broadcasts and digital cable TV. The
lawsuit says that computers sold by Compaq use the MPEG-2 standard
for “encoding and decoding video signals [and in DVD] movies and
DVD-ROM media."
The patent for the standard is held by seven members of MPEG-2
LA, a company formed by 16 owners of technology patents. The
company licensees the patents to third parties. Compaq refused to
join the company’s existing 250 licensees.
MPEG-2 LA has said it will sue other PC manufacturers that
infringe its patents. It has written to Apple Computer, Dell
Computer and Hewlett-Packard, demanding that they take out
licenses.
