Watch Dogs publisher wins summary judgment in “patent troll” case.
Ubisoft announced a big win on the legal battleground this week, as the company received a summary judgment in its favor against Digital Reg of Texas, LLC., a patent assertion entity. Digital Reg had filed a patent infringement suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Ubisoft, Symantec Corporation, and Adobe Systems, claiming that the companies had violated patents relating to “regulating”, “tracking”, “delivering”, and “securing” digital content. Ubisoft was specifically accused of violating the “tracking” and “delivering” portions of the patents through its Uplay platform. In response, the trio of Defendants asked the court for a summary judgment of non-infringement.
On Tuesday, United States District Court Judge Claudia Wilkins, citing “several reasons” listed in her decision, ruled that Ubisoft had not violated the patents in question and allowed the company to remove itself from the lawsuit. Among the reasons listed for Ubisoft’s victory was a previous settlement agreement Digital Reg made with Valve over its Steam platform. Since Valve’s license agreement covered “third party use”, Ubisoft was automatically covered under that part of Digital Reg’s claims.
In its statement about Tuesday’s victory, Ubisoft said it is “determined to aggressively fight patent cases that target the company and its innovations and technologies. Ubisoft is committed to defending itself against patent assertion entities – referred to as patent ‘trolls’ — that assert invalid or inapplicable patents against the company or the industry.”
