Universal Remote Control Inc. (URC) has announced that the California Central District Court on Monday dismissed two more Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI) patents on summary judgment, bringing the total number of dismissed patents to three of the four originally in dispute.
The court also permitted many of URC’s patent misuse defenses to proceed to trial, while UEI has attempted to dismiss them on summary judgment.
The court ruled on summary judgment in response to motions filed by both URC and UEI. The court based its rulings as a matter of law, in advance of trial, on the absence of fact issues that need to be tried.
The litigation started in March 2012 when UEI accused URC of infringing four of its patents. Following the filing of that lawsuit, UEI chairman and CEO Paul Arling stated in a press release from March 5, 2012, “[W]e spend significant resources in research and development and are proud of our innovation and industry leadership in control technology.”
URC was successful in the early stages of the proceeding. The court declared the first of the three dismissed patents invalid in February 2013. With the dismissal of two more patents this week, URC said in a press release that it believes the court will find the remaining patent invalid and not infringed. The patent is based upon an uncommon remote control programming method of pressing a number button (0 – 9) in sequence until a matching control code is found.
