Struggling phone maker Research In Motion, the makers of the Blackberry, have been hit by a patent-infringement lawsuit from Dolby Laboratories who claim that the Canadian phone and tablet maker infringed Dolby patents covering highly efficient digital audio-compression technologies.
Dolby filed their claims in both the U.S. and Germany. In a statement issued overnight Dolby said its wholly owned subsidiary Dolby International would seek financial damages and an injunction against sales of RIM products that it alleges use the technology.
They said the technology at issue has been incorporated into an international standard that is widely used in smartphones, tablets and other devices to play back music and other digitised audio that has been compressed.
Licensing accounts for most of Dolby’s revenue, making up around four-fifths of the total over the past two years. The company pulled in $214.6 million in licensing revenue in the quarter ended April 1, up 10% from a year earlier. Dolby looks at the mobile-device market as an area where it could boost revenue
RIM declined to comment on the action.
