AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MONKEYmedia, Inc., the 25-year-old independent R&D lab with a track record of developing award-winning, user-friendly technology experiences, today announced that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (OTC:SSNLF) has become the newest licensee of its interactive video family of patents. With this news, Samsung joins Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Sony (NYSE: SNE) and all the major motion picture studios in having settled patent disputes over use of the proprietary technologies included in MONKEYmedia’s SeamlessTV Patent Licensing Program.
“Great user experiences require cooperation across disciplines and coordination between business entities,” said Eric Gould Bear, MONKEYmedia CEO and inventor on over 100 patents and patent applications. “Negotiating business terms is almost always more beneficial than continuing litigation and I am pleased we’ve reached a peaceful resolution with Samsung that supports our shared focus on innovation.”
“In circumstances where a plaintiff is an independent inventor or small R&D operation, spending money on legal battles that could be better spent on moving innovation forward is particularly wasteful,” explains Gene Quinn, Patent Attorney and Founder of IPWatchdog.com. “Hopefully, this case will demonstrate that fostering synergistic relationships with nimble innovators who have the ability to streamline and take risks to move technology in positive directions is a better utilization of funds.”
Following the year-long patent suit against Samsung for infringement of claims in MONKEYmedia’s portfolio of interactive media patents by Samsung’s Blu-ray, Smartphone, Tablet and Smart TV products, users of the consumer electronics company’s products will now be able to take full advantage of the technology. The inventions, rooted in pre-DVD and pre-TiVo video experiments from the 1990s, enable viewers to seamlessly branch out to optional content – such as behind-the-scenes featurettes and long-form advertisements – without missing any of the main video or audio stream. The newest patent in the SeamlessTV family of patents (US 10,051,298) issued earlier this month. Existing partner licenses are automatically extended to include these newly granted claims to MONKEYmedia’s unique forms of interactive advertising on set-top and other wireless media players.
MONKEYmedia’s SeamlessTV Patent Licensing Program makes empowering and innovative media experiences accessible to users around the world. Visit http://seamless.tv/ for more information.
ABOUT MONKEYMEDIA
MONKEYmedia is an award-winning, independent R&D lab committed to user-friendly technology experiences. Its patent portfolio includes in-house inventions that date back to 1992 and are incorporated into over 184 million movies distributed on DVD & Blu-ray. MONKEYmedia’s latest innovations use body-based navigation (“BodyNav”) techniques to address motion sickness in virtual reality, augmented reality, telepresence and drone piloting. Visit http://monkey.com/ for more information.
