U.S. Federal Court Imposes $1.6 Million on LG Electronics Over patent Infringement in NextGen TV Case

U.S. Federal Court Imposes $1.6 Million on LG Electronics Over patent Infringement in NextGen TV Case

The U.S. Federal Court of Eastern District of Texas has ordered South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc. to pay Maryland-based Constellation Designs LLC $1.68 million in damages for infringing its patents related to the ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV). The case was being heard at the U.S. District Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s Courtroom. The reasonable royalty, which was exactly $1,684,469, also included damages for the Realtek chips.

The eight-member jury, in its verdict, held that the LG defendants had failed to establish clear and convincing evidence that any of the asserted claims for four patents were invalid.

Furthermore, jury held that Constellation Designs LLC had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the LG defendants ‘willfully infringed’ on the asserted claims.

“We brought this case to establish our client’s rights and to set a rate for past damages,” stated Caldwell Cassady & Curry’s Jason Cassady, lead trial Counsel for the plaintiff- Constellation Designs.

LG Electronics defendants included LG Electronics USA, based in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

The patents in question related to a major improvement in over-the-air digital broadcasting.

In 2009, the Federal Communications Commission required all high-power analog U.S. television stations to turn off their signals and move to a digital-only transmission.

However, it was not until 2015 that Constellation Designs’ technology improved on digital transmissions by allowing broadcasting companies and consumer electronic devices to usher in the ‘NextGen TV’ broadcast standard by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, known as ATSC 3.0, according to the plaintiff’s complaint.

In 2016, an LG Electronics engineer recognized its significance in a published technical article, stating ‘ATSC 3.0 will be the first major broadcasting standard, which completely uses (non-uniform constellations) due to their outstanding properties.’

The asserted patents were for the non-uniform constellation technology and Constellation Designs alleged LG Electronics made, imported and sold televisions with receivers that use its technology.

The Constellation Designs complaint was filed in 2021 over the infringement of a series of patents used in several of LG Electronics’ popular OLED televisions.

LG denied infringement, and contended that the patents were invalid as being anticipated by prior art or being obvious by prior art. During trial, LG’s expert witness Robert Akl contended that the TV manufacturer did not infringe for four main reasons:

(a) Firstly, LG does not implement the constellation of the A/322 standard;

(b) Secondly, LG TVs, as sold, are not capable of receiving ATSC 3.0 broadcast signals;

(c) Thirdly, LG’s demapper does not operate on the ‘demodulated signal’; and

(d) Lastly LG’s TVs do not have constellation points with unique, but the same, locations.

The jury reached its decision following five days of trial and just over two hours of deliberations. The verdict was based on the plaintiff’s request for $6.75 per unit for each LG Electronics product the company had sold to date that included the infringed technology.

Accordingly, the jury in the case affirmed that the patents are valid and ordered LG to pay a reasonable royalty of $1.68 million for patent infringement.

A legal team of ten Caldwell Cassady & Curry Attorneys out of Dallas appeared for Constellation Designs (plaintiff) in the Marshall, along with three attorneys of the Washington, D.C., firm Sullivan & Cromwell, and Andrea Leigh Fair of Ward, Smith & Hill in Longview.

The defendants were represented by the Washington, D.C.-based Fish & Richardson, with Michael J. McKeon as lead attorney.