Reported by Mat Gallagher
Red Digital, maker of the Red One, EPIC and Scarlet, has started proceedings in the Southern California District Court against Sony Corp and Sony Electronics Inc, alleging infringement of two of its patents. As reported by Deadline, Red Digital claims that Sony’s F55, F65 and F5 cameras ‘unlawfully embody the claimed subject matter of US patent numbers 8174560 and 8358357’ without licence. Soon after the launch of the Sony F5 and F55 back in October 2012, Red Digital CEO Jim Jannard took to the Reduser forum, stating ‘these two camera announcements are significant… While I do not see them as a threat to EPIC or Scarlet’ Jannard continued, ‘I do see them as a threat to the conventional and outdated thinking of the industry that tried so hard to cling to “1080P and 2K are good enough”. However, Red Digital’s Complaint that was posted on Deadline, states that ‘Sony’s unauthorized infringing camera sales has resulted in lost sales, reduced the business and profit of Red, and greatly injured the general reputation of Red’.
According to Deadline.com, if Red Digital is successful in persuading the US court that its patents are “valid and enforceable” it wants Sony to stop sale of the cameras and have the destroyed. It is unclear at this point what would happen internationally if a US court rules in Red Digital’s favour.
Sony has not responded to our enquiries at time of writing.
The patents are available to view below.
Patent 1: http://www.google.com/patents/US8174560
Patent 2: http://www.google.com/patents/US8358357
