Appeals Court Denies Vizio Request for Import Stay in Funai Patent Fight
The U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit on Wednesday rejected Vizio’s request to stay an International Trade Commission order barring the importation of TVs that violate a Funai patent. In a four-page decision, the appeals court said Vizio didn’t meet “its burden” to win a stay of the order.
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Vizio didn’t show the “strong likelihood of success on the merits” required to win the stay, the appeals court said. The company also didn’t convince the court it “had a substantial case on the merits” and didn’t prove that it would be harmed if a stay wasn’t granted, the appeals court said. Funai and Vizio officials weren’t available for comment at our deadline. It wasn’t clear at our deadline what the impact of the appeals court decision might be on Vizio’s business or when the ITC’s exclusion order will be enforced.
The decision was Vizio’s latest setback in its legal battle against Funai. The ITC on Monday turned aside Vizio’s request for a stay of its April order during the appeal. The commission issued its order against TV imports on grounds that Vizio’s sets infringed Funai’s channel mapping patent. Vizio has said it redesigned the TVs so they don’t infringe the Funai patent, but it isn’t clear if any of the sets have shipped. The appeals court issued an emergency motion in June while it considered arguments on the ITC decision.
Funai filed a complaint with the ITC in October 2007, just months after acquiring DTV-related patents from Thomson. The channel mapping patent, issued in 2000, describes a technology allowing a DTV tuner to speed switching of channels by referring to data stored in a table.