Audioholics Info Subpoenaed in LG Lawsuit?!

Audioholics founder and president Gene DellaSala recently received an unusual and somewhat unsettling email from Google. The email said that Google had “received a subpoena for information related to (the Audioholics) Google account in a case entitled Multimedia Technologies PTE. Ltd. v. LG Electronics Inc. and LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc.” We later learned that this was an ongoing case in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and that the lawsuit had been originally filed in December of 2022. The email served as notice that “Google may produce information related to (the Audioholics) Google account in response to this subpoena,” and that Gene would need to “email a file-stamped copy of a motion to quash or other type of formal objection” if he wanted to prevent Google from doing so. Gene had no desire to get tangled in a lawsuit, but asked me to try to figure out what was going on.

After some investigation online, I found the 46-page lawsuit and read the whole thing so you don’t have to. The short version is that a company called Multimedia Technologies is suing LG Electronics for patent infringement. There are at least 11 patents named, all relating to Smart TV user interface technology. I then contacted the attorney who served the subpoena to Google. She was as helpful as she could be, but the nature of an ongoing lawsuit prohibited her from divulging too much information. She also asked that she be neither quoted nor named, should I write about the situation for Audioholics. But what she was able to share was that her firm represented the defendants, LG Electronics, and that the subpoena simply asked Google to confirm the publication date of a particular YouTube video, which had been up on the Audioholics channel since 2011! She also clarified that the Audioholics video was one of at least seven, from a variety of channels, being sited as evidence by the defense.

The civil lawsuit brought by Multimedia Technologies claimed that a number of products from LG Electronics — specifically the brand’s large roster of Smart TVs — featured technologies that were protected by patents owned by Multimedia Technologies. The demand? Cash, of course. 

The patents named in the lawsuit included the following:

• On Screen Method And System For Changing Television Channels
• Method And System For Locating Programming On A Television
• Systems And Methods For Providing User Interfaces In An Intelligent Television
• Panel User Interface For An Intelligent Television
• Systems And Methods For Providing Video On Demand In An Intelligent Television
• Application Panel Manager
• Live Television Application On Top Of Live Feed

Background

Flex Ltd (formerly Flextronics International Ltd) is a designer of user interfaces and related technology for TVs, smartphones, and other electronics. In January of 2012, Flex teamed up with the Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer Hisense to form Jamdeo, a joint venture to serve as a design and engineering company for clients seeking an end-to-end user interface solution for Smart TVs, set-top boxes, and media streamers. 

Jamdeo developed a platform that was integrated into Hisense’s VIDAA TV operating system, which debuted in 2013 in China. This platform was considered a success, and millions of these TVs were sold. Before the advent of VIDAA, Hisense had tried, unsuccessfully, to develop Smart TVs that were competitive with the offerings of other manufacturers, such as LG and Samsung. According to the lawsuit, the early attempts by these other manufacturers may have been commercially successful, but they were less sophisticated than what Flex and Hisense built under the Jamdeo umbrella.

From the lawsuit:

Flex’s approach to Smart TV design allow (sic) for multiple benefits over a normal TVs and early attempts by competitors — including LG — at developing Smart TVs. One important improvement is that Flex’s approach enabled a Smart TV to present to a user an intuitive and easily operable overlay, rather than a cumbersome desktop approach, that provides a seamless user interaction capability in the television environment. Flex applied for and was granted dozens of patents that relate to intelligent TV technologies and the benefits derived therein, including the Asserted Patents. Flex subsequently assigned the Asserted Patents to Multimedia Technologies.

According to the lawsuit, Smart TV systems predating Flex’s innovations failed to provide seamless and intuitive user interfaces for navigating and/or executing the various features of the Smart TV. LG was one of the first TV manufacturers to mass-market a Smart TV in the United States. Since 2014, the LG webOS operating system has been installed on LG Smart TVs and has continued to improve over time. According to Multimedia Technologies, features of the webOS platform infringe upon the patents listed above, and therefore “all models of LG’s currently offered lines of products — OLED TVs, QNED MiniLED TVs, NanoCell TVs, and 4K Ultra HD TVs — are in violation of the law. LG must, according to the lawsuit, pay to Multimedia Technologies all damages suffered by Multimedia as a consequence of LG’s infringement of the patents, along with “pre- and post-judgment and interest and costs as fixed by the Court.”

The Subpoena

We’ll have to speculate some here, but it seems that LG’s attorneys might challenge the notion that Flex’s innovations are being copied by webOS and other current Smart TV platforms. (I would be very surprised if LG is the only manufacturer being sued over these patents.) When I spoke to the attorney who served Google with the subpoena, she was able to tell me that the Audioholics video in question was a Samsung Smart TV Video Review posted on April 20th, 2011. In the video, Clint DeBoer — formerly of audioholics.com — described the capabilities of Samsung’s LED 8000 Series Smart TV. While modern audiences would consider these capabilities somewhat crude and limited, they were groundbreaking for their day. The video served not only as a review of Samsung’s Smart TV approach, but also as an explainer for the concept of Smart TVs in general, which were still in their infancy in 2011. It racked up over 81,000 views. After receiving a copy of the subpoena from Google, I discovered that Google was being asked to confirm the publication dates of at least six other videos from other YouTube channels. All were somewhat similar to ours, providing reviews and explanations of early examples of Smart TVs — dating before the arrival of Hisense’s VIDAA TV in 2013.

We can only assume that LG Electronics and its legal team will use these videos as evidence that companies like Samsung and LG already offered versions of the patented technologies in question before those patents were ever granted, and indeed before Flex and Hisense even set out to build the platform that later became Hisense VIDAA. Large tech companies engage in patent lawsuits almost constantly, and they don’t always make headlines in the process. We will have to wait and see what effect, if any, the Audioholics video has on the proceedings of this case. I have to admit breathing a sigh of relief on Gene’s behalf when I learned the details of the subpoena mentioned in the email from Google. Nobody wants to get caught up in a legal battle, and I’m just glad that, whatever happens with Multimedia Technologies PTE. Ltd. v. LG Electronics Inc., it’s business as usual here at Audioholics.