Sony Sued Over Blu-ray Patent Infringement

What's that Sony sued again for patent infringement? Yes, not content to just be getting over a settlement with Kodak over 10 digital camera patents and another with Immersion that dealt with force feedback controls on the Playstation2, Sony is being dragged into court again - this time over Blu-ray Disc manufacturing technology.

The challenging patent in question:

Metal alloys for the reflective or the semi-reflective layer of an optical storage medium

Abstract: A silver-based alloy thin film is provided for the highly reflective or semi-reflective coating layer of optical discs. Elements that can be added to silver to produce useful silver alloys include zinc, aluminum, copper, manganese, germanium, yttrium, bismuth, scandium, and cobalt. These alloys have moderate to high reflectivity and reasonable corrosion resistance in the ambient environment.

The patent is held by Target Technology and was filed on April 16, 2004, and awarded on March 28, 2006. The general complaint is being filed against the discs themselves, not the payers, and it would be supposed that Sony could possibly alter its manufacturing method. In either case, Target is requesting a jury trial, a formal statement that the patents are valid and enforceable, unspecified damages and an injunction against Sony which would keep them from manufacturing additional discs. Obviously Sony and the studios will need to move forward with BD manufacturing so it stands to reason that they will be ponying up whatever settlement fees are required to keep the discs in production.

What is uncertain is how much this will be and what it means to future manufacturing processes of the discs. It's possible that Sony will pay licensing fees, but if that happens, Toshiba would be very foolish indeed to not attempt to go to the table once more and strike a deal on a combinable HD-DVD format. Whether this is even possible or just another pipe dream is unknown, but the industry would be much better off if it happened. Sony is arguably big enough that a royalty fee for sidestepping this patent may not even dent the company or cause more than a minor stock hiccup.