Universal Electronics said Friday that the company has filed suit against Logitech, charging Logitech with infringing seventeen patents that affect Logitech's Harmony remotes and the Logitech Revue.
The complaint covers several members of the Logitech Harmony remote-control line, including the Harmony H300, H650, H700, H900, One, H1100, and the remote control for the Logitech Revue for Google TV, UEI said. The suit also includes Harmony remote-control apps for iOS and Android platforms.
Logitech said that it disputed the merits of the UEI claim and would challenge it in court.
"The decision to proceed with this patent infringement filing was based on careful consideration of all of the issues," said Richard A. Firehammer Jr., UEI's senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement. "UEI has positive business relationships with much of the consumer electronics industry. Nevertheless, the decision was made to look to the court system to ensure that UEI is fairly compensated for the use of its technology. We are confident that the strength of our intellectual property will be upheld."
Both companies acknowledged that Logitech had licensed the patents from UEI beginning in 2004, via a renewable license that Logitech said was done to settle a lawsuit against the Logitech Harmony remotes that was filed by UEI, regarding the Harmony remotes.
But both sides failed to renew the license after the most recent period expired, leaving the matter to the court.
Prior to the expiration of the license, throughout the remainder of 2010 and until the filing of this complaint, UEI sought to negotiate reasonable business terms for the renewal of the license agreement but Logitech was not willing to do so, UEI said in a statement. Meanwhile, Logitech continued selling its products that were previously covered under the license agreement without permission or proper payment, according to the lawsuit.
For its part, Logitech said that it declined to renew the license on the same terms because the originally contested patents "had either expired or were licensed during the patent application stage and, after the patents were granted, were determined to be inapplicable to Logitech products," Logitech said.
Logitech also said that four of the patents named in the suit were newly raised, and had not been part of the original suit. Three patents had since expired, Logitech added. The remaining ten patents in the lawsuit include some that Logitech said that it had determined to be inapplicable to its products, and some that Logitech licensed as inapplicable patent applications, the company said.
"Logitech has a strong intellectual property (IP) portfolio for remote-control technology," said Ashish Arora, Logitech vice president and general manager of the Digital Home business unit, in a statement. "With the acquisition of our Harmony remote control business in 2004, which has become the leading brand in advanced universal remotes, we obtained patent applications on that technology that have subsequently become issued patents. We have also developed our own new patented technology and acquired additional patents.
"Logitech respects the intellectual property rights of others, and has a history of purchasing or licensing patents when needed," Arora added. "However, we are confident that Logitech does not need a license from UEI. We believe that UEI's lawsuit is without merit and we are confident that we will prevail in court."