Vizio has filed an antitrust and unfair competition lawsuit against competitor Funai Electronics, which is the latest round in a growing legal battle between Funai and several other electronics companies.
"Vizio, as America's HDTV company, has been instrumental in making high quality flat panel TVs more affordable for Americans, said Laynie Newsome, Vizio co-founder and VP sales and marketing communications. "Especially in light of the nation’s digital TV transition, we won't allow a foreign competitor to divert us from our mission to bring affordable high quality HDTVs to millions of Americans."
Funai has filed lawsuits against Vizio and several other companies, blaming they infringed on patent 5,329,369 ("Asymmetric picture compression" and 6,115,074 ("System for forming and processing program map information suitable for terrestrial, cable or satellite broadcast"). Nothing has really happened since Funai filed the infringement lawsuits, other than giving company lawyers something to do.
Vizio filed back in the United States District Court, Central District of California, claiming its Japanese competitor "acting alone and in concert with others, unlawfully restrained trade and monopolized the market for the licensing of technology used to interpret and retrieve information from a digital television broadcast signal, as well as the market for digital television sets and receivers."
Vizio believes Funai acquired the rights to one of its patents unlawfully -- it's unsure what will happen in the future from these lawsuits, if anything.
