The UK Court of Appeal in London affirmed a 2013 High Court judgment in favor of ASSIA on one important broadband management patent and determined that British Telecom infringes a second, more fundamental patent covering dynamic spectrum management techniques.
ASSIA said the Court of Appeal judgment holds that BT infringes two key ASSIA patents in its management of the rapidly growing “Next Generation Architecture” UK superfast broadband network. ASSIA’s patents at issue in the trial describe sophisticated techniques for rapidly optimizing millions of broadband connections without human intervention.
According to a recent BT announcement, 203,000 new customers subscribed to the operator’s superfast broadband offering between July and September 2014, bringing the total number of BT superfast broadband customers to 3.3 million as of September 30.
“Today’s ruling affirms ASSIA’s role as an innovator in the field of broadband performance optimization,” said ASSIA General Counsel Noah Mesel. “Two dozen major operators around the world license our products because they recognize the significant value ASSIA’s software uniquely adds to their businesses. As BT continues to grow the part of their business that infringes ASSIA’s patents, it is time for them to join companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Sky, and Bouygues, and license our software; otherwise BT should pay for infringing our patented technology.”
