EFI Claims Victory in Lawsuit Brought by a Patent Troll

FREMONT, CA—EFI announced that it has prevailed in a court case filed against the company in what it characterizes as a "patent troll" attempt to extract a settlement. In early July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit confirmed that a device profile patent asserted by a subsidiary of the non-practicing entity Acacia Research against EFI and 31 other companies is invalid.

Digitech Image Technologies, a subsidiary of Acacia, filed a patent infringement suit in a California federal court in August 2012 against EFI, certain EFI strategic partners and others. In August 2013, the district court invalidated the patent and entered judgment in favor of EFI and the other defendants.

Digitech appealed and, on July 11, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision. The Federal Circuit recognized that the device profiles claimed in Digitech's patent were simply "a collection of intangible color and spatial information" and therefore not eligible for patenting.

Although Digitech had previously garnered settlements from some companies, EFI noted it opposed Digitech's claims from the start.