Nano-Proprietary (now, apparently APNT), previously blamed for the delays in rolling out SED televisions, has lost what seems to be an important appeal.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has found that the “irrevocable, perpetual” licence agreement APNT had granted to Canon could not be terminated by APNT “notwithstanding a material breach of the agreement”. APNT dropped 17% from USD 1.09 on the Friday (25th July 2008) the decision was filed to USD 0.90 on the following Monday.
The court also confirmed that, by virtue of the licence agreement between APNT and Canon, Canon can now grant to its wholly owned subsidiary, SED Inc., a valid sublicence use the relevant APNT patents. Subsequent to APNT's initial claim SED Inc. was restructured from what was effectively a 50/50 joint venture between Canon and Toshiba into a 100% Canon subsidiary.
This is the first appeal. We're not familiar with the US appeals system, but judgment was only filed on 25th July 2008 (which we think makes it likely that it has not yet been decided whether there is any right to a further appeal). There’s a press statement from APNT dated 28th July which states that their counsel is currently “considering options”.
SED - hello glorious 55" screen with 1ms and 50,000:1 contrast - might yet appear!
[First seen at the Arstechnica forums in a post by Biggiesized]
