A dispute between Dolby and Roku whose streaming service is available in Australia has gone to court.
Roku secretly used Dolby technology hundreds of millions of times and then “frustrated” an independent audit of its operations, claims the Dolby lawsuit which was filed at the start of this month in a federal court for the Northern District of California.
It is not yet clear which specific audio and video technologies Dolby is referring to, but it may involve Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio.
“Roku is a sophisticated technology company that sells software and hardware for audio-visual streaming on televisions through an Internet connection and generates revenue primarily through selling advertising to consumers of streaming content,” the lawsuit says.
“Roku recognises the value of intellectual property, and has stated in its securities filings that it regards protection of its own IP as ‘critical to’ Roku’s success.”
The lawsuit notes that Roku’s annual streaming revenue increased from $100 million (A$151.28 million) a year in 2015 to $3 billion (A$4.54 billion) in 2023, allegedly on the back of Dolby’s technology.
Roku is alleged to have asked for Dolby’s audio-visual technology to see if it was compatible with its Roku OS operating system, and then began to use it without permission.
Dolby contends that the companies signed a licence agreement in 2015 “solely for Roku to test Dolby software’s interoperability with Roku’s systems.”
The companies agreed in 2016 that Roku could distribute Dolby’s software under certain conditions.
However, Roku “secretly incorporated Dolby’s intellectual property in its software at least between 2016 and 2020, lied to Dolby about its use of the technology and refused to cooperate with an audit,” claims Dolby.
It said that the purpose of suing is because of “Roku’s clear breaches of the licence agreements between the parties, Roku’s widespread and continued copyright infringement, Roku’s past patent infringement, Roku’s active concealment of its misconduct, and Roku’s other wrongful acts.”
Dolby said that it aims “to recover the substantial royalties and other legal damages” Roku owes it.
It hasn’t specified the amount it is seeking in damages, but Roku was given 21 days to file a response.
