Harmonic, Inc. v. Avid Tech., Inc.., No. 15-1072 (Fed. Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseAvid’s patent is directed to a “system for decompressing consecutive streams of compressed video data to provide a continuous, uninterrupted decompressed video data output stream.” Many computers store video in a compressed form. One well-known compression format is MPEG. Instead of storing every video frame in full, MPEG stores only changes in one frame to the next. Before compressed video files can be played, they must be decompressed. Methods to compress and decompress videos were well known at the time of the patent application. The patent discloses that these prior art methods often generated blank frames between first and second videos when playing multiple compressed videos back-to-back due to system latency and purports to teach a system that allows play of compressed video streams one after the other without creating blank frames or a video-less gap when switching between streams by using multiple decompression buffers. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board instituted inter partes review on a subset of the grounds in Harmonic’s petition and determined that the instituted ground did not render claims of the patent unpatentable. The Federal Circuit affirmed confirmation of claims 11–16 over the instituted ground and concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to review the Board’s institution decision.
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