Dolby announced on Wednesday that it has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Waterloo, Canada-based Research In Motion in the U.S. and in Germany. The suit seeks the recovery of financial damages resulting from RIM’s infringing products, and it also looks to halt sales of multiple BlackBerry devices. The patents in question cover “highly efficient digital audio compression technologies” that minimize storage space occupied by high quality audio files. Dolby claims that RIM uses these technologies in its BlackBerry smartphones and its PlayBook tablet, but it does not pay Dolby licensing fees as all other major manufacturers do. “Litigation was regrettably our last resort after RIM declined to pay for the use of Dolby’s technology,” Dolby EVP and general counsel Andy Sherman said in a statement. “We have a duty to protect our intellectual property.” Dolby’s full press release follows below.

Dolby Sues Research In Motion for Patent Infringement; Seeks Sales Halt Of Unlicensed Blackberry and Playbook Devices and Monetary Damages For Past Use

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dolby Laboratories (NYSE:DLB), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Dolby International, has filed patent infringement lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany against Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RiMM), a Canadian manufacturer of wireless handset and tablet devices. The lawsuits seek recovery of financial damages and injunctions to halt sales of the many RIM products that infringe Dolby’s patents.

The lawsuits explain that RIM infringes Dolby patents covering highly efficient digital audio compression technologies which allow manufacturers and consumers to provide and enjoy high quality audio while using extremely limited amounts of transmission and/or storage space for such audio. RIM employs Dolby’s patented technologies in its Blackberry smart phones and Playbook tablet devices, without having obtained licenses from Dolby, the lawsuits say. All other major smart phone makers have agreed to license the Dolby technologies which are the subject of this litigation.

Dolby’s patented technologies, which have been incorporated into the international standard known as High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (“HE AAC”), provide the core of HE AAC. Demonstrating the value of the Dolby technologies, HE AAC is widely used in consumer electronics devices such as smart phones, portable music players, and computer tablets to play back music and other digitized audio that has been compressed to less than 10% of its original digital file size.

“Litigation was regrettably our last resort after RIM declined to pay for the use of Dolby’s technology,” said Andy Sherman, executive vice president and general counsel of Dolby. “We have a duty to protect our intellectual property.”

The U.S. lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The German lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.

Here’s a little additional fodder for the iPad 2 rumor mill. Japanese blog Macotakara has posted a nearly three-minute video showcasing what are — purportedly — third-party cases for Apple’s second generation iPad. Previously, the same blog leaked images of what they were claiming was the exterior casing of the new device. The iPad 2 is expected to launch sometime in 2011 with the exact release date ranging anywhere from February to July — depending on which analyst’s opinion you fancy. Hit the jump to check out the aforementioned video.

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One of our ninjas was nice enough to drop by the BGR offices with a gift. And ooooh baby, it’s a nice gift! We’re not going to beat around the bush — we’ll put this little bugger exactly where it belongs — a review will be coming. But for now, here’s some quick impressions followed by a couple more money shots:

• Best BlackBerry keyboard. Ever.
• Best BlackBerry speakers. Ever.
• Best screen. Ever. (It looks more like glass than crappy plastic)
• Best size/feel. Ever.

That was quick, no? Any questions?

According to mobile maniac Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-Review, Nokia is in for a world of hurt as more than one million 5800 XpressMusic handsets currently in the hands of users may be defective. Ouch. Long story short: Muratzin bought 10 5800XMs a while back and the speakers died within a few months — on all of them! He began to investigate the matter and, in the process, got Nokia Eurasia’s head of PR to fess up to the issue. Apparently Nokia’s original speaker supplier turned out to be a dud. Nokia switched as soon as it could but 5800XM handsets made before February likely have the defective speakers in them. So in other words, the 5800 NAM is finally here but you might want to think twice before purchasing one until Nokia Europe and Nokia US have an official statement on this, which will hopefully be ASAP. If you already have a 5800, your local Nokia customer care line should be able to tell you if your handset is affected based on your IMEI. Hit the jump for the purported statement from Vitoria Eremena, head of Nokia PR for Eurasia courtesy of Mobile-Review.

The problematic speakers were replaced with speakers from another supplier, both in production and warehouses. I’d like to emphasize that we have replaced not only the speakers but also their supplier, i.e. at the moment we use speakers from the new supplier at our manufacturing plants, as well as in our service centers. It is very easy to confirm this, because the new speakers are visually different (see the picture above.)

Service centers started receiving the new speakers during the last decade of January, so all users who replaced the speakers since then shouldn’t face this problem.

It should be also noted that Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is one of our focus products, so its sales were watched carefully by our R&D department from the beginning; and, as soon as we heard about this matter, an R&D rep was dispatched to Russia to work on the problem on site.

The secondary replacement issues reported by Mobile-Review were related to the first phones and, at that moment, there was no solution to the problem, so the defective speakers were replaced with speakers from the same (at that time)  supplier. When the problem was studied more carefully and it became clear that the new speakers (from the same supplier) do not solve the problem, the supplier was changed, the plants started putting new speakers in, and service centers started getting speakers from the new supplier too. I can not name the supplier of the defective speakers, but it is a very respected company with a world-known name, whose  quality of products nobody doubted. But, unfortunately, these things happen, most likely, to everyone.

It should be emphasized that, for these kinds of quantities, and for a global company like Nokia, to solve a problem within a month is a very short time. Sure, a record number of devices were sold during December, and fewer buyers would have been faced with this problem if the sales had been lower. But please believe me, we have been seriously working on the speaker quality problem and we think that, for the moment, the problem is solved.

So, the 5800 XpressMusic can now be bought without any fears. And if you had to replace your speakers, from the end of January – everything should be all right;  if you bought the phone earlier and you have problems, now they can truly be solved in service centers by replacing the speakers.

[Via UV]

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According to the rumors floating around the Sony Ericsson blogs, a Sony Ericsson announcement is planned for Thursday November 6th. The highlight of the announcement is to be the formal launch of the Rika as the Walkman W705 – the Walkman version of the G705 which sports the following specs:

• 2.4″display (320×240)
• 3.2MP non-AF camera with LED flash
• Wi-Fi, aGPS, Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP)
• 4 Gb M2 and HPM-77
• Clear Audio Experience (similar to the W902/W980)
• YouTube application
• Chat view for messaging
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Available in Passionate Red and Luxury Silver

An Orange-branded version of the W705 is also expected to be confirmed. In addition to the Rika/W705, Sony Ericsson is expected to announce the MBS-900, a high end portable wireless speaker. The MBS-900 is a 2.1 wireless speaker that has Bluetooth, touch controls and an OLED display. A somewhat disappointing lineup for the final announcement of 2008 but considering the state of the global economy, a slowdown in handset releases is not entirely surprising.

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