Anti-Piracy Tool Patent May Land Warner Bros in Trouble

Back in 2003, German-based company Medien Patent Verwaltung (MPV) previewed and disclosed its anti-piracy tools for Warner Bros, Technicolor and Deluxe at their request. Now, after seven years, the company decided to file a patent-infringement lawsuit against all those companies mentioned above.

MPV claims that Warner Bros used its technology all these years to track down movie pirates across European cinemas without paying for the proper (or any) license. This means that, in a weird, twisted way, Warner Bros used pirated technology to track down pirates. Or so it seems until the court rules out on this complaint.

"We disclosed our anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros, in 2003 at their request, under strict confidentiality, expecting to be treated fairly," an MPV representative said. "Instead, they started using our technology extensively without our permission and without any accounting to us. However, we had taken care to obtain patents to protect MPV's technology, and we are now in a position where we must assert our rights."

The technology in question would allow Hollywood studios to mark film rolls with a distinctive trackable code. If any copies are made from that roll, the studios would then be able to track them down to the original and get the location or places where it was screened. This would allow police investigations to be much faster, the studio's narrowing down the search area for them.

According to MPV, the technology was implemented by Warner Bros in European cinemas since 2004.

We would have provided a link to the original filed complaint, but it seems there was a mistake in its title that targeted another Warner Bros. technology used and owned by TimeWarner. MPV's attorney admitted the mistake for The Hollywood Reporter and said they would resubmit the complaint in the following days with the right title. The original lawsuit was filed in both a New York and German court of law at the start of May 2010.

For now, Warner Bros hasn't issued any statement regarding the complaint or the aforementioned MPV technology.