MUMBAI: Dolby International has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Research In Motion in the US and Germany, and seeks recovery of financial damages and injunctions to halt sales of the many RIM products that infringe Dolby's patents.

Dolby claims that its own patented technologies are used in RIM's Blackberry smart phones and Playbook tablet devices, while all other major smart phone makers have agreed to license the Dolby technologies which are subject of this litigation.

The lawsuits explains 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.

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.

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