Earlier this month, the Regional Court of Hamburg has issued a preliminary injunction against the DVD FLLC claim that the 0.6mm disc is a violation of the DVD FLLC license agreement and can result in the termination of licensee agreement.

The case was successfully brought by Swiss-based EcoDisc Technology AG, developer and promoter of the 0.6mm eco-friendly disc. The German Court agreed that the DVD FLLC claim that the EcoDisc is not DVD-compliant and that such 0.6mm discs have caused damages to some playback devices is erroneous.

“The EcoDisc is not a DVD, is thus obviously not compliant with the DVD Format and doesn’t pretend to be," says Wilhelm F Mittrich, the company Managing Director. "Also, the EcoDisc is not using the DVD Logo, which is protected by DVD FLLC, but the EcoDisc Logo which is trademarked in the key markets.”

The special features of the EcoDisc are the subject of a number of European, international and US patent applications which are not in conflict with the DVD patents of the 4C/Philips patent pool and the MPEG-LA patent pool. Mittrich makes it clear that a number of patents of both pools are used in the manufacture of an EcoDisc and EcoDisc manufacturers are being advised to pay their royalties to these patent pools for the EcoDisc as well.

As regards alleged playback damages, EcoDisc Technology says the results of an intensive testing of the disc by the Professional Multimedia Test Centre in Belgium that covered 132 different DVD playback systems provide clear evidence that the EcoDisc is compatible with these systems like a conventional DVD. Problems that had occurred in some Apple Mac computers have nothing to do with the playability of the EcoDisc, but were caused by a Matsushita DVD slot–in drive model previously used by Apple, which did not meet the specifications of slot-in mechanisms defined in the Blue Book issued by the DVD Forum.

According to Court documents, the injunction against DVD FLLC is based on European anti-trust law and German unfair competition law. “Any single violation of this injunction by DVD FLLC will lead to a fine of €250,000 or imprisonment of up to 6 months.” DVD FLLC can appeal the decision.

“At a time when reducing the carbon footprint is at the top of the world agenda and when Wal-Mart imposes it as a requirement to their suppliers, it is unfortunate that DVD FLLC should threaten those licensees that want to manufacture an environmentally-friendly disc like ours on erroneous legal grounds as the court ruling shows,” Mittrich told DVD Intelligence.

The EcoDisc – engineered to use 50% less polycarbonate, 50% less energy in production, generate 52% less carbon dioxide emissions, and is free of the non-biodegradable, toxic bonder that is used to bond the two halves of a standard DVD – launched in North America last week.

Since manufacturing started in Europe during the summer of 2007, tens of millions of EcoDiscs have been produced and distributed, many as covermounts.

The company will launch the EcoDisc CD Audio and EcoDisc CD ROM later this year, and the EcoDisc Double Layer DVD Video and DVD ROM (8,5 GB) are planned for early 2010.

Story filed 27.04.09