Bose Sues Beats Electronics Over Noise Cancelling Headphone Technology Patents

Bose Corp. has filed a legal complaint on Friday against Beats Electronics for infringing on its noise canceling headphone patents.

The Framingham, Mass., sound system and headphone manufacturer is suing Culver City, Calif.-based Beats Electronics over the alleged infringement of its noise canceling headset patents, according to CNBC.

According to documents filed in the U.S. District court in Delaware, Bose alleges that Beats Studio and Studio Wireless headsets along with other Beats products that use “Adaptive Noise Cancellation” infringe on several of its held patents.

Patents involved in the suit include:

6,717,537 “Method and apparatus for minimizing latency in digital signal processing systems”

8,073,150 “Dynamically configurable ANR signal processing topology”

8,073,151 “Dynamically configurable ANR filter block topology”

8,054,992 “High frequency compensating”

8,345,888 “Digital high frequency phase compensation”

Bose alleges that Beats has infringed on its “active noise reduction” patents by producing the headphones and encouraging the use of the headphones’ noise cancelation functionality.

“Beats specifically encourages users to use the infringing functionality,” Bose alleges in the suit.

Bose is seeking “an award of damages sufficient to compensate” the headset manufacturer for the alleged patent infringements of Beats along with punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and any additional relief ruled by the court.

Bose declined to comment on the suit specifically, but provided this statement:

“The filing is comprehensive and explains our position, and as a matter of practice, we don’t comment on on-going litigation. We can share that for over 30 years, Bose has made significant investments in the research, development, engineering and design of the proprietary technologies found in our headphones. Bose's patented technologies enable the exclusive performance found in our QuietComfort® Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headphones. We are committed to protecting our investment, protecting our customers, and defending the patents we own.”

Requests for comment from Beats by International Business Times were not returned.

Beats Electronics was purchased by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in May for $3 billion. The deal is expected to finalize sometime before the end of Q4 2014, pending regulatory approval.