Verizon Denied Request to Delay Payments to ActiveVideo

A federal judge has denied a motion by Verizon Communications to receive a stay for monthly royalty payments it owes to ActiveVideo Networks, the San Jose-based television streaming company announced Tuesday.

The New York-based telecommunications company must pay up to $11 million a month in royalties to ActiveVideo for providing video-on-demand service found to violate patents, U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Jackson ruled in November in Norfolk, Va. Verizon has appealed the ruling, and sought a stay until a decision was made by the court of appeals.

Staying the royalty portion of the injunction would serve no legitimate purpose, Jackson wrote in the ruling, according to ActiveVideo's statement. It would merely provide Verizon the freedom to continue to infringe without any recourse to the prevailing plaintiff.

Verizon has filed a motion to halt the lower court's ruling with the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ed McFadden told the International Business Times in an email.

We continue to be mystified by Verizon's insistence on litigating this matter, and are grateful that the Court once again has recognized the merits of our arguments, Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo said in the statement.

In last month's ruling, the court gave Verizon until May 23 to find a way to get around ActiveVideo's technology before it must cease to use the inventions.

We are confident that the finding of patent violation will be overturned on appeal, John Thorne, Verizon's senior vice president and deputy general counsel, said in a statement given to the IBTimes following last month's decision. In the meantime we are working with the vendor of our equipment, Cisco Systems, to implement changes that will end any argument about the use of ActiveVideo's patents.

ActiveVideo won a $115 million verdict in August after a jury determined Verizon had infringed on ActiveVideo patents. The verdict award has since grown to $139.1 million and the first payment is due Dec. 16.

Shares of Verizon are up 0.48 percent to $38.53 in mid-morning trading.