AudioQuest Prevails in Dielectric-Bias System Patent Ruling

On December 13, 2006, the US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the August 8, 2005 grant of summary judgment in favor of AudioQuest, finding that the district court had correctly terminated Monster Cable's January 5, 2004 assertion that AudioQuest's Dielectric-Bias System (DBS) willfully infringed upon Monster's Bias Circuit System (BCS) patent (US Patent No.5,307,416 for Audio Interconnect & Speaker Cable, "Bias Circuit System").

Monster's suit alleged that AudioQuest's Earth Feature and Circular Array cables infringed upon its mid-1990s cable-biasing system, in which a coaxial cable leaving a component was energized with voltage, which was then removed before the signal entered another component or loudspeaker. AudioQuest's DBS was not similar at all, argued the Irvine, CA–based manufacturer, since it did not employ coaxial cable nor did the biasing charge coexist with the audio signal, being carried instead by the dielectric material within the cables.

The district court's August 2005 decision in AudioQuest's favor was protested by Monster, which took things to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The December decision should end the two-year saga.

Monster has a reputation for aggressively pursuing threats to its trademark and technologies, most notably suing Disney for the film Monsters, Inc. and the Chicago Bears, who are known as "Monsters of the Midway." AudioQuest's founder and chief designer Bill Low said, "It looks like we may have been the first company who has prevailed when subjected to a technology-based legal action by Monster Cable. We are proud of the fact that we held our ground against Monster’s aggressive tactics, and I am certainly pleased that we ultimately prevailed."

In what AudioQuest characterized as a "related action," the US Patent and Trademark Office has granted AudioQuest’s Dielectric-Bias System a patent (US Patent No.7,126,055).

X