Echoes of Acacia: Dismissed Patent Lawsuit has a Familiar Ring (YNOT)
Read the full article by Gene Zorkin at YNOT.com
WASHINGTON – In a brief order which offered no explanation for the court’s judgment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed today the ruling of a Florida district court which dismissed a patent lawsuit filed by a company called Digital Media Technologies Inc. (“DMT”) against Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.
For those who recall a patent lawsuit filed by a company called Acacia Media Technologies against a variety of adult industry defendants, some of what I’m about to relate here may ring familiar.
In both instances, the plaintiffs alleged the defendants had infringed on patents built upon rather vague claims. In Acacia’s case, the company claimed its portfolio of patents covered a spate of digital media transmission technologies, including the streaming of video and audio over the internet. DMT’s claims pertain to a “Multimedia Network System with Content Importation, Content Exportation, and Integrated Content Management,” to quote from the patent itself.
While the appellate court didn’t remark on why it upheld the ruling of District Court Judge Mark E. Walker issued in July 2017, at the time he issued the decision, Walker had plenty to say about why he granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
So long as courts continue to apply Walker’s kind of legal reasoning to patent claims, they will serve as a bulwark against companies which assert questionable patent claims – and who use those claims as a bludgeon in seeking quick settlements from their litigation targets, as Acacia did with quite a few adult industry defendants, back in the day.
Defending a patent lawsuit isn’t cheap, though, even when the trial court dismisses the complaint relatively early in the process. Hopefully, rulings like Walker’s – and the appellate courts’ upholding thereof – will serve as a deterrent against such cases being filed in the first place.
It is not yet clear whether DMT will seek further reconsideration of its claims against Neftlix and the other defendants.
Gene Zorkin has been covering legal and political issues for various adult publications (and under a variety of different pen names) since 2002.