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2 August 2016Patents

Twitter hit with patent lawsuit after ‘refusing’ licence

Social networking site Twitter has been accused of infringing five patents directed to the storage and recovery of information.

The micro-blogging site has been sued by licensing company Sound View Innovations in a complaint filed at the US District Court for the District of Delaware on July 29.

According to Sound View, it has more than 900 active and pending patents around the world including approximately 500 in the US.

The company accuses Twitter of infringing US patent numbers 5,806,062; 6,240,391; 6,408,296; 6,502,133; and 6,708,213.

The patents cover technology including apparatus for assembling voicemail messages, enhancing access to a file, and a method for streaming multimedia information over public networks.

Sound View claims that Twitter has “refused to engage in any meaningful discussions” about coming to a licensing agreement and instead “continues to wilfully infringe Sound View’s patents so as to obtain their significant benefits without paying any compensation to Sound View”.

The complaint claims that Twitter infringes claims of the patents through several technologies including its direct message feature.

Twitter messages that comprise various elements including text, links, and/or an image, and features including the storing of received message in a mailbox associated with the recipient and responding to a user’s request to view messages all infringe the patented technology, according to Sound View.

Sound View is seeking attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses.

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