US inventor sues Adobe, Fox and NFL Network for patent infringement
A US patent owner has sued Adobe, Fox Entertainment Group and NFL Network, a sports TV network, in three separate patent infringement lawsuits.
William Grecia filed the suits yesterday, October 31.
The Adobe suit was filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, and the Fox and NFL suits were both filed ( here and here) at the Northern District of Illinois.
The suits focus on US patent number 8,533,860, titled “Personalised digital media access system—(PDMAS) part II”.
It covers “an apparatus that facilitates access to a data source to accept verification and authentication from an enabler using at least one token and at least one reference”.
Grecia also claimed that US patent number 8,402,555, with the same title, was infringed by the companies.
The ‘555 patent covers “an apparatus that facilitates access to encrypted digital media to accept verification and authentication” from an enabler.
Grecia said in the Adobe suit that the technology company had infringed claim 8 of the ‘860 patent through its Adobe Creative Cloud (ACC) product.
The ACC is a membership product that allows users to store “creative tools” on desktop and mobile devices.
Claim 8 is “a method for authorising access to digital content using a cloud system”.
Grecia added that Adobe infringed claim 13 of the ‘555 patent through its ACC product.
Claim 13 is “a system for monitoring access to an encrypted digital media”.
In the Fox and NFL Network suits, Grecia claimed that the companies infringed claim 9 of the ‘890 patent and claim 12 of the ‘555 patent through their TV Everywhere services.
Claim 9 covers a system for authorising digital content using a worldwide cloud system infrastructure, while claim 12 is a system for monitoring encrypted digital media.
In all suits Grecia is asking for reasonable royalty and pre-and post-judgment interest at the maximum rate, as well as a trial by jury in the Fox and NFL Network cases.
Matthew Wawrzyn, one of the lawyers representing Grecia, told WIPR that there is no comment from Grecia.
A spokesperson for Adobe said that Adobe does not comment on pending litigation.
