Amazon and Walmart targeted for patent infringement

Online retailer Amazon.com and retail company Walmart have been targeted in a patent infringement lawsuit by Taiwanese citizen Hsu-Shen Yu.

Through his company, Huanson Enterprise, Yu manufactures and sells foam headphones.

In a lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division on September 2, Yu claimed that Walmart, Amazon and Digiorange, a company which markets products on retail websites, had infringed a utility and design patent that he owns.

Yu owns the two patents, US numbers 9,185,483 and D727,278, through an assignment deal.

The utility patent, issued in November 2015, is directed to headphones with a removable headband pad. The design patent was issued in April 2015 and concerns a design for the same style of headphones.

Yu claimed he had contacted each defendant a number of times in July and August this year but the companies have continued the infringing acts.

He has asked for a judgment that each of the defendants has infringed both the utility and design patents, an injunction to stop further infringement, an account of profits, and triple damages if the infringement is found to be wilful.