Failed start-up Quibi escapes patent injunction
A US federal judge has refused to issue a preliminary injunction against Quibi, the ill-fated video streaming start-up which ceased operations late last year.
Quibi shut down its service, intended to rival Netflix, last December after failing to establish a sufficient subscriber base. But the company, which had attracted financial support from investors including the BBC, is still facing a patent infringement lawsuit from Eko, an interactive video developer.
Eko claims that Quibi’s Turnstyle feature, which lets users switch between portrait and landscape viewing modes on mobile without compromising video quality, infringes its IP.
The US District Court for the Central District of California rejected Eko’s request for a preliminary injunction against Quibi last July, finding that it had not proven the necessary legal standards to justify such a remedy.
But news that Quibi was to begin winding down its operations, announced last October, prompted Eko to again seek an injunction. Eko argues that an injunction is necessary to prevent Quibi from selling its IP assets, and to ensure the start-up retains $102 million in cash to satisfy a potential judgment in Eko’s favour.
The court has now once again declined to issue an injunction, finding that Eko had failed to establish a likelihood of success on the infringement claims.
According to Judge Christina Snyder, Eko’s case relies too heavily on “widely available international standards”, which download videos in segments based on available bandwidth.
Last week, Roku announced that it had acquired Quibi’s library, which will be available to stream on the Roku Channel.
Quibi’s business model was based on producing short-form video content for viewing on mobile. Since it was founded in 2018, the company received almost $2 billion in investment, with its formal launch coming last April. Its founders included Jeffrey Katzenberg, the co-founder of DreamWorks and former head of Walt Disney’s film division.
A statement issued by Katzenberg and co-founder Meg Whitman cited the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the reasons why the business failed so early on.
“Quibi's [failure is] likely for one of two reasons: because the idea itself wasn't strong enough to justify a stand-alone streaming service, or because of our timing,” the statement said.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox
Today’s top stories
Tech company seeks to block Google from adding patents to court win
