Google sued over photo features in Pixel products
Complaint filed by IP management firm alleges patent infringement over digital imaging technology | Google Pixel smartphones, Pixel Tablets and the Snapseed app are all listed in suit as alleged infringing devices.
Google is facing another battle in court over its technology after a complaint was filed on Wednesday (June 21) alleging that certain camera and digital imaging features in its Pixel smartphones and tablets infringe patents belonging to an Irish IP management firm.
Law firm Robins Kaplan filed the complaint at the US District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of Longitude Licensing, which claims that Google has infringed seven patents covering technologies for generating, processing and enhancing digital images.
Among Google’s products that allegedly feature the infringing technology are Pixel smartphones, tablets including the Pixel Slate and Pixel Tablet, the Google Photos application and photo editing application Snapseed.
Dublin-based Longitude is the exclusive worldwide licensee of a portfolio of patents to which the patents-in-suit belong to. Developed by one of the world’s largest manufacturers of imaging equipment, Epson, the patents are US numbers 7,668,365, 8,355,574, 7,454,056, 7,428,082, 7,486,807, 7,945,109, and 8,482,638.
Advanced digital images
In its complaint, Longitude alleges that claimed inventions in the patents are infringed by features such as Google’s ‘Real Tone’, which is aimed at making digital images more representative of a subject’s skin tone; ‘Portrait Mode’, which identified areas that need to remain in focus and then blurs the background; and ‘Face Unblur’, which reduces or removes blur from faces in digital images.
The firm says it provided Google with notice of infringement of three of the patents back in August 2020, and sent another notice regarding infringement of four of the patents on or around June 7 this year.
Longitude is asking for a jury trial and damages for the alleged infringement of an amount to be determined at trial, as well as pre-and post-judgment interest and costs.
According to the complaint, it is believed that sales of Google’s Pixel smartphones in the US generated approximately $3.3 billion in revenue in 2022.
Sonos dials up the pressure
In a separate case this month, Sonos sought permanent injunctive relief and additional damages from Google following a $32.5 million win against the tech giant in May.
A California federal court ruled in favour of Sonos that Google had infringed patented smart- speaker technology. On June 15, the audio firm filed a new motion for injunctive relief, insisting that Google should provide notice of the infringement to various parties including its subsidiaries, successors, distributors and licensees.
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