Triumph for Disney, Netflix, Hulu over media streaming patents
The US Patent Trial and Appeal Board has declared two patents invalid after entertainment giants challenged claims | Action follows litigation brought before Disney et al by patent owner.
Disney, Hulu and Netflix have convinced a US appeals board to declare a New Jersey company's media streaming patents invalid.
In inter partes reviews (IPRs), the entertainment colossi challenged claims in two patents owned by WAG Acquisition.
But the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) said in two final written decisions, dated January 31, that the claims of both patents are unpatentable and obvious over prior art.
The action comes after WAG filed a raft of complaints against Amazon, Google, YouTube, Disney and Hulu in October 2021, alleging that their video-on-demand services infringe three of its streaming patents—including the two patents at issue in the PTAB decisions.
At the time, WAG sued the streaming giants in both the US District Court for the Central District of California and the Western District of Texas.
Inter partes reviews
Fast-forward to July 2022, and the petitioners—which include both Walt Disney Company and Disney Streaming Services—subsequently requested IPRs of claims 1 to 12 in US patent 9,742,824 B2; and also of claims 1 to 12 in US patent 9,762,636 B2.
Netflix was named as a petitioner on the ’824 action, but not on the ’636.
Both the ’824 patent, issued in August 2017, and the ’636 patent, issued in September 2017, are titled “Streaming Media Delivery System”. They describe problems with conventional streaming technologies such as interruptions or ‘dropouts’ due to transmission delays.
The patents also identify a need for “improved systems and methods for delivering streaming content over the internet”.
In addition to the named petitioners, the real parties of interest were identified as Disney Streaming Technology, Disney Platform Distribution (or Disney Entertainment), Bamtech, and ESPN—the latter two being subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company.
Counsel for the petitioner was led by Larissa Bifano at DLA Piper, while counsel for WAG was led by Ronald Abramson at Liston Abramson.
