WWE Faces Patent Infringement Lawsuit
SITO Mobile, Ltd has filed a lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment for allegedly infringing on multiple patents.
The lawsuit, which was filed in The United States District Court For The District Of Delaware was filed on 5/21 according to court documents obtained by HeelByNature.com.
The complaint alleges WWE has infringed on SITO Mobile’s streaming media patents. The ones in question are used by many of today’s streaming services.
WWE streams videos using a network(s) of servers (“WWE Streaming Platform”). WWE uses Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) and/or HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) protocols to stream video content. MPEG-DASH and HLS are HTTP based adaptive bitrate streaming techniques that enable high quality streaming of media content over the Internet from web servers. The operation of MPEG-DASH and HLS are described in standards documents.
With MPEG-DASH and HLS, a video may be broken up into thousands of small HTTP-based file segments. Each segment contains a short interval of playback time of the video. The segments are encoded at a variety of different bit rates (speeds). After a video is selected to be streamed, the media player on the subscriber device is provided with a file that informs the player, amongst other things, how to obtain the segments sequentially and how to handle ad breaks (if any). As the video is playing, the subscriber device determines the bit rate that it can handle and requests a segment(s) encoded at that bit rate. The player plays the segments in sequential order and continuously requests segments until the player has received all of the segments that make up the video
The complaint outlines 12 patents owned by Sito Mobile, which they believe WWE is infringing.
Sito Mobile is requesting the court award damages determined by a jury trial
SITO respectfully requests this Court to enter judgment in SITO’s favor and against
WWE as follows:
a. finding that WWE directly infringes, literally and/or under the doctrine of
equivalents, one or more claims of each of the patents-in-suit;
b. awarding SITO damages under 35 U.S.C. § 284, or otherwise permitted by law,
including supplemental damages for any continued post-verdict infringement;
c. awarding SITO pre-judgment and post-judgment interest on the damages award
and costs;
d. awarding costs of this action (including all disbursements) and attorney fees
pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 285, or as otherwise permitted by the law; and
e. awarding such other costs and further relief that the Court determines to be just
and equitable.
Sito Mobile has previously filed similar patent-related lawsuits against Hulu and Flo Sports.
This is not the first time WWE has faced a lawsuit from a patent owner. Last year, Rothschild Broadcast Distribution Systems filed a lawsuit against the company for a software patent. That case was voluntarily dismissed last summer.
You can read the full complaint below.
