It appears as if Netflix and Hulu are continually draining brand-new material in their limitless fight to win over more month-to-month customers. Nevertheless, when a third-party asserts patents covering streaming innovation versus both streaming giants, the rivals discover themselves on the exact same side of the line.
Such held true in an inter partes evaluation (IPR) submitted by both Netflix and Hulu petitioning U.S. Patent No. 10,225,588 (” the ‘588 Patent”), appointed to DivX. The streaming business declared that the ‘588 Patent was unpatentable due to obviousness. Particularly, the petitioners argued that a “appropriate craftsmen” would have integrated 3 previous art patents to resolve the “piracy issues, enhance the performance of adaptive streaming, enhance the balance in between bitrate and bandwidth, and enhance the end-user experience with quick start-up and look for,” as needed by the claim constraints in the ‘588 Patent. However the Board disagreed– judgment that the petitioners stopped working to show the patent apparent since they did disappoint that a craftsmen would have had a “sensible expectation of success” in integrating the proposed previous art to come to the exact same system declared in the ‘588 Patent.[1]
Netflix and Hulu appealed the PTAB’s choice to the Federal Circuit, and the Court concurred that the PTAB “dedicated an essential legal mistake in specifying the mix it was assessing.” Particularly, the Court discovered that PTAB dedicated 2 mistakes: (1) failure to follow the concept that the petitioner’s contentions “specify the scope of the lawsuits all the method from organization through to conclusion” and (2) the previous art recommendation should think about whatever that it teaches and is not restricted to the declared creation. For that reason, the Court discovered that the “Board’s redefinition … was an essential legal mistake.” In discovering the mistake not safe, the Federal Circuit remanded the case back to the PTAB for evaluation.[2]
This case is a single example of the less public continuous fight streaming giants like Netflix and Hulu battle on a regular basis. While there are basic important patents (SEPs) essential to the compatibility of streaming innovations and gadgets that streaming suppliers license, there are third-parties who think their streaming innovation patents are being infringed behind-the-scenes.
[1] Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, IPR2022-1083 (PTAB Sept. 23, 2021)
[2] Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, No. 2022-1083, 2023 WL 2298768 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 1, 2023)