Pandora Wins Patent Infringement Lawsuit Involving Playlist Tech

Picture Credit history: Pandora

SiriusXM’s Pandora has formally emerged victorious in a extended-managing patent infringement lawsuit concerning playlist technological innovation, but the plaintiff is presently captivating.

Digital Audio Information initially reported on the courtroom confrontation again in August of 2020, when the plaintiff, Texas-centered Bluebonnet Web Media Companies, initially submitted the motion against Pandora. In temporary, Bluebonnet managed in the primary suit that the streaming-assistance defendant had infringed upon a trio of patents (No. 9,405,753, No. 9,547,650, and No. 9,779,095) relating to the curation of custom-made playlists centered on listeners’ choices and inputs.

“The Patents are not describing abstract concepts,” for each the initial action, “but a distinct ingenious answer to the difficulty of how to make a significant-scale streaming media method supplying a personalize[d] media listening practical experience to a person.”

And these patents, it is also well worth noting, have been to start with received by a (now-defunct) streaming services termed Friskit. The latter arrived on the scene in 1999 and moved to secure its 1st provisional patent in early 2000, with Bluebonnet possessing assumed ownership of this and other intellectual assets following the startup ceased functioning.

Furthermore, Friskit arrived up short in a patent lawsuit against RealNetworks and purportedly finalized “a private settlement arrangement in 2011” to wrap a separate suit with Microsoft, Bluebonnet’s criticism indicated.

But as pointed out at the outset, the court docket has dominated in Pandora’s favor, specifying that the patents are “invalid.”

“These promises may possibly seize the core of a good small business strategy. But they are directed to an abstract concept and lack an creative concept—and are as a result invalid,” wrote U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, citing a 2014 Supreme Court docket ruling and communicating that 1 are not able to patent summary thoughts, “because a patent on an abstract strategy would monopolize the ‘building blocks of human ingenuity.’

“Bluebonnet’s patent statements explain a system for tailoring media playlists primarily based on a person’s choices. … Tailoring solutions to in shape style is a extended-widespread exercise and a person of the creating blocks of human ingenuity that can’t by itself be patented,” the courtroom found.

Similarly, the judge established that patents for summary concepts can nevertheless be valid with the existence of an “inventive principle.” Nonetheless, “the statements contain no ingenious concept that provides drastically more to the abstract idea,” in accordance to the choice.

Bluebonnet doesn’t glimpse to have commented publicly on the growth, but the entity has instantly appealed, at the time again. Meanwhile, Pandora achieved out to DMN with a formal assertion concerning the victory.

“Pandora is happy with the result, and thanks the court and its workers for their efforts,” a Pandora spokesperson claimed. “As this circumstance demonstrates, Pandora will not tumble sufferer to the shakedown strategies of nonpracticing entities and will vigorously protect itself from baseless claims.”