On Wednesday in the Northern District of Texas, Rothschild Broadcast Distribution Systems, LLC filed a complaint against Fuze, Inc., a cloud communications and software company, for patent infringement alleging that the defendant infringed the patent-in-suit through products that use a media content storage and delivery system.
The patent-in-suit is United States Patent No. 8,856,221 (the ’221 patent), entitled “System and Method for Storing Broadcast Content in a Cloud-Based Computing Environment.” The patent was reportedly registered and issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2014 and is owned by the plaintiff.
According to the complaint, Fuze has infringed at least claim 7 of the ’221 patent “by making, using, importing, selling, and/or offering for media content storage and delivery systems and services covered by one or more claims of the ’221 Patent.” Specifically, the defendant’s allegedly infringing “media content storage and delivery systems and services,” include the Fuze enterprise cloud PBX phone system and Fuze Portal. The plaintiff proffered that Fuze’s accused products utilize “a method of storing (e.g., cloud storage) media content (e.g., voicemail, etc.) and delivering requested media content to a customer device” as specified in the patent-in-suit.
In particular, Rothschild claimed that the accused products use a method of receiving messages and data and a consumer device, with identifiers. Rothschild asserted that these elements are necessary to perform the functionality described in claim 7 of the patent-in-suit. The accused products purportedly determine “whether the consumer device identifier corresponds to the registered device,” specifically, a user must be registered to access these services.
According to the complaint, after a consumer logs in, the accused products determine “whether the request received from a customer is a request for storage … or content,” for example, whether the media is downloaded or streaming content. Moreover, the products verify that the specific media content storage request is possible in order to prevent data errors, such as trying to store a recording that is too long. Rothschild stated that if a consumer performs a content request, such as requesting a live stream of content, then the products’ processor begins the process to deliver the content to the consumer’s device, but it must verify that the requested content is stored in the cloud and that there are no restrictions in order to transmit the content. As a result of this system, which purportedly utilizes the method described in claim 7 of the patent-in-suit, Rothschild averred that Fuze has infringed the ’221 patent.
The plaintiff claimed that the aforementioned purported infringement is causing it “irreparable harm and monetary damage. Rothschild has sought judgment in its favor, an order enjoining the defendant from further infringement, an award for damages and a royalty, as well as other relief.
Rothschild is represented by Kizzia Johnson, PLLC.
