On Tuesday in the District of Colorado, Rothschild Broadcast Distribution Systems, LLC filed a complaint against Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (Zoom) for allegedly infringing the patent-in-suit over its product that allows for recorded content to be stored on a cloud.
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 plaintiff alleged that Zoom 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” patent-in-suit. For example, Zoom’s CuriosityStream streaming platform and other similar products purportedly infringe the ’221 patent. Specifically, the accused product “practices a method of storing (e.g., cloud storage) media content (e.g. and recorded music) and delivering requested media content to a consumer device.” For example, Zoom allows users to record a meeting, which can be recorded to the cloud and are available for the user to download and view.
As described in the complaint, Zoom’s product “necessarily includes a receiver configured to receive a request message including data indicating requested media content…and a consumer device identifier corresponding to a consumer device.” For instance, Zoom’s product must be able to receive a request to store or stream recorded media content on a smartphone or other device. A user will be able to view his recordings stored on the cloud on any device, but only locally stored recordings on the device it was recorded on.
A user can also limit who can see a specific recording, such as only users logged in or those whose emails use a certain domain name. According to the complaint, a user must be registered to access the product. Furthermore, the plaintiff claimed that the accused product “provides for both media downloads and/or storage, and media streaming. After a successful login, the Product necessarily determines whether the request received from a customer is a request for storage…or content.” According to the complaint, Zoom’s website states that “Cloud recording is automatically enabled for all paid subscribers. When you record a meeting and choose Record to the Cloud, the video, audio, and chat text are recorded in the Zoom cloud. The recording files can be downloaded to a computer or streamed from a browser.”
Additionally, the plaintiff claimed that the product “verifies that media content identified in the media data of the storage request message…is available for storage in order to prevent data errors that would result from attempting to store content that is not available for storage.” Zoom purportedly does this by verifying the user’s ability to store based on the memory amount in their subscription; a user will be unable to store content if he does not have a subscription or if he has used all of his memory. The plaintiff includes additional allegations in the complaint to further illustrate Zoom’s alleged infringement.
For Zoom’s alleged patent infringement, the plaintiff has sought declaratory judgment in its favor, an order enjoining the defendant from further infringement, an award for damages, and other relief. Rothschild Broadcast Distribution Systems is represented by Kizzia Johnson, PLLC.
