ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A three-judge panel at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has limited the scope of an infringement dispute between a video patent holder and Pornhub’s parent company, MG FreeSites Ltd.
Developer Scorpcast LLC asserted a number of patent claims against MG FreeSites Ltd., the Cyprus-based company that operates MindGeek’s tube sites, regarding its underlying video technology.
The PTAB ruled on Friday that part of the technology allowing users to record a review of a service or product was to be axed from Scorpcast’s suit, finding 13 of the developer’s claims were “obvious or anticipated by prior art,” legal news site Law360 reported.
The panel partially invalidated Scorpcast’s U.S. Patent No. 9,965,780, held by developer Scorpcast LLC in a final judgment.
“The panel said that 11 claims in Scorpcast's asserted patent, which describe a user interface that enables consumer-generated video reviews, were anticipated by a November 2007 printed publication,” Law 360 reported. The judges also held that “two more of the asserted patent claims were obvious based on the prior art from 2007 and another printed publication from December 2008.”
The PTAB panel ruled that MG FreeSites “demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence” that the challenged claims were “unpatentable,” Law360 added.
Eighteen other ongoing patent infringement suits over the same underlying technology are still ongoing in the Eastern District of Texas.