MARSHALL, Texas—InMotion Imagery Technologies is trying to take a second big bite out of the alleged patent infringement apple, Acacia-style. The Texas-based owner of patents for a picture-based video indexing system filed a lawsuit earlier this month against 14 studios it claims are infringing the patents. As with the previous lawsuit filed in March of this year, some heavy hitters in adult and mainstream are named as defendants.
The lawsuit was filed Aug, 13. in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Evil Angel Productions, Fox Searchlight, Lions gate Entertainment, Universal Studios, Paramount Home Entertainment, Dreamworks Animation, Digital Playground and Wicked Pictures, to name a few.
As with the previous lawsuit, the underlying technologies is defined as “a video indexing system [that] uses pictures representative of a recorded video program to assist a user in determining the contents of a recorded medium without having to view the program itself. The pictures preferably represent segments of the program which are spaced apart in time, enabling a relatively small number of such pictures to characterize a length program, and are presented in separate windows on the screen of the same device used to display the video program. The pictures may include still or moving imagery. A viewer optionally may select a particular picture with a pointing device, to commence replay of the recorded program from that period of the program, or to recall stored audio information so as to assist in identifying the selection. The picture information maybe stored on the same medium as that used to record the video program, or a different medium may be used.”
The plaintiff has asked for a jury trial, and is seeking “damages sustained by Plaintiff as a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts in an amount subject to proof at trial, which, by law, cannot be less than a reasonable royalty, together with interest and costs as fixed by this Court under 3 USC § 284.”
InMotion v. Evil Angel can be read here.
