MARSHALL, Texas—East Texas strikes again. An outfit called ExitExchange filed a slew of patent infringement lawsuit Friday against seven adult-related companies, including several hosting companies, and two mainstream entities, online travel search services Travelocity and Kayak. The suits allege infringement of United States Patent No. 7,353,229 B2, entitled "Post-Session Internet Advertising System” or the “229 Patent.”
According to the complaint, which appears to be essentially identical in all of the cases filed Friday, “The '229 Patent' covers systems and methods for providing a type of Internet advertisement commonly known as pop-under advertisements. Pop-under advertisements are advertisements that open behind a browser window. Because the pop-under advertisement is opened behind the web browser, the pop-under advertisement is at least partially obscured by the web browser at the time that it is opened.”
The complaint continues, “Defendant (a) used and continues to use Plaintiffs patented technology to make pop-under advertisements that Defendant make, use, import, sell, and offer to sell, and (b) contributed to or induced, and continues to contribute to or induce others to infringe the Patent. ExitExchange seeks damages for patent infringement and an injunction preventing Defendant from making, using, selling, or offering to sell, and from contributing to and inducing others to make, use, sell, or offer to sell, the technology claimed by the Patent without Plaintiff s permission.”
The seven adult-related companies sued by Exit Exchange are FriendFinder Networks, Hotfile web host Lemuria Communications, hosting company Reflected Networks, Manwin USA Inc. (with co-defendant Manwin D.P. Corp.), motherless.com hoster NTT America, Florida hoster WZ Communications and Redtube hosting company, Choopa.
The suits seek treble compensatory damages because of alleged willfulness on the part of the defendants, legal fees, and an order enjoining them from further alleged infringement.
A copy of one of the complaints is available here.
