Fenwick’s patent litigation team has once again secured a significant win for client Amazon in a patent infringement suit.
On September 3, 2024, the Federal Circuit upheld a decision from the Western District of Texas in favor of Amazon, ruling that patents related to "video-on-demand" programming held by Broadband iTV (BBiTV) covered abstract ideas and were thus ineligible for patent protection.
After similar BBiTV patent claims were invalidated in 2016, the company launched a new series of lawsuits asserting related patents. Every defendant targeted eventually reached a settlement—except for Amazon, which defended up until the eve of trial when the district court issued its order invalidating all asserted patent claims under Section 101.
The Federal Circuit’s ruling is a clear victory for Amazon and establishes a precedent that helps continue to clarify the law concerning impermissibly “abstract” claims—for video-on-demand programming, automated personalization, user interfaces, and other technologies as well.
Amazon was represented by Fenwick patent litigation partners David Hadden, Todd Gregorian, Saina Shamilov, Ravi Ranganath, and Allen Wang and associates Jonathan Tamimi and Min Wu, as well as Eric Young, Geoff Miller, Daniel Rabinowitz, Su Li, Olivia Wheeling, and Gregory Sefian.
The case is Broadband iTV Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc., case number 23-1107, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.