BitTorrent and uTorrent have been sued for using certain techniques in their clients and the bittorrent protocol.
From the article it appears technologies are being used that were submitted in a 1999 patent that was subsequently approved in 2007. This itself is not uncommon, but given the technologies involved, HTTP could very well be prior art, or it could violate at least part of the same protocol.
By now we’ve become accustomed to copyright infringement lawsuits, where people are suspected of illegally distributing movies and music using BitTorrent.
However, according to a lawsuit filed at a U.S. District Court this week, BitTorrent is also an infringement in its own right.
Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network filed a complaint at the court this week where it alleges that BitTorrent is infringing on a patent originally filed in April 1999. The company claims to have suffered significant losses and wants to be compensated for the ongoing patent infringement.
“By making, operating, using and/or selling [uTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline] and or other software, BitTorrent has infringed and continues to infringe, contribute to the infringement, or induce the infringement of at least claim 1 of the ’944 patent,” the complaint reads.
The patent in question is titled “Media file distribution with adaptive transmission protocols” and was granted in November 2007. It describes a file-sharing system consisting of a file database, a transfer client and a distribution server.
BitTorrent Inc. was asked for a comment on the lawsuit, but TorrentFreak was told that the company currently has nothing to add.
The Complaint
For more details:
BitTorrent and uTorrent Sued For Patent Violations | The Social Feed
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