Nimitz Technologies LLC v. Reddit, Inc.

On August 30, 2021, Nimitz Technologies LLC (“Nimitz” or “Plaintiff”), represented by George Pazuniak of O'Kelly & Ernst, LLC, filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Reddit, Inc. (“Reddit” or “Defendant”), seeking an award of damages including pre-judgment and post-judgment interest for the alleged infringement of United States Patent owned by the Plaintiff. This case was filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Delaware with Judge Colm F. Connolly presiding.

The Plaintiff filed this complaint for the alleged infringement of United States Patent No.

7,848,328, entitled “Broadcast Content Encapsulation” (the “’328 Patent”) owned by the Plaintiff.

In the complaint, the Plaintiff alleged that, “The Patent disclosed and exemplified a unique and valuable system and method for delivering multiple versions of content which are mapped to streams carrying data for those multiple versions. The data streams are encapsulated into User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets; the UDP destination port fields of the packets are given component-identifying values. A user equipment (UE) receiving the transmitted service identifies desired components based on the UDP destination port field values. The UE further encapsulates desired component UDP packets into Internet Protocol (IP) packets, and may assign component-identifying values to fields of the IP packets.”

The Plaintiff further alleged that, “The ‘328 Patent claims focus on specific improvements in computer capabilities as opposed to an invention that simply uses computers as a tool. The focus of the claimed advance is on a solution to a technological problem arising in computer operations and provides a specific improvement in computer capabilities or functionality, rather than only claiming a desirable result or function. Reddit has practiced and continues to practice the method of at least Claim 1 of the ‘328 Patent by streaming the content as “Reddit” (“Accused Instrumentality”).”

The Plaintiff also alleged that, “Claim 1 and its dependent claims, individually and as an ordered combination, recite an inventive concept, which is manifestly more than the application of an abstract idea using well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry. As stated by the Examiner, prior to the present invention, there was no prior art disclosing a system and method for encapsulating data streams, and particularly where the data streams related to a specific content that is mapped to components of a transmission service that delivers multiple versions of that specific content. Only method claims of the ‘328 Patent are being asserted, and, thus, patent marking is not an issue. In any event, Nimitz has not commercialized any products under the ‘328 Patent and has no information that any prior owners of the Patent have not complied with patent marking requirements.”

The only claim for relief laid down by the Plaintiff deals with the alleged infringement of the ’328 Patent.

In its prayer for relief the Plaintiff has requested the Court for an adjudication that Defendant had infringed the ’328 Patent and an award of damages to be paid by Defendant adequate to compensate Plaintiff for Defendant’s past infringement of the ’328 Patent, including pre and post-judgment interest, costs, expenses, and an accounting of all infringing acts along with such further relief at law or in equity that the court may deem just and proper.

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