Nimitz Technologies LLC v. Twitter, Inc.

On September 24, 2021, Nimitz Technologies LLC (“Nimitz” or “Plaintiff”), filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter” or “Defendant”), seeking damages along with pre-and post-judgement interest for the alleged infringement of a United States Patent owned by the Plaintiff. This case was filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Delaware.

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 (e.g., the IP source address and/or IP destination address).”

The Plaintiff further alleged that, “The method claims are patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The claims are not abstract. As reflected in the Notice of Allowance, the claims are directed to a novel improvement that, unlike conventional art, comprises assigning a specific value to each component for a predefined field of a packet according to a second communication protocol, with the specific value distinguishing the component from other components, and the encapsulating comprises encapsulating the packet streams according to one or more lower layer protocols without encapsulating the packet streams according to the second communication protocol.”

The Plaintiff also 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. Twitter has practiced and continues to practice the method of at least Claim 1 of the ‘328 Patent by streaming the content found in https://www.Twitter.com (“Accused Instrumentality”). As a result of Defendant’s infringement of the ’328 Patent, Plaintiff has suffered damages.”

There is only one claim for relief laid down by the Plaintiff, for alleged infringement of The ’328 Patent owned by the Plaintiff.

In its prayer for relief, the Plaintiff has requested the Court for an adjudication that Defendant had infringed the ’328 Patent, an award of damages to be paid by Defendant adequate to compensate Plaintiff for Defendant’s past infringement of the ’328 Patent, including pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, costs, expenses, and an accounting of all infringing acts along with any and all such further relief at law or in equity that the Court may deem just and proper, including but not limited to attorneys’ fees.

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