Court Issues Judgment Favoring Microsoft, Adobe over TriStrata Multicast Key Management Patents

Case Filed: Aug 01, 2011

Case Closed: Nov 25, 2013

Case Duration: 847 Days

Court: California Northern District Court

Judge: Jon S. Tigar

Case Summary:

Microsoft was sued by TriStrata, which develops software to secure information for computer based businesses.  The suit also included Adobe as another defendant and was filed accusing defendants’ products use the methods/processes claimed in the patents-in-suit. The patents involved in the suit were: US7257706 and US7743249 both entitled ‘Method of securing a document in a system and controlling access to the document and a seal for use in the method’ issued on Aug 14, 2007 and Jun 22, 2010, respectively. The patents expire[i] by Aug 09, 2019 and are assigned to TriStrata (as per the face page).

Martin Atalla, the founder of TriStrata is also one the inventors of the ‘706 and ‘249 patents. The patents relate to secure communications and in particular to systems and methods for multicast key management.

The complaint accused Microsoft for its distribution of Windows Server and Client products and Office applications software and Adobe for selling LiveCycle Right Management ES and Flash Media Rights Management Server software. It said defendants infringed the patents by selling products/software using methods/processes for digital information transfer as claimed in the patents-in-suit.

On Nov 15, parties agreed that the accused Microsoft and Adobe products do not infringe the ‘706 and ‘249 patents as alleged by TriStrata and filed a joint stipulation for entry of final judgment. Upon consideration of the stipulation filed, the Court signed off the final judgment on Nov 22 in favor of Microsoft and Adobe and ordered the counterclaims to be dismissed without prejudice.

See 3:11-cv-03797 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

Patent Term Estimator, use our free tool or download our free Android app on Google Play Store.

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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.

Adobe, Parallel Iron Enter Settlement Agreement

Case Filed: Jul 12, 2012

Case Closed: Nov 12, 2013

Case Duration: 488 Days

Court: Delaware District Court

Judge: Richard G. Andrews

Case Summary:

A patent infringement case was filed by Parallel Iron against Adobe Systems asserting that 3 of their patents relating to data storage methods were infringed. The patents-in-suit were:

•         US7197662 issued on Mar 27, 2007
•         US7543177 issued on Jun 02, 2009
•         US7958388 issued on Jun 07, 2011

All the patents are entitled ‘Methods and systems for a storage system’ and expire[i] by Oct 31, 2022. Parallel iron is the current assignee[ii] of the patents (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database). The patents in general describe the methods and systems for storing large amounts of data.  

In the complaint filed, plaintiff alleged that defendant manufactures products and/or services implementing Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), which is designed to store very large data sets and to stream those data sets at high bandwidth to user applications as claimed in the ‘662, ‘177 and ‘388 patents. Plaintiff sought the Court to declare that Adobe has infringed the patents, a permanent injunction enjoining them from infringing its patents, damages, costs and expenses.

The case is concluded as the parties entered into a ‘licensed patents settlement agreement’. Later, they   filed a stipulated motion for dismissal, which the Court granted and ordered all claims and counterclaims to be dismissed with prejudice subject to the terms of agreement reached. Each party will incur their own costs. Further details of the settlement were not disclosed.

See 1:12-cv-00874 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

* Expected expiration date using Patent Term Estimator, use our free tool or download our free Android app on Google Play Store.

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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents

[ii] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.