The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a lower court’s decision, affirming that Hulu LLC did not infringe upon Sound View Innovations LLC’s patent related to streaming technology. This ruling concludes a protracted legal battle over U.S. Patent No. 6,708,213, which describes methods for enhancing the caching of streaming multimedia data from a content provider to a user’s computer.
Central to the dispute was the interpretation of the patent’s “downloading/retrieving” limitation. Sound View contended that Hulu’s use of edge servers, which act as intermediaries between Hulu’s central content server and end-user devices, infringed upon this patent. Specifically, Sound View alleged that these edge servers, under Hulu’s direction, transmitted video segments to users while concurrently retrieving additional segments from the content server.
The Federal Circuit, however, concurred with the district court’s claim construction, which required that the downloading and retrieving actions involve the same buffer. The court determined that Hulu’s accused products did not perform these actions in the required sequence, leading to a finding of non-infringement. The opinion, authored by Judge Raymond T. Chen, stated, “Because the accused products do not perform the claim limitations in the required sequence, they do not infringe.” ([news.bloomberglaw.com](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/hulu-wins-streaming-patent-case-as-court-says-it-didnt-infringe?utm_source=openai))
Additionally, the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s exclusion of portions of Sound View’s damages expert opinion. The expert had relied on external studies and press releases without adequately assessing their methodologies or establishing a direct connection to the patented invention. The court found that this lack of rigorous analysis rendered the damages testimony unreliable. ([caselaw.findlaw.com](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-federal-circuit/2172304.html?utm_source=openai))
This decision underscores the importance of precise claim construction and the necessity for expert testimonies to be grounded in thoroughly vetted methodologies. For legal professionals, it highlights the critical role of detailed technical analysis in patent litigation, especially in the rapidly evolving domain of streaming technologies.