Friday, September 16, 2011

FotoMedia sues Facebook, MySpace over photo sharing patents

By Rodney H. Brown

FotoMedia Technologies LLC, a Portsmouth, N.H., patent holding company focused on photo sharing technologies, has filed patent infringement suits against Facebook and MySpace, among others, according to a release.

The new round of suits adds to the more than 60 companies FotoMedia has already sued for “unauthorized use of its intellectual property,” mostly from a series of suits filed in 2007 and 2008. Among those previous targets are AOL Inc., Yahoo! Inc., Shutterfly Inc., American Greetings Corp. and Dotphoto Inc., according to the blog The Prior Art. FotoMedia has also sued companies in the mobile space, including Nokia Corp., T-Mobile USA Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Trademark Services LLC, among others.

In those previous suits, FotoMedia demanded licensing payments from the target companies. The company is identified in numerous sources online as a “patent troll,” with no products of its own based on its patent portfolio. In the release about the new suits against Facebook and MySpace, FotoMedia said that it is “committed to partnering with outside companies and innovators to license its technology on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms.”

President Obama signed the America Investments Act, previously termed the patent reform bill, that is expected, among other things, to reduce the number of defendants that can be named by a patent troll in a patent infringement suit. In just one case in 2008, FotoMedia Technologies, LLC v. American Greetings, Corp. et al. 08-cv-00202-TJW, E.D. Texas (Marshall), FotoMedia sued 27 companies.