Patent troll sues Netflix over offline downloads
It's been barely two months since Netflix added its long-awaited download feature, and the online streaming company has already been sued over it. The plaintiff is a company few have heard of: Blackbird Technologies, a company with no products or assets other than patents. Blackbird's business is to buy up patent rights and file lawsuits over them, a business known colloquially as "patent trolling."
Blackbird was founded by two former big-firm patent attorneys, Wendy Verlander and Chris Freeman. The organization owns US Patent No. 7,174,362, which it hopes will result in payouts from a internet video companies with offline-viewing features. On Wednesday, Blackbird (who publicly brags about being "able to litigate at reduced costs and achieve results") filed lawsuits against Netflix (PDF), Soundcloud (PDF), Vimeo, Starz, Mubi, and Studio 3 Partners, which owns the Epix TV channel. All of the companies have some type of app that allows for downloading streamable content and watching it offline.
