- Netflix claims that Broadcom’s subsidiary VMware infringes five patents
- It claims that VMware knew it was infringing patents for more than a decade
- Netflix is now demanding that VMware pay for the damage caused
Video streaming giant Netflix is suing Broadcom over virtual machine (VM) patents.
According to the lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, Broadcom’s subsidiary VMware infringes five different patent rights, including the rights for ‘424 Patent’, ‘707 Patent’, ‘891 Patent’, ‘893 Patent’ and ‘893 Patent’. 122 Patent”.
These cover the different aspects of operating virtual machines. Three discuss CPU usage in virtual machines, and two discuss booting at least one virtual machine into a physical machine by a load balancer.
Intentional infringement
“Broadcom and VMware have, jointly and severally, infringed and continue to infringe at least claim 1 of the ‘424 patent, either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents, by making, using, selling and/or offering for sale offering within the United States and/or importing into the United States products covered by at least claim 1 of the ‘424 patent.
These products include, but are not limited to, VMware vSphere Foundation, VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware
Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, Google Cloud VMware Engine, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions, Alibaba Cloud VMware Service, as well as any other vSphere-based products and/or services (collectively, the “’424 Accused Products”) ” the lawsuit states.
Netflix further alleges that VMware has known of the “424 patent” since at least early August 2012, “when the ‘424 patent was cited by an examiner at the United States Patent and Trademark Office during a denial of the application’ VMware which was eventually issued as US Patent No. 8,650,564.”
“Broadcom and VMware’s infringement of the ‘424 patent is and is willful and willful,” Netflix concludes in the lawsuit, asking the court to order Broadcom to pay damages, an unspecified amount.
Via Reuters