MindGeek Seeks Intervention After 18 Partners Face Patent Claims

LAS VEGAS—MindGeek, Pornhub’s parent operator, has filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory judgment against interactive video marketer and patent holder Haulstars over its video-playback technology used in U.S. Patent No. 9,965,780. In the suit MindGeek seeks a declaration that Pornhub doesn’t infringe on Haulstars patent, which it notes is already the subject of 18 pending lawsuits against content partners in federal court in the Eastern District in Texas. MindGeek’s lawsuit against Las Vegas-based Haulstars, filed at Delaware federal court, said that its Pornhub website has been accused of infringement in each of the 18 Texas cases because Haulstars “has repeatedly referenced the Pornhub website and alleged that the Pornhub website has ‘an infringing system to upload video content.’” MindGeek said in the suit that Haulstars has already filed federal patent claims against partners Boutique Media, FUSEE, All 4 Health, HMZ Investments Ltd., Hot G Vibe, KB Productions LLC, Logical Int., Manica Media, Media Solutions, Miriskana Ltd., Oanasun Entertainment, Panda Hosting Ltd., Pioneer Stream, PMG Entertainment Ltd., Quicksol, Straplezz Inc., Webtwo and Bravomax Services Ltd. Haulstars, in the individual suits against the Pornhub partners, alleged that the videos uploaded to Pornhub by those content partners, when combined with Pornhub’s interface, “enables a navigation event to occur at least in response to a user selecting images and/or text (together “Tags”), which are overlayed over the video, resulting in a navigation event opportunity.” Haulstars’ infringement claims focus on the “Tags” functionality offered by Pornhub’s video playback interface, where the content partner can “add Tags to the slider bar” which can contain text or images and “allow the user to jump to specific points in the video.” “The video offers several navigation event opportunities, by enabling the user to select certain images or text while the video is playing. These are referred to as jump sites,” according to text in the Haulstars suits. So far, the 18 patent infringement lawsuits involving Pornhub partners, all filed in the past few months, are just getting off the ground and have yet to face claim construction issues for resolution by the court, including a Markman hearing (U.S. Supreme Court's 1996 ruling in Markman v. Westview Instruments, which directed courts to look first at intrinsic evidence in determining the scope of a claim and then turn to extrinsic evidence). MindGeek seeks a declaration from the Delaware court that Pornhub and its content partners do not infringe on the patent. It also seeks court and attorneys fees. Attorneys for both MindGeek and Haulstars did not immediately respond for AVN comment on the lawsuits.