TIR Technologies Limited has sued Amazon (Amazon.com Services, Amazon Web Services) (1:25-cv-00865) over the provision of Amazon Prime Video and AWS CloudFront and certain related products. Asserted in the Atlantic IP Services Limited plaintiff's new Western District of Texas complaint are four patents from a portfolio that RPX noted last week that TIR Technologies just acquired from Otello Corp. ASA, in late April. TIR's new case is Atlantic IP's first of 2025.
The plaintiff pleads that Amazon infringes a first patent (8,792,347) — broadly directed to monitoring and collecting statistics on network data flow for delivering video content from an "origin server" to a "user device" in order to estimate the bandwidth that will be consumed—through the provision of "Amazon Prime Video in combination with AWS CloudFront", targeting features for measuring bandwidth usage and latency and using that data to adjust traffic being directed to a given CloudFront Point of Presence.
TIR Technologies alleges that Amazon infringes two additional patents (9,800,633; 10,484,442) generally related to video caching; more specifically, to a client request for a particular transcoding of a video (e.g., requesting a specific resolution, frame rate, etc.) where a server checks a database to determine if segments of the video meeting the particular requirements are cached somewhere, and, if so, segments are stitched together and transmitted. Allegations with respect to the '633 patent concern Prime Video's use of "adaptive bitrate streaming technologies such as HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) and DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) to deliver video segments that adjust quality based on the viewer's internet connection and device capabilities", and where "content is served from geographically distributed servers—often through Amazon CloudFront or other CDNs—to ensure low latency, smooth playback, and minimal buffering"; the '442 patent, "Amazon MediaTailor in combination with AWS CloudFront", targeting features related to "caching and delivering media content efficiently from edge locations worldwide, reducing latency and improving playback performance"; and performing "dynamic ad insertion (DAI) by seamlessly stitching targeted ads into live and VOD streams while optimizing content delivery for a global audience".
Finally, the plaintiff targets with a fourth patent (10,375,444)—generally related to performing adaptive bit-rate streaming where the client preloads content before playback begins—Prime Video as used with Amazon AWS Elemental MediaTailor "to deliver personalized, server-side ad insertion (SSAI) to Prime viewers by dynamically stitching targeted ads into live and on-demand video streams".
As previously reported, on April 30, Otello assigned 25 US patents and two publications to TIR, which is an Irish entity controlled by Atlantic IP's managing director Gerald Padian. The broader portfolio generally relates to frame rate adaptation and cache-based techniques to optimize video quality delivery across varying network conditions; it was developed by Skyfire Labs, which Opera Software ASA (now Otello Corp.) acquired in 2013 in a deal valued at up to $155M. The portfolio—which can be viewed on RPX Empower here—has not been previously asserted in litigation.
Dublin-based Atlantic IP has launched more than two dozen litigation campaigns in the US, most asserting former operating company patents and with the backing of "investor" (labeled so on a prior iteration of Atlantic IP's public website) Magnetar Capital, a hedge fund reporting more than $19B of assets under management as of January 2025. For additional background concerning Atlantic IP's activities, see "Atlantic IP Picks Up a Video Streaming Portfolio" (June 2025).
The new TIR case has yet to be assigned to a judge. Note that in separate suits recently assigned to Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright (against Amazon) and David Counts (against Alphabet (Google)), Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland granted motions to transfer to the Northern District of California in orders adopted by both district court judges, Judge Counts suggesting that although he found nothing clearly erroneous in the magistrate's reasoning, he might have reached a different conclusion in the first instance. For more detailed coverage, see "Nothing Clearly Erroneous in Magistrate's 'Brisk Five Pages' Transferring Case" (June 2025).
BC Law Group, P.C. filed the complaint for TIR Technologies. 6/4, Western District of Texas.
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