Online game firm Epic Video games has efficiently defended itself in a trial the place it was accused of patent infringement in Fortnite concert events by Ariana Grande and Travis Scott.
In a verdict handed down on Monday (Could 19) in a federal court docket in Seattle, jurors discovered Epic Video games didn’t violate a patent held by Utherverse Gaming LLC, an organization that licenses patents for the creation of digital environments. A associated firm, Utherverse Digital, operates platforms for digital occasions.
The jury discovered that neither the Ariana Grande live performance nor the Travis Scott live performance in Fortnite violated Utherverse’s patent.
Utherverse had requested the court docket for 15% of the income that Epic Video games had created from the 2 concert events, which, in accordance to Law360, would have amounted to $32.5 million.
Travis Scott’s digital rap live performance in Fortnite in 2020 noticed a document turnout of 12.3 million reside attendees, and Ariana Grande’s present in 2021 is believed to have been on an identical scale. Each Scott and Grande have been estimated to have made round $20 million from the digital reveals.
Utherverse sued Epic Video games in June 2021, alleging that Epic Video games had infringed on a number of of its patents. The corporate stated the patents have been for processes designed to resolve an issue with very giant digital experiences: Previous a sure level, the processing energy and bandwidth wanted so as to add extra customers to the house would develop “exponentially.”
In January 2022, Epic Video games responded with a counterclaim that Utherverse’s patents have been invalid underneath US patent legislation. Over a number of years of authorized back-and-forth, the case was narrowed all the way down to a single patent held by Utherverse.
Titled “Technique, System and Equipment of Recording and Taking part in Again an Expertise in a Digital Worlds System,” the patent describes – amongst different issues – a course of for “replay[ing] a scene that occurred in a [virtual] atmosphere, similar to a live performance, a marriage or a lecture.”
“There was no expertise in a digital atmosphere till the animations have been performed as a part of the [Grande and Scott concerts], and Epic didn’t document these occasions or the experiences that occurred inside them.”
Epic Video games
Epic denied that it had infringed this patent. The corporate’s key argument was that its digital concert events aren’t “replays” of one thing that had occurred in a digital atmosphere, however had been created prematurely, earlier than being positioned right into a digital atmosphere.
The Grande and Scott reveals “weren’t recordings of a previous expertise that occurred in a digital atmosphere and thus should not a ‘recorded expertise file’ as construed by the court docket,” Epic Video games stated in a pre-trial briefing.
“There was no expertise in a digital atmosphere till the animations have been performed as a part of the [Grande and Scott concerts], and Epic didn’t document these occasions or the experiences that occurred inside them.”
Epic additionally argued that the patent was invalid, partly due to the existence of “prior artwork,” that’s, the method described within the patent had been used earlier than the patent was filed. The corporate cited the sport StarCraft II, in addition to different patent purposes, together with one by Sony Corp.
Since its launch in 2017, Fortnite has seen 650 million person registrations and, eventually depend, had round 60 million each day lively customers.Music Enterprise Worldwide
