Video on demand company Intertainer reportedly filed a lawsuit against Google, Apple, and Napster for infringing on its digital distribution patent.
It might be difficult to tell that Intertainer is in the video on demand business just by visiting its website. Despite some prominent Hollywood connections and backing from the likes of Intel and Microsoft, Intertainer has no videos to offer.
This would be due to what the company called “a result of the defendants’ conduct” related to an antitrust lawsuit Intertainer filed against Time Warner, Sony, and Vivendi Universal in 2002. Other than their brochureware website, Intertainer hasn’t had anything to offer since October of that year.
They go on to note that a settlement of their lawsuit was reached in March 2006. Now that it’s 2007, they are back in the news again, as Andrew Ross Sorkin noted at the DealBook blog.
Intertainer isn’t distributing videos though. They’ve found something else to distribute instead – subpoenas:
Intertainer, a video-on-demand company, last week filed a broad lawsuit asserting that Apple, Google and Napster are infringing on a 2005 patent that covers the commercial distribution of audio and video over the Internet.
Theodore Stevenson, a partner at McKool Smith, the Dallas firm representing Intertainer, said the company filed suit against Apple, Google and Napster because they were perceived as leaders in the market for digital downloads. He declined to specify the damages that Intertainer was seeking.
If the people behind Intertainer consider Napster to be a downloading leader today, maybe they should ask for a clue as part of any settlement. Napster hasn’t mattered on a broad scale ever since its first iteration was brought down by the music labels years ago.
Apple would be a wise selection due to its iTunes prominence. The company redefined the music industry with the iPod and iTunes. Whether they did so by infringing a patent is something a court will have to decide.
Google’s selection makes no sense beyond its $150 billion market cap and $10 billion in cash and equivalents. If the counsel for Intertainer thinks they’ll wrangle a quick payoff from Google, they may want to consider Google’s penchant for fighting seemingly every court battle they face.
Patent troll or legitimate complainant? For a company that claims to be in VoD, in a time when that market may finally show some real promise, Intertainer looks more like they would rather spend money on legal than R&D or marketing.
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David Utter is a staff writer for webproworld covering technology and business.