MONTREAL — MindGeek has settled with a patent holder that charged the adult entertainment conglomerate’s entire lineup of website properties infringed on its intellectual property.
Preservation Technologies LLC claimed in a lawsuit waged in October that MindGeek and 19 of its online adult properties infringed on 11 components covered under a number of patents that relate to data distribution management.
Last month, however, attorneys for MindGeek and Preservation Technologies ironed out some sort of deal and the case was summarily dismissed by a federal judge.
“We can confirm that MindGeek was named as a defendant in this matter and, yes, the case has indeed been withdrawn,” MindGeek spokeswoman Catherine Dunn told XBIZ on Friday.
Dunn did not elaborate or disclose details of the settlement.
Preservation Technologies’ suit against MindGeek named all of the company’s websites as infringing. MindGeek’s sites include PornHub.com, YouPorn.com, Tube8.com, XTube.com, ExtremeTube.com, RedTube.com, SpankWire.com, KeezMovies.com, YouPornGay.com, PornMD.com, Brazzers.com, Digital Playground.com Twistys.com, RealityKings.com, SexTube.com, Beeg.com, Mofos.com, MyDirtyHobby.com and GayTube.com.
Preservation Technologies’ suit revolve around patented inventions that enable the accessing, searching and cataloging of multimedia data. The patents were acquired by Preservation Technologies via an exclusive license from the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education.
The patented technology was developed to record and archive testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust through nearly 52,000 videotaped interviews between 1994 and 1999.
In claims made in October, Preservation Technologies said that MindGeek indirectly infringed on the patents by instructing others, including its customers, to operate the site "in an infringing manner."
In one example of alleged infringement, "end users of the PornHub.com website retrieve adult videos, clips and other media types associated with keywords, such as 'sex,' by using the various catalogs, catalog elements and attributes."
Preservation Technologies similarly sued other large companies that haven't licensed its technology, including Viacom Inc., MLB Advanced Media, NFL Enterprises LLC, Vevo LLC and World Wrestling Entertainment.