In 2021, Touchstream Technologies, Inc. filed a complaint stating that they had met with Google in 2011 to pitch a device “to cause a video to play on a second screen, even if that video resided elsewhere (like the public Internet).” Google turned Touchstream down, and then debuted the Chromecast a little over a year later. Now, a Western District of Texas jury has ruled that Google infringed on three patents held by Touchstream, and must pay Touchstream $338.7 million in damages.
The patents’ abstract states, “The server system stores an association between the personal computing device and the display device. The first message identifies user-selected content and a media player to play the content. The server system is operable, in response to receiving the first message from the personal computing device, to provide to the display device a second message identifying the user-selected content and the media player to play the content. In response to receiving the second message, the display device is operable to obtain a first media player needed to play the content, to load the media player and to present the content on the display.”
See also: After a decade, Google has ended support for the original Chromecast
Google’s defense relied on the concept of obviousness, which basically states that a concept can’t be patented if the general public sees it as inevitable based on previous inventions.
Google plans to appeal the ruling, and spokesperson José Castañeda stated to Ars Technica, “We strongly disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We have always developed technology independently and competed on the merits of our ideas, and will continue to defend ourselves against these meritless claims.”
