14 hours Ago By Zo Ahmed
What just happened? Netflix is suing Broadcom, alleging infringement of multiple patents related to virtual machine operations. The video streaming giant alleges that VMware products like vSphere and their cloud solutions violate up to five Netflix patents related to managing and optimizing virtual machines. The patents in question cover some critical behind-the-scenes tech that helps keep virtual machines running smoothly, according to the lawsuit filed in a California federal court.
Three of the patents deal with tracking and allocating CPU resources to virtual machines efficiently. The other two describe methods for a load balancer to seamlessly start up virtual machines on physical servers as needed. Netflix says VMware's virtualization tech flat-out uses these patented innovations without permission.
They claim "VMware has infringed and continues to infringe" on these patents through products like vSphere Foundation, VMware Cloud Foundation, and their cloud offerings for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and more. Netflix also asserts that VMware knew it was potentially infringing as far back as 2012 when some of these patents came up during one of the company's own patent applications. Netflix says the infringement has been "willful and deliberate" after VMware had this knowledge.
Reuters reports that Netflix now wants VMware's new owner Broadcom, who bought them last year for a massive $69 billion, to award monetary damages. It's worth mentioning that this patent brawl actually has roots going back to 2018, when Broadcom first sued Netflix claiming it infringed on Broadcom patents for video streaming technology. That legal fight spans across multiple countries, including the US, Germany, and the Netherlands.
The US lawsuit is slated for trial next June. Previous reports suggested that Broadcom's 2018 lawsuit came as a result of Netflix's meteoric growth during the Covid-19 pandemic when viewers flocked to streaming services. This boom came at Broadcom's expense, with dwindling sales of its TV set-top box chips as cable subscriptions declined.
Broadcom also has a history with patent infringements: In 2017, it sued LG, Vizio, and other smart TV manufacturers as well as rival Mediatek for patent violations. VMware's software powers huge swaths of enterprise data centers and clouds so Netflix's offensive could have major ramifications if their patent claims prevail. Both sides are yet to issue comments.
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