Google Chromecast är den enskilt bäst sålda streaming-dosan och enligt bland annat The Verge har Google skickat iväg över 60 miljoner enheter sedan den först lanserades. Detta gillas inte av techbolaget Touchstream Technologies som säger sig äga patentet för att kunna skicka video från en liten skärm till en större. Efter en utdragen rättsstrid har nu Google blivit dömda att betala 3,4 miljarder kronor till Touchstream Technologies och även om Google meddelar att de såklart avser att överklaga, menar branschexperter att de kommer att tvingas betala, i slutändan.
Ars Technica skriver:
"The ruling comes after Touchstream filed a complaint in June 2021 claiming that it met with Google in December 2011 and was told that the tech giant wasn't interested in partnering with it in February 2012. Google then released Chromecast in 2013. The complaint points to the first Chromecast and the second and third generations, Chromecast Ultra and Chromecast with Google TV, as well as other Chromecast-integrated products, as infringements of Touchstream patents.
The complaint claims that Touchstream founder David Strober in "as early as mid-2010" saw demand for the ability to move videos typically viewed on small screens, like a smartphone display, to a larger screen, like a TV or monitor. Strober eventually sought to use a device, like a smartphone, "to cause a video to play on a second screen, even if that video resided elsewhere (like the public Internet)," the complaint says, adding that Stober had a "working prototype" by the end of 2010 and his first patent application filed by April 2011.
All three of the Touchstream patents in question are titled "Play control of content on a display device" and detail "a system for presenting and controlling content on a display device" that uses "a network, a server system coupled to the network and comprising one or more servers, a display device coupled to the network and having a display, and a personal computing device operable to transmit a first message according to a specified format over the network to the server system."
The patents' abstracts continue: "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."