IP Law Daily, PATENT NEWS: IBM wins $45 million patent verdict against video game company Zynga, (Sep 17, 2024)

By Steven Melendez

A jury awarded IBM $44.9 million, finding that Zynga had infringed two of the company's patents involving internet technology.

A federal jury awarded IBM a total of $44.9 million in a patent lawsuit against Zynga, finding the company's games including Farmville 3, Crosswords with Friends, and Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells infringed one of the company's patents and Empires and Puzzles infringed a second (International Business Machines Corp. v. Zynga, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-00590-GBW (D. Del. Sept. 13, 2024)).

Zynga had argued the patents—U.S. Patent Nos. 7,072,849 and 7,702,719—were invalid, but the jury found it had failed to prove its case. The video game company has indicated it will appeal, according to a Reuters report.

IBM first brought suit against Zynga in 2022, claiming that it had spent nearly eight years trying unsuccessfully to get the company to license its patents as "dozens of Zynga's peers in the industry" had already done. The patented technologies were being used in products made by Zynga and its subsidiary Chartboost, according to IBM.

The '849 patent deals with internet advertising technology, while the '719 patent covers technology for distributing data between a central server and the computers that connect to it for speedier communications. IBM said in its complaint that it demonstrated in videoconferences in summer 2020 how it believed Zynga infringed on its patents.

The court had previously dismissed claims related to another patent in the complaint, U.S. Patent No. 8,315,904. That patent, which involves a system for managing advertising promotions using fillable templates and a database of previous promotions, was held invalid because it merely covers an abstract idea of manipulating and organizing data.

But a similar challenge to the '849 patent proved unsuccessful, with the court finding the patent's claims went beyond mere abstraction to cover actual technical improvements in a computer network, involving shifting advertising material from a central computer to user computers.

In its verdict, the jury indicated that a particular set of Zynga games infringed particular claims of the '849 patent and found that Empires and Puzzles infringed a claim of the '719 patent. The jury also ruled that IBM had proved that Zynga's infringement of the '849 patent was willful. The jury awarded $40 million for infringement of the '849 patent and $4.9 million for infringement of the '719 patent.

IBM's patented web technology dates back in some cases to the early online service Prodigy, developed in the 1980s. The company has previously taken other companies to court over related web technology patents, including a lawsuit against Groupon ultimately settled for $57 million after an $83 million jury verdict, and negotiated licensing deals with others.

The Case is No. 1:22-cv-00590-GBW.

Judge: Williams, G.

Attorneys: David Ellis Moore (Potter Anderson & Corroon, LLP) for International Business Machines Corp. Michael J. Farnan (Farnan LLP) and Alyssa Caridis (Orrick, Herrinton & Sutcliffe LLP) for Zynga Inc.

Companies: International Business Machines Corp.; Zynga Inc.

News: Patent TechnologyInternet DelawareNews