What is the MagicBand? This colorful wristband is an all-in-one device that effortlessly connects you to all the vacation choices made with My Disney Experience. MagicBand enables us to travel lighter throughout the vacation: It can be used to enter the parks, unlock Disney Resort hotel room and buy food and merchandise.
Disney vs. InCom: In April 2015, InCom hit Disney with a patent infringement lawsuit in California federal court, claiming Disney’s MagicBand uses patents that were developed by InCom years ago to help schools, colleges, universities and others keep track of attendance at events. InCom uses a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) to recognize individuals and keep track of their attendance. It was legally issued the rights to the three patents Disney is infringing in 2008, 2010 and 2013 respectively. The patents-in-suit are U.S. Patent Numbers 8,353,705, 7,336,185 and 7,812,779. Disney sells MagicBands at ~$13 per band and has sold upwards of 10 million of them, allegedly despite having been notified that the product is infringing InCom's patents. Thus, InCom claimed that Disney was willfully infringing on patents, like the VirnetX case we discussed two weeks ago. However, Disney said that InCom did not allege any facts to show that Disney knew the accused device would be used to infringe. When Disney motioned to toss the suit in August, there was push back from InCom asserting that the liability hinged on whether Disney knew about the patents-in-suit, which InCom claimed it did and Disney continued to assert that the company did not identify any entities that allegedly used the devices to directly infringe. The case is still under review.
Disney vs. Positiontech: On February 22nd, the US company Positiontech alleged that Disney's MyMagic+ system infringes on 2 patents secured by the company in 22005 and 2006. These patents cover positional information used by Disney to track the movement of visitors in the park, which Positiontech says infringes on their positional information management system that records transactions of users, such as time and location. The suit specifically points towards Disney’s FastPass feature, which lets customers reserve a time to go on a specific ride without spending a long time waiting in line. The suit says that Disney’s tracking system, which uses radio frequency identification technology (RFID) chips is the same as the positional information the patent Positiontech secured covers.
The similarities between the two companies filing the suit is interesting to note, and I look forward to knowing what happens to these lawsuits.
Hi Srushti,
ReplyDeleteGreat post on Disney and their patent wars! I think that the fact that a case can be determined based on whether Disney knew if they were breaking patent laws is quite strange. I remember this latin phrase from my high school " ignorantia legis neminem excusat" which is translated into "ignorance is not an excuse of the law". I am surprised a judge would make this ruling because it is not based on any facts, and Disney could be lying. I am interested in finding out more about InCom. I do not know if they are patent trolls, and it would be interesting to see how they make money.
Regards,
Liam Whalen