Twitch hit with lawsuit claiming they’re infringing another company’s patent
TwitchRazDog Holdings has filed a lawsuit against Twitch claiming the Amazon-owned platforms home page and tag system infringes on their patents.
When users go to Twitch’s website, they’ll notice a carousel of live streams being featured front and center on the main page.
Viewers can click buttons on the left and right side to scroll through the featured creators, giving them the ability to quickly check out who Twitch has put the spotlight on.
In a new lawsuit from RazDog Holdings, the company is claiming that the technology used to power Twitch’s home page feature is infringing on their patent filed in 2011.
The filing states that RazDog created the software in the late 2000’s and after winning a Microsoft sponsored competition, they were able to file for and receive the patents for the “carousel for interactive media.”
TwitchRazDog claims that Twitch’s inclusion of a carousel to organize live streams on the top of the home page is infringing on its decade-old patent due to the fact that it works without the end user downloading a plugin.
“These services and features, as well as other implementations of the Twitch Video
System that include carousels and a remote tool box, infringe the RazDog Patents (the “Twitch
Infringing Services”), as set forth in more detail in the infringement charts attached hereto as
Exhibit 3 and 4,” it reads.
The lawsuit also says that Twitch’s tag and suggested channels systems are infringing on a separate “remote toolbox” patent held by RazDog holdings.
RazDog is asking for a trial by jury in the case against Amazon-owned Twitch, and wants to be awarded an “amount sufficient to compensate RazDog for Twitch’s infringement.”
This is far from the first bit of news to come out surrounding Twitch in 2024. The site faced $300,000 in fines from the South Korean government after removing VODs from the platform in violation of that country’s telecom laws.