Online DVD rental company Netflix has a strong case in its patent infringement suit against Blockbuster Inc., says Bruce D. Sunstein, a leading patent attorney.
In the suit, filed April 4 in U.S. District Court in Northern California, Netflix alleges that Blockbuster Online violated two patents held by Netflix. The suit seeks to shut down Blockbuster’s 18-month-online rental service and unspecified damages.
The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the Netflix business method of allowing consumers paying a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company’s web site and maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the DVDs. The second patent covers the Netflix policy allowing subscribers to keep the DVDs for as long as they want without incurring late fees. That policy also allows subscribers to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to set or reset the order in which they receive DVDs.
Blockbuster says the claims are without merit and is an attempt by Netflix to stifle competition.
Sunstein says Netflix’s claims in the two patents are short and broadly written, a factor that typically runs in favor of the patent holder. In addition, Netflix listed several pages of U.S. and foreign patent documents and other references it reviewed before submitting the patent, decreasing the chances that a similar business practice already existed.
“I’ve read about how Netflix runs its back office,” Sunstein says. “It’s not simple. There’s a lot to it because how do you implement these choices that somebody has made on the computer? How do you handle fulfillment?”
Sunstein is co-founder of Brombert & Sunstein LLP, and heads the firm's Patent Practice Group.
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