Grecia v. Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. DC

Inventor William Grecia has continued to expand his cloud authentication campaign with the filing of seven new lawsuits, accusing Adobe (3:16-cv-06283), Big Ten Network Services (1:16-cv-10211), Cablevision (1:16-cv-10213), Fox (1:16-cv-10216), the National Football League (NFL Network Services) (1:16-cv-10221), STARZ (1:16-cv-10222), and Target (1:16-cv-10267) of infringing multiple combinations of two patents (8,402,555; 8,533,860) generally related to user authentication for digital content stored in a cloud. Nearly all of these latest defendants are alleged to infringe through the provision of “TV Anywhere” video streaming services, with two exceptions: Adobe is accused of infringing the ‘555 and ‘860 patents through the encrypted cloud storage features of its Creative Cloud software suite, while Target is alleged to infringe the ‘860 patent alone through the use of the EMV standard (used for chip-based credit cards) in its point-of-sale systems.

Inventor William Grecia has added five new defendants to his cloud authentication campaign, asserting a single patent (8,533,860) generally related to a method of providing access to content via cloud computing against 1-800-Flowers.com (1:16-cv-07022), Adorama Camera (1:16-cv-07111), Best Buy (1:16-cv-07024), J. Crew (1:16-cv-07025), and Neiman Marcus (1:16-cv-07026). The companies are each accused of infringement through their websites’ use of online payment services offered by American Express (1:15-cv-09217), MasterCard (1:15-cv-09059), and Visa (1:15-cv-09210), which were sued by Grecia in November 2015. Specifically, 1-800-Flowers and J. Crew are alleged to infringe through Mastercard’s Masterpass service, Adorama Camera and Best Buy through Visa Checkout, and Neiman Marcus through AMEX Checkout.