Defendant
3 cases as defendant.
Aspiro, Inc. — company profile
Aspiro, Inc. is the U.S. arm of Aspiro AB, the Norwegian-founded, Swedish-domiciled media technology company behind the Tidal music-streaming service. Aspiro AB was founded in 1998 by Jörgen Adolfsson, Christer Månsson and Klas Hallqvist, listed on the Stockholm exchange from 2000–01, and taken private in March 2015 when Project Panther Bidco Ltd. (Jay-Z / S. Carter Enterprises) bought roughly 95% for about SEK 464m (~$56m) and delisted it. Wikipedia lists Block, Inc. (Square) as majority owner (86.8%) following its March 2021 purchase of a majority Tidal stake. U.S. operations are based in New York (1411 Broadway). Headcount figures vary by source — PitchBook lists 86, Wikipedia cites 120 — and 2014 net revenue was SEK 303.2m ($32m) against a SEK 84.1m net loss; verification is limited by the company's private status.
It is an operating company, not a licensing shell. Aspiro originally sold mobile content services (ringtones, games, WAP services, text directory lookup) through carrier and handset partnerships with Ericsson and Nokia, plus a video syndication platform, RADR. Its main business became subscription music streaming: WiMP, launched in Scandinavia in 2010, and Tidal, launched in the U.S. and U.K. in October 2014 with lossless FLAC/ALAC "HiFi" audio at $19.99/month. WiMP was folded into the Tidal brand in March 2015.
Aspiro's litigation posture is purely defensive: 0 cases as plaintiff and 3 tracked records as defendant, all reflecting a single S.D.N.Y. action filed 21 April 2020 by Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (1:20-cv-03159, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein). Cedar Lane is a Canadian entity founded in 2019 that asserts acquired patents, characterized as an NPE/PAE in Stanford's NPE database; it filed hundreds of suits, chiefly in W.D. Tex. and D.N.J., so this New York filing is atypical of its usual venues.
The complaint, reported to target Tidal, asserted nine patents — including 6,452,609, 6,502,194, 6,526,411, 6,721,489, 6,806,889, 7,173,177, 7,610,394, 8,549,097 and 8,805,830 — over web-page streaming and media playback features. Cedar Lane asserted overlapping patents against Disney, ViacomCBS, iHeartMedia, Comcast and Verizon in the same period. No outcome is recorded in the tracked data.
Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. sued Aspiro, Inc. in S.D.N.Y. U.S. Patent 6,526,411 appears among the asserted patents per IPWatchdog's filing roundup. Pending at the snapshot captured by UniCourt; outcome not verified.
Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. sued Aspiro, Inc. in S.D.N.Y. asserting the '194 patent and eight other patents; the case was terminated, typical of Cedar Lane's settlement/dismissal campaign.
Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. asserted U.S. Patent No. 6,721,489 against Aspiro, Inc. in S.D.N.Y.; the narrative cites an IPWatchdog roundup listing the '489 patent among patents asserted.