Defendant
3 cases as defendant.
Instagram, LLC — commonly "Instagram" — is a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META). It is headquartered at Meta's campus, 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California. Instagram was founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and acquired by Facebook in 2012 for roughly $1 billion (Britannica; Meta/PitchBook). Meta does not report Instagram as a separate segment and discloses no standalone revenue, profit, or headcount for the subsidiary; Meta reported $164.5B of total 2024 revenue across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Threads, ~74,000 employees company-wide (Meta FY2024 10-K / Q4 2024 results).
Products/operations. Instagram is a free, ad-supported social platform for photo and video sharing: feed posts, Stories, Reels short video, direct messaging, live video, and creator and business tools (professional accounts, shopping surfaces, advertising). Substantially all revenue comes from advertising sold against Instagram inventory; the app is distributed via iOS, Android, and web.
Litigation posture. Instagram is an operating company defending itself, not an NPE or shell licensor. Its six tracked appearances all arise from a single dispute with BlackBerry: three defendant-side entries in BlackBerry Limited v. Facebook, Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and Instagram, LLC (C.D. Cal., filed March 6, 2018) and three plaintiff-side entries at the PTAB (Facebook, Inc., Instagram, LLC and WhatsApp Inc. v. BlackBerry Limited, IPR petitions filed February–April 2019). Instagram is a co-party alongside Facebook and WhatsApp throughout and never an independent plaintiff. Venue was the Central District of California (Western Division), not the Eastern District of Texas.
Notable context. BlackBerry asserted nine patents on mobile messaging, push notification, cryptography and targeted advertising against Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and, separately, Snap. The district court invalidated the '351 and '929 patents under 35 U.S.C. §101 on summary judgment (Oct. 2019), and the PTAB instituted review on several asserted patents, with all challenged claims of the '713 patent held unpatentable (Oct. 2020). The parties settled confidentially and dismissed the district court action in February 2021.
BlackBerry asserted 7,372,961 among seven patents against Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. A Rule 54(b) final judgment entered for defendants as to U.S. 8,296,351 and 8,676,929 under § 101; remaining claims, including any '961 count, were later dismissed with prejudice by stipulation on 2021-02-16.
BlackBerry asserted the '236 patent only against WhatsApp, Inc. (claims 15 and 17). On July 23, 2020, the court granted Defendants' motion for summary judgment holding the asserted '236 claims invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The parties settled confidentially and the case terminated on Feb. 16, 2021.
BlackBerry asserted the '713 patent as one of nine patents-in-suit against Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram in the Central District of California. The court addressed § 101 eligibility, dismissing the independent claims of the '713 patent with prejudice while denying dismissal as to dependent claims. The case was terminated/closed on February 16, 2021; the precise termination mechanism is unverified.