Defendant

Sling Media Inc.

2 cases as defendant.

Cases
2
Active
0
2 closed
Filed
2017
Top venue
E.D. Texas Tyler
1 case

Company profile

Company overview. Sling Media, Inc. is a U.S. consumer-technology company founded in 2004 by brothers Blake and Jason Krikorian (with Bhupen Shah) and headquartered in Foster City, California (originally San Mateo). It is not publicly traded. EchoStar Corporation acquired Sling Media in late 2007 in a cash-and-options deal valued at roughly $380 million; Sling Media's assets were subsequently transferred into DISH Network as part of a 2017 corporate asset exchange, and the business has since been reported as a Dish/EchoStar subsidiary operating under Dish Technologies. A Wikipedia infobox lists 275+ employees, but I could not verify a current headcount or revenue figure from a primary source.

Products / services / operations. Sling Media developed "placeshifting" technology that streams a home TV signal to remote devices. Its flagship line was the Slingbox retail hardware (Slingbox Classic, AV/Tuner/Pro, SOLO, PRO-HD, 350/500, and M1), paired with SlingPlayer desktop and mobile apps. It also supplied OEM solutions — SDKs, cloud infrastructure and engineering — embedded in Dish set-tops (Sling Adapter, ViP 922, Hopper with Sling) and the ARRIS MS4000, and released SlingStudio live-production hardware in 2017. Slingbox manufacturing had effectively ended by 2017; Sling Media discontinued all Slingbox products in November 2020 and permanently took the servers offline on November 9, 2022. The separate "Sling TV" streaming brand is Dish's OTT service, licensed under the Sling name.

Patent-litigation posture. In the tracked database Sling Media appears only as a defendant (2 cases, 0 as plaintiff) — consistent with an operating company defending against patent assertions rather than a non-practicing entity. Both suits were filed in 2017 by Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXO, a well-known individual-inventor-started patent assertion entity (classified as an NPE in Stanford's NPE database and Unified Patents' litigation portal), targeting data compression/storage patents. One case landed in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, a traditional plaintiff-friendly venue; the parallel case was filed in the District of Colorado.

Notable cases. Realtime Data LLC v. DISH Network Corporation et al. (E.D. Tex., filed 2017-07-19) and Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXO v. Sling TV L.L.C. et al. (D. Colo., filed 2017-08-31) are the only tracked matters, naming Sling Media/Sling TV alongside related Dish entities. Separately, in 2013 Sling Media and EchoStar asserted placeshifting patents against Belkin and Monsoon Multimedia, including an ITC complaint.

Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXO et al. v. Sling TV L.L.C. et al.

stayed; partial judgment; remanded on fees
Filed:
2017-08-31
Patents:827589788676108934535
π Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXOπ Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLCΔ Sling TV L.L.C.Δ Sling Media Inc.Δ Sling Media L.L.C.Δ DISH Network L.L.C.Δ DISH Technologies L.L.C.Δ Arris Group, Inc.

Realtime Data LLC (later Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC) sued Sling TV, Sling Media, and later DISH and Arris entities. The original complaint asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 8,275,897, 8,867,610, and 8,934,535, but the '897 patent was dropped from the Oct. 10, 2017 amended complaint, leaving '610 and '535. The litigation was stayed pending IPRs; '535 claims were dropped after PTAB invalidation, '610 claims were held ineligible under § 101 (affirmed May 11, 2023), and the attorneys'-fee award to DISH was vacated and remanded by the Federal Circuit on Aug. 23, 2024.

Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXO v. DISH Network Corporation et al.

dismissed without prejudice
Docket:
6:17-cv-00421
Filed:
2017-07-19
Terminated:
2017-11-08
Patents:827589788676108934535
π Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXOΔ DISH Network CorporationΔ DISH Network L.L.C.Δ DISH Technologies L.L.C.Δ Sling TV L.L.C.Δ Sling Media Inc.Δ Sling Media L.L.C.Δ Arris Group, Inc.

Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXO sued DISH Network and related entities alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,275,897, 8,867,610, and 8,934,535. The action was severed from 6:17-cv-00084. A joint motion to dismiss without prejudice was filed Nov. 6, 2017, and entered Nov. 8, 2017.