Defendant
1 case as defendant.
I'll verify the company's profile.
Let me verify the litigation context.
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE, "Sony Pictures") — Culver City, California (Sony Pictures Studios, 10202 W. Washington Blvd.). The entity traces to Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc., formed December 18, 1987 from Coca-Cola's spin-off/merger of Columbia and TriStar; Sony acquired it in 1989 and renamed it SPE on August 7, 1991. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc. (itself under Sony Corporation of America / Sony Group Corporation), so no standalone ticker. Wikipedia lists roughly 9,100 employees (2023) and about US$10.1 billion in FY2022 revenue; the Japanese-language entry lists ~12,000 employees (2026) and ¥1.02 trillion FY2024 revenue. Employee and revenue figures vary by source and fiscal-year basis.
Products / services. SPE is one of the "Big Five" major Hollywood studios and is an operating company, not an NPE. Operations cover: motion picture production and distribution (Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Pictures Classics, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Affirm Films); television production and distribution (Sony Pictures Television, including game shows such as Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune); media networks and streaming (Game Show Network, Crunchyroll anime streaming, AXN/Sony Channel international networks); and home entertainment (Blu-ray/DVD/digital). It also owns Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (acquired 2024) and produces franchise IP including Spider-Man, Ghostbusters, Jumanji, and Men in Black.
Patent-litigation posture. Pure defendant. The tracked docket shows 0 cases as plaintiff and 1 as defendant, and the surrounding record is consistent with an operating studio being targeted rather than asserting patents. The single tracked matter, Helios Streaming, LLC et al. v. Crackle, Inc. et al. (D. Del. 1:19-cv-01818, filed September 27, 2019), names SPE and Sony Pictures Television as defendants. Delaware, not the Eastern District of Texas, is the venue.
Notable case context. Plaintiffs Helios Streaming, LLC (exclusive licensee, an NPE per Unified Patents/RPX) and Ideahub, Inc. (Korean patent monetization firm and owner) asserted 11 patents tied to the MPEG-DASH adaptive-streaming standard, originally developed by Korea's ETRI. Co-defendants included Crackle/Crackle Plus and Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment; parallel suits targeted Vudu, Showtime, and Starz. Unified Patents later challenged one asserted patent (U.S. 10,362,130) via ex parte reexamination, and the claims were cancelled in 2024.
Patent infringement suit in which U.S. Patent No. 8,645,562 was listed among the asserted patents. Docket databases show the case closed/terminated, but the specific final outcome was not confirmed.