Valve wins legal battle against patent troll Rothschild and associated companies

The case of Valve versus Leigh Rothschild and all associated companies has come to an end, with Valve coming out the clear winner in this one.

For those unfamiliar, Rothschild has a lot of patents and has a habit of going after various companies to try and get money out of them. They even tried to sue GNOME, as just one appropriate example here.

It sure took a while for this situation to be solved, with a first case being originally filed in 2022 from Display Technologies LLC (a patent holding company from Rothschild). The patent in question, US8856221B2, covers a "System and method for storing broadcast content in a cloud-based computing environment". This caused Valve to file their own suit in 2023 which targeted Rothschild directly, various companies and even their lawyers.

For once, a patent troll got what was coming to them and the public verdict is an interesting one to read through. Not only has it been thrown out, but Valve have been awarded damages at what appears to be over $150,000. With the jury noting Rothschild violated the Washington Patent Troll Prevention and Consumer Protection Acts due to making the assertion of patent infringement in bad faith.

Pocket change when it comes to Valve, but perhaps a nice warning call to patent trolls not to mess with the likes of Valve.

The jury also awarded an "advisory verdict for Valve" according to the docs favouring the invalidity of Claim 7 of the ’221 Patent "due to obviousness". It's not entirely over just yet though as courts now need to set a date for the remaining disputes between Valve and Rothschild, on Valve's "invalidity and unenforceability claim".