X Corp sues Adeia to block US patent infringement claims

Nov 29 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's X Corp has sued former TiVo technology owner Adeia Inc (ADEA.O) in California federal court, seeking a declaration that the social-media company does not infringe Adeia's digital-media patents.

X said in the Tuesday complaint that it was suing to head off an expected Adeia patent-infringement lawsuit following the breakdown of a licensing agreement between the companies.

Adeia was the intellectual-property licensing unit of TiVo owner Xperi (XPER.N) before Xperi was spun off into an independent company last year.

"Our position is that this lawsuit is without merit," an Adeia spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

According to the complaint, Adeia's predecessors TiVo and Rovi agreed to license their patents to X, then known as Twitter, in 2019. The lawsuit said that Adeia sued X in California state court this August for allegedly breaking their contract.

X said that Adeia's complaint improperly revealed confidential terms of the agreement, including that X pays a licensing fee of $3 million per year. It told Adeia on Tuesday that it was terminating their contract based on the disclosure.

X's lawsuit on Tuesday said that it faced an imminent risk of being sued by Adeia for patent infringement based in part on what it called a recent plan by Adeia to "target social media companies" with its licensing efforts.

Adeia's website says that its patents "broadly cover all aspects of the entertainment experience, including guidance, discovery, search, recommendations, DVR, VOD, OTT, multi-screen, personalization, data analytics, advertising, imaging, content storage and high-performance computing."

X said that Adeia's patents do not cover any of its services. It asked the court to find that it specifically does not infringe four Adeia patents related to content recommendations, digital advertising, social-media integration and other technology.

The case is X Corp v. Adeia Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:23-cv-06151.