X Corp hit with $105 million Texas jury verdict in video patent case

By Blake Brittain

April 16 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's X Corp must pay a patent owner $105 million for violating its rights in technology for recording and distributing video through social networks, a Dallas, Texas federal jury said in a verdict on Wednesday.

The jury determined that X's former video subsidiaries Vine and Periscope mimicked VidStream LLC's video technology, siding with VidStream in a nearly decade-long patent dispute with the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Spokespeople and attorneys for X and attorneys for VidStream did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dallas-based VidStream was formed by the creators of Youtoo, which VidStream's lawsuit called "the world's first social network that was integrated into a TV network." According to VidStream, Youtoo licensed its technology for integrating video with social networks to television networks including NBC, CBS and Fox.

VidStream sued Twitter for patent infringement in 2016 after it acquired the short-form video platform Vine and live-streaming service Periscope. VidStream argued that Twitter's video services infringed patents related to "rapidly creating and distributing user-generated video content over a variety of networks."

Musk bought Twitter and rebranded the platform as X in 2023. X argued that its technology worked differently from VidStream's and that the patents were invalid.