April 8, 2009, Chicago — The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin granted summary judgment for Banner & Witcoff’s client Pandora in a patent infringement suit brought by MOAEC, Inc. Pandora is a well-known, personalized, Internet radio service, available on PCs, home devices and mobile phones.
In MOAEC, Inc., v. Pandora Media, Inc., Pandora was accused of infringing two MOAEC patents related to an entertainment system for organizing, storing and playing back music. Pandora vigorously defended itself and prevailed after full discovery shortly before trial, which was scheduled for May 2009. The court granted summary judgment of no infringement of both of MOAEC’s asserted patents.
The Banner & Witcoff legal team representing Pandora was led by Matthew Becker, and also included Pieter van Es, Richard Stockton and Thomas Lerdal.
Please click here to view the decision.
About Pandora
Pandora (www.pandora.com) is a personalized Internet radio and music discovery service available anytime and anywhere on the PC, in the home, and on mobile devices via partnerships with major wireless service providers. Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project begun in 2000 and is the most thorough analysis of popular music ever undertaken. Each song in this massive collection is analyzed by more than 35 trained musicians, and assessed against nearly 400 distinct musical attributes such as melody, harmony, and rhythm to capture its unique musical identity. Using this information to build playlists based on musical similarity, listeners can simply enter a favorite song or artist, and instantly launch a personalized listening experience which includes discovery of new bands, artists and songs. Pandora is the largest online music site based on monthly unique visitors, has a growing user base of twenty-five million registered listeners, a collection of over 600,000 songs, and national advertisers.
About Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.
Banner & Witcoff, Ltd. is dedicated to excellence in the specialized practice of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, computer, franchise and unfair competition law. The firm actively engages in the procurement, enforcement and litigation of intellectual property rights throughout the world, including all federal and state agencies, and the distribution of such rights through licensing and franchising. The firm has over 90 attorneys and agents in its Chicago, Washington, DC, Boston and Portland, OR offices.
Please direct all media inquires to Colleen Strasser at cstrasser@bannerwitcoff.com or 312.463.5465
Posted: April 8, 2009
