Dish sues Peloton, Icon and Lululemon
April 15, 2021
By Chris Forrester
Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network is suing Peloton, Icon Health and athletic clothing firm Lululemon with allegations that they infringed patents for streaming.
The writs, filed in Delaware and Texas federal courts, allege that the three businesses used streaming software owned by a Dish subsidiary company, developed for Dish’s Sling TV. The writs stated that the technology allows Internet users to stream content from across the world in real time at the highest possible quality.
Dish went further by filing a formal complaint with the US International Trade Commission in Washington, and asking that it blocked US imports of products including Peloton’s stationary bikes, NordicTrack treadmills and Mirror workout panels.
The Dish/Sling patents cited in the lawsuits refer to methods of improving online video quality, particularly when users do things like fast-forward or rewind content. The patents allow for browsing of multiple streams without problems and automatically adjusting for a user’s bandwidth limitations. Sling said it uses the technology in offering subscriptions to live TV channels over the internet.
According to the writs, the streaming technology was developed by Move Networks, which was acquired by Dish in 2010. Dish is on record as having sued Spanish-language TV broadcaster Univision Communications in 2019 over some of the same patents before settling later that year.