Smugmug takes a slug at patents

Posted on May 27, 2009 by Rajiv Sarathy

If you share your digital photos online like many people, you may have used a service such as Smugmug.  Smugmug's recently filed complaint caught my eye because of my interest in photography.  Smugmug has filed a declaratory judgment action in the Northern District of California, where its offices are located, against Illinois-based Virtual Photo Store (VPS). 

According to Smugmug's complaint, VPS's attorneys sent a letter to Smugmug putting it on notice of at least one of VPS's patents. Smugmug requests the court to declare that Smugmug does not infringe any valid claim of the following three VPS patents:

  • Patent No. 6,321,231 directed to an asset (e.g., photograph) "data management and order delivery system";
  • Patent No. 6,332,146 directed to "storing and printing digital images"; and
  • Patent no. 7,487,155 directed to "routing and distributing digital images."

It will be interesting to see how this case progresses. The identified patents are not very old and there are several online photo sharing sites that will probably be watching closely.

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