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Redfin has come under fire for the system it uses to power its listing portal. In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by Virtual Creative Artists (VCA) in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Redfin is accused of illegally infringing on patents held by VCA.
In the suit, VCA claims that Redfin is using technology that infringes on two of the company’s patents (No. 9,501,480 and No. 9,477,665) without permission. The two patents were issued in 2016. These patents describe a system for managing and distributing user-generated content in an efficient, scalable and interactive way.
According to VCA, Redfin infringed upon these patents by creating a site that allows users to upload multimedia content, such as photos and descriptions of their listings, then filters listings based on a user’s search criteria and allows the user to interact with listings by favoriting them. Additionally, Redfin’s system is able to handle large volumes of multimedia data, which VCA claims is similar to the scalable database systems described in their patents.
“The Accused Instrumentality employs an electronic multimedia creator server subsystem operatively coupled to the electronic media submissions server subsystem, necessarily having one or more data processing apparatus in order to manage content, and an electronic creator multimedia database stored on a non-transitory medium, configured to select and retrieve a plurality of electronic media submissions (e.g., real estate listings with associated photo content and textual content) from the electronic media submissions database using an electronic content filter located on the electronic multimedia creator server,” the filing states.
VCA is demanding a jury trial and asking the court for a declaration that Redfin has infringed on their patents, damages and payment of their legal fees.
Redfin did not return a request for comment.
