Spotify is being sued by Dutch company Nonend Inventions, which claims the digital music platform is infringing on a number of its US patents.
The patents – 40 in total, according to Nonend - cover streaming media, peer-to-peer search and retrieval and playback techniques.
The complaint was filed in the US District Court in Delaware and the Dutch company is demanding a jury trial.
Spotify is being targeted because it is built on a P2P architecture, meaning that users actually get very little of Spotify’s music from its servers (8.8% Nonend claims); relying instead a distributed model using other subscribers on the network, according to TechCrunch.
“This feature makes the Spotify service faster, more efficient, and less costly to operate, and uses the technology at the heart of the Nonend Patents,” the complaint says.
Nonend’s counsel told TechCrunch that complaints have not been filed against other P2P streaming services yet and the company would be willing to license the technology.
Financial damages have not been specified in the complaint.
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