Reuters/Dad Lubitsch/Illustration

(Reuters) – Facebook parent company Meta Platforms said it will appeal the $175 million verdict handed down Wednesday by a jury in Austin, Texas. A jury found that it infringed two patents owned by Walkie Talkie app maker Boxer, Inc. related to video streaming and messaging.

Meta’s Facebook Live and Instagram Live live-streaming features used Voxer’s patented technology, jury awarded Voxer $174.5 million in royalties damages after seven-day trial He said he accepted the compensation.

A Meta spokesperson said Thursday that the company believes the evidence shows it did not infringe. Meta intends to challenge the ruling through first instance and appeal, the spokesperson said.

Voxer and its attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

San Francisco-based Voxer launched the app in 2011. The company said it held a series of meetings in 2012 about a potential collaboration with Facebook and disclosed its patented technology to the tech giant.

According to Voxer’s 2020 lawsuit, the meeting failed to reach an agreement, and Facebook cut Voxer out of its platform’s core functionality in 2013. Voxer said the company, now known as Meta, launched Facebook Live in 2015 and Instagram Live the following year, integrating the streaming technology it pioneered.

One of Voxer’s patents covers a method of video streaming and another covers the infrastructure of a video messaging service. A jury on Wednesday rejected Meta’s argument that the video message patent is invalid.

Meta, in court filings on Tuesday, said a reasonable jury could not find its service to work as well as Voxer’s patented technology, giving the app maker the right to seek damages. said no.

The case is Voxer Inc v. Meta Platforms Inc, United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, No. 1:20-cv-00655.

Meta: Keker Van Nest & Peters’ Robert Van Nest, Christa Anderson, David Silbert, Eugene Paige, Matthew Werdegar, Paven Malhotra

For boxers: Kevin Johnson, Robert Stone, Sam Stake, Kate Shi, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s Michael Powell

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