Verkada Sues Motorola Over Patent Infringement Complaint
In the lawsuit, Verkada claims that the demands in Motorola Solutions’ complaint would effectively shut its business down.
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SAN MATEO, Calif. — Verkada is suing Motorola Solutions over a complaint it filed with the United States International Trade Commission (USITC).
In the complaint, Motorola claimed that Verkada infringed on patents held by its subsidiary, Avigilon, through the “manufacture and importation of certain video security equipment and systems, related software, components thereof, and products containing the same, including Verkada’s Dome, Mini, Fisheye, Bullet, and D-Series series of products.”
In the lawsuit, Verkada states that its competitors, such as Avigilon, have taken note of the company’s success and instead of competing, Motorola has sought to effectively shut Verkada’s business down.
Motorola’s complaint seeks to exclude importation of Verkada’s entire current line of security cameras allegedly infringing Avigilon’s patents. It also asked the USITC to issue permanent cease and desist orders preventing Verkada “from marketing, distributing, selling, offering for sale, warehousing inventory for distribution, or otherwise transferring or importing into the United States the infringing video security equipment and systems, related software, components thereof, and/or products containing same.”
The patents in question are:
- U.S. Patent No. 7,868,912 (the ‘912 Patent): “Video Surveillance System Employing Video Primitives.”
- U.S. Patent No. 10,726,312 (the ‘312 Patent): “System and Method for Appearance Search.”
- U.S. Patent No. 8,508,607 (the ‘607 Patent): “Method and System for a Programmable Camera for Configurable Security and Surveillance Systems.”
The lawsuit states that Verkada requests the court to enter judgments declaring that it has not infringed on the ‘912, ‘312 and ‘607 patents.
Motorola provided SSI with the following statement:
Avigilon, a Motorola Solutions company, is a leading global provider of integrated video security solutions, focused on designing, developing and bringing to market innovative, best-in-class technologies. In August 2021, we filed a patent infringement complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission against Verkada, a recent market entrant, because we believe it is infringing our patents.
Verkada’s complaint, filed in California, now seeks a declaration that Verkada does not infringe the same patents. Motorola Solutions believes that Verkada’s complaint is entirely without merit. In fact, the U.S. International Trade Commission decided on September 8 to investigate Verkada’s infringement of these patents, and that investigation is proceeding. We intend to vigorously pursue our infringement claims at the U.S. International Trade Commission and will respond to Verkada’s complaint in due course. We look forward to the opportunity to present our case.
At Motorola Solutions, we have invested extensively in R&D to deliver cutting-edge solutions to our customers around the world and across industries. On behalf of our customers, shareholders, employees, partners and other stakeholders, we will continue to defend our intellectual property and investments in innovation.
Founded in 2016, Verkada has become an emerging leader in the physical security space with its Cloud-managed enterprise building security.
The company landed in hot water earlier in the year when a hacker group gained access to live feeds of 150,000 of its security cameras — giving hackers access to surveillance streams from companies like Tesla and Cloudflare, as well as schools, hospitals, prisons and thousands of other organizations.
SSI has reached out to Verkada for comment.
9/9/21: This story was updated to add Motorola’s statement.
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About the Author
Steve Karantzoulidis, Web/Senior Editor
Steven A. Karantzoulidis is the Web Editor for Security Sales & Integration. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a degree in Communication and has a background in Film, A/V and Social Media.
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