NetFlix, Yahoo, and Others Hit With HTTPS Patent Lawsuit

A string of companies have has sued by an obscure firm for allegedly violating a patent that deals with encryption technology, including Netflix, Yahoo, Target, and Pinterest.

White House press secretary Jay Carney holds up a folder with an image of a troll and the words "innovation, not litigation" during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2013. AP Photo/Evan Vucci

A string of big name companies—including Netflix, Yahoo, Target, and Pinterest—are being sued by an obscure firm for allegedly violating a patent that deals with encryption technology. 

CryptoPeak, which has little online presence apart from records of filing these lawsuits, claims that the companies infringe on an encryption patent it owns that concerns Elliptic Curve Cryptography, a technique commonly used to secure HTTPS connections and make safe transfers between data centers.

“Defendant has infringed and continues to directly infringe one or more claims of the ‘150 Patent ... having made, and/or using one or more websites that operate in compliance with the standards of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (”ECC“) Cipher Suites for the Transport Layer Security (”TLS“) protocol (the ”Accused Instrumentalities“),” the lawsuit against Netflix reads.

Similar lawsuits against more than a dozen companies share the same language.

The direct costs of patent trolling to the targeted companies can add up to as much as $29 billion per year.