American and Southwest just made inflight Wi-Fi free. Now a patent-aggregation firm that makes money by licensing IP and suing those they say are using it without authorization is trying to turn “free” into “pay us anyway.”
Intellectual Ventures is suing both airlines, claiming their onboard internet setups and related backend systems infringe a portfolio of patents. The timing is perfect: when airlines charge for Wi-Fi, a royalty can be hidden inside the fee. When Wi-Fi is free, any payout comes straight out of the airline’s pocket.
In the American case, a federal judge in East Texas just ordered the airline to turn over pre-suit technical discovery—including documents and source code—so the plaintiffs can pursue past damages.
Free inflight Wi-Fi is finally turning into a baseline expectation, and in the last few months American and Southwest joined Delta and JetBlue in making it free. American is rolling it out now. Southwest flipped the switch in late October.
And a patent-aggregation shop that “acquires and asserts patents” for a living and is “widely perceived” in the IP world as an archetypal modern “patent troll” is suing American and also Southwest claiming their inflight connectivity setups (and related backend tech) infringe a portfolio of patents.
The American case has been running since November 2, 2024 and now covers 12 asserted patents (an original six plus six more added in a September 2025 amended complaint).
The judge denied American’s partial motion to dismiss. American also tried to carve out (and stay) the parts tied to Viasat’s inflight connectivity systems but that was denied as well. And this week, the court ordered American to produce pre-suit discovery of technical documents and source code within seven days.
Intellectual Ventures filed the Southwest case the same day as the American case. That case is now in the Northern District of Texas.
They’re claiming ownership of specific ways of:
- Getting bandwidth onboard and distributing it.
- “Method and System for High Data Rate Multi-Channel WLAN Architecture” — higher throughput Wi-Fi by using multiple channels and channel bonding in order to serve the whole cabin.
- “Satellite Distributed High Speed Internet Access” — satellite backhaul feeding an onboard hotspot system for passengers.
- Passenger portal and authentication. So it’s a combination of vendor hardware and network with airline-operated systems (login, authentication, access) that’s begin argued as infringing.
- A bunch of computer and cloud computing technologies. The original complaint listed “Root Image Caching and Indexing for Block-Level Distributed Application Management” “Load Balancing with Shared Data” “Asynchronous Messaging Using a Node Specialization Architecture in the Dynamic Routing Network” “Secure Virtual Community Network System”
Intellectual Ventures is the classic patent troll model: acquire huge portfolios of patents, license and litigate. They describe themselves as a “portfolio owner” with tens of thousands of patents. A win for them would turn ‘free’ into ‘sponsored, but taxed’ turning a consumer-friendly feature into a royalty stream.
Gary, When do these patents expire?
A lot of companies try to implement systems without paying the royalties on intellectual property. Let us see how the courts rule.
And you wonder why the majority of people hate lawyers!
Where is J. Cheever Loophole when he’s needed?
Welp, time to fight that lawsuit… what’s the ole health insurance playbook? Delay, Deny, Defend. And appeal, appeal. Or, counter-sue, sanction, defame, and send out your goons, like Boeing did to those whistleblowers…
When something is stolen it is stolen, not free. Without disproving the patents you have no basis for saying that stolen property is not being fenced. Patent thief, not patent troll.
“when airlines charge for Wi-Fi, a royalty can be hidden inside the fee. When Wi-Fi is free, any payout comes straight out of the airline’s pocket.”
Total economic nonsense. There is no WiFi fairy.
Intellectual Ventures is Nathan Myrvold’s firm. Dude wasn’t content making billions as an early Microsoft employee. He turned into a mega patent troll.
Pssst. AA’s internet isn’t “free”. It’s “sponsored” by AT&T. If it was free, we wouldn’t have to suffer through a firehose of advertising to be able to use it.
Wonder if AA & SW will defend jointly. That seems to be a successful tactic against such trolls.
I’ve had experience in reviewing patent decisions and filing a patent on behalf of my former employer. This was in a highly technical area. It quickly became evident to me that reviewers in the patent office didn’t seem to understand what they were reading, and this was exacerbated by different applicants using different terms for the same process. Ultimately the court system gets called in to clean up the mess, and it can take years and many millions in legal fees.
Surprised there are those here to defend the trolls. Stuff like this is why its impossible/cost prohibitive to get anything done in the US.
Gary, you should report on the absolute cluster this rollout has been. They turned off all the old free options, and even now in the middle of the month, very few planes have the free wifo activated and AA is still charging 25 bucks for a 2 hiur flight
Property has value. Value needs to be defended, in court if necessary.
@Denver Refugee — That’s why the Justice is Blind statue has a sword… to defend, in court, if necessary. *wink*
which goes to the question of what B6 and DL are really paying in order to offer its WiFi.
Daddy,
so you have to ask if AA’s rollout being affected by this lawsuit or is just AA being AA
The people defending these dudes are just the patent trolls accounts.
We need to pass some laws that goes after the patent troll entity, and all of its owners, investors, and employees in the case of a failed suit.
Of course only if the troll is a non real user of said patent. That way their is some real skin in the game instead of these arbitrary law suits that have no basis in facts.
What a pack of effing weasels. You gotta love our late stage capitalism litigious society.
As a software engineer, many of the protocols and processes they claim to have patented have been around for decades since the dawn of WiFi networks. The problem with patents in this country is there are often many many overlapping ones approved for the same use (utility) or engineering methods. I laughed when I read that they clam to have a patent on all satellite backhauled wlan for passenger internet access for example; many firms have offered this for decades like viasat, Panasonic, gogo, Inmarsat etc. All of those companies’ solutions would be violative too so clearly these trolls are exactly that- trolls.
They filed their lawsuit in a district that has historically been friendly to patents trolls
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Sounds like bottom feeder law firms buying up and attempting to collect defaulted debt….
Some lawyers just don’t realize where their bad reputation is coming from
Where is the Beekeeper?? Let’s send Stratham in to deal with these trolls!!
The Onion headline from the past:
MICROSOFT PATENTS
ONES, ZEROS
“The Onion headline from the past:
MICROSOFT PATENTS
ONES, ZEROS”
Alan Sherman (Hello Mother, Hello Father) claimed (likely in jest) to have copyrighted a song that was a single C note. He argued that any other song was derivative.
Valid patents deserve protection, but I’d support some changes in length depending on area. However, some patents should have never been issued as they 1) aren’t new, but the Patent Office(r) didn’t catch that or 2) containing challenges they haven’t solved. The former can get the patent thrown out when discovered in litigation, but the trolls hope you’ll just pay them off before that happens. The latter was the basis by which Edison survived a lawsuit from the light bulb patent holder. The courts found that the patent specified a light bulb, but the filaments was described in the patent in such vague terms that it included all animal, vegetable, and mineral sources. However, the patent holder never developed a light bulb that worked a useful time. Edison did (after trying a crazy number of items).
Seems like the suit should be against Viasat, Panasonic, GoGo etc. The airlines are not developing new ways of using wi-fi in a plane.