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Home > Sex Tech > LovePalz must pay $56,100 in damages after losing ‘teledildonic’ patent suit

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Home›Sex Tech›LovePalz must pay $56,100 in damages after losing ‘teledildonic’ patent suit

LovePalz must pay $56,100 in damages after losing ‘teledildonic’ patent suit

By Jenna Owsianik, Editor-in-Chief of FutureofSex.net
July 21, 2016
4073
4

Judge rules against startup that failed to defend itself. 

Winzz, LLC, an apparently now-defunct sex tech company that did business as LovePalz, has been ordered to pay $56,100.71 in damages to TZU Technologies. TZU Technologies, a California-based company, controls the rights to the US patent covering the communication of sex toys over the Internet. This patent is often referred to as the Hassex or the ‘268 patent.

US District Judge John A. Kronstadt found Winzz, LLC/LovePalz liable for patent infringement on June 30 after it failed to both respond and defend itself against complaints. The Delaware-based company once sold interactive sex toys for long-distance partners: a male sex sleeve called Zeus and a vibrator called Hera.

After poor product reviews, LovePalz launched an unsuccessful Indiegogo campaign in 2014 to raise funds for revamped versions of Zeus and Hera marketed as Twist. It also attempted to start an adult social network for remote sex called The LovePalz Clubb. It appears the company has ceased operations since 2015 and has not responded to requests for comment.

Counting the legal blows

TZU Technologies first brought legal action against six sex tech companies, including LovePalz, in June 2015. The crowdfunding site Kickstarter was also named as a defendant after it featured a campaign for the virtual hand holding device Frebble. The case against the company was dismissed last November.

Lawsuits against Internet Services, LLC and WMM Holdings, LLC (the makers of the RealTouch), Happy Haptics, Inc. (FriXion), Comingle, and Vibease remain active.

Vibease, Comingle, and the makers of the RealTouch filed near-identical counterclaims challenging the validity of TZU Technologies’ patent in 2015 with the same legal representation. They have also presented exhibits of prior art to the court in an attempt to demonstrate that sex over communication networks was not a novel idea before the Hassex patent was filed in 1998.

However, the legal battle has served a crushing blow to Comingle in particular. The Atlanta-based sex tech company held itself a funeral in May, unable to keep up with high legal fees. The news came with little shock. In February, the startup announced it had to stop producing its open-source dildo, the Mod, due to the mentally and financially draining patent lawsuit.

Image source: opensource.com

 

Tags#patents

Jenna Owsianik

Jenna Owsianik is a Canadian journalist and sex tech expert. Since 2014 she has been Editor-in-Chief of FutureofSex.net, the world’s leading publication on how technology is changing human sexuality, today and tomorrow.

Jenna is the primary author of the Future of Sex Report (2016).

Her expertise covers state-of-the-art sex technologies and the major fields driving innovations in intimacy: robotics, virtual reality, remote sex (teledildonics), immersive adult entertainment, human augmentation, virtual sex, and sexual health.

A trained journalist with a Masters of Journalism from The University of British Columbia, Jenna’s reporting has appeared on Futurism.com, Al Jazeera English, CTV British Columbia online, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS 60 Minutes, Global News, and CKNW Radio in Canada and the United States.

As a sex tech industry consultant, she is especially passionate about helping companies deliver accessible services and products to people with disabilities and other underserved communities.

Jenna also runs the sites SexforEveryBody.com, a sex-positive, body-positive online magazine that promotes inclusive sex education; and DisabledSexGuide.com, an adult resource on sex, disability, and erotica.

In 2013, Jenna won two Canadian Online Publishing Awards for her work on The Pain Project, a multimedia site on global access to palliative care.

She won second place at the 2011 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism’s Public Health category for her participation in the documentary Freedom From Pain.

Jenna has an Honors BA in Women’s Studies and Feminist Research as well as a French minor from The University of Western Ontario. She spent a year studying at L’Université Lumière Lyon 2 in Lyon, France.
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