Federal Judge Sets Dismissal Deadline in BMG Patent Lawsuit

Photo Credit: BMG

Nearly two years after its kickoff, a patent infringement lawsuit against BMG is now less than one week away from potentially being dismissed.

The presiding judge established this possible dismissal deadline, falling on Tuesday, June 16th, in a recent order. Therein, he noted that the plaintiff, Muvox, hadn’t served (or disclosed serving) BMG with the suit even though it’d been filed more than 90 days beforehand.

In fact, 668 days have passed since the action, accusing Berlin-headquartered BMG of infringing on a patent (No. 11,899,713) describing mood-based song-selection and playlisting technology, set sail. While it probably doesn’t need saying in light of the case’s latest order, the appropriate docket’s been largely inactive.

We don’t know the exact reason for the litigation’s lack of progress, but we do know where things are going from here.

As spelled out in the order, Muvox has until June 16th to serve BMG, to alternatively provide proof of prior service, or to drop the complaint. If the entity fails to do so, the court intends to toss the action without prejudice. At the time of this writing, Muvox didn’t look to have submitted a related update.

However, it’s worth noting that the same plaintiff sued IBM for allegedly infringing on the identical patent; the dispute initiated roughly in tandem with the BMG complaint but was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in October 2024.

Also in October 2024, Muvox slapped Nexxen’s Rhythm One and Spotify with infringement suits concerning the relevant patent; the Rhythm One complaint was voluntarily dismissed less than two weeks later, and April 2025 saw the Spotify action conclude in the same manner.

In the bigger picture, Blue Spike’s own Warner Music and Universal Music patent suits both ended in settlements.

And Epic Games, which was accused of infringing on a patent with Fortnite’s Ariana Grande and Travis Scott concerts, scored a big trial victory last year.

Put differently, the previously red-hot patent litigation landscape seems to be showing signs of cooling down. Nevertheless, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are still grappling with a suit centering on the latter’s rotating barcode technology.

The defendants kicked off 2026 by refuting the claims and countersuing for, among several other things, a declaratory judgment deeming the patent in question invalid. As this aggressive counterclaim followed a mid-December 2025 settlement offer from the plaintiff, Live Nation and Ticketmaster appear set on proceeding to (or at least towards) trial.