Indiana Intellectual Property Law News
Fort Wayne, Indiana – Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company has filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment against Aloft Media, LLC, George Street Partners, Todd Schmidt, and George Andrew Gordon. The case centers on a patent dispute over U.S. Patent No. 10,372,793, which Brotherhood says is being wrongly used to demand a licensing payment.
According to the complaint, Aloft Media claims that Brotherhood’s website infringes on this patent, which covers a method involving drop-down menus on a web page. Brotherhood argues the patent is invalid and unenforceable and claims it does not infringe on any part of it. Brotherhood also says that the technology described in the patent is not new or inventive and would not meet modern patent standards, especially following the Supreme Court’s 2016 Alice decision, which raised the bar for patenting abstract ideas implemented on computers.
Brotherhood is asking the court to declare that its website does not infringe the patent, that the patent itself is invalid, and that it cannot be enforced due to inequitable conduct—alleging that key information was intentionally withheld during the patent’s approval process. The complaint outlines what Brotherhood claims were misrepresentations or omissions in the history of the patent application, Aloft’s record of filing at least 14 patent infringement lawsuits in Texas, and a complex web of related entities that frequently file similar patent lawsuits.
Brotherhood claims that Aloft Media operates as a “non-practicing entity” or “patent troll,” using questionable patents to pressure companies into settlements to avoid the cost of litigation. The lawsuit outlines Aloft’s past enforcement patterns and suggests that this lawsuit is part of a broader strategy of monetizing patents rather than using them to protect actual innovations.
In addition to seeking declarations of non-infringement and invalidity, Brotherhood is also seeking attorneys’ fees and damages under Indiana’s Bad Faith Assertions of Patent Infringement Act.
The case has been assigned to Judge Holly A. Brady and Magistrate Judge Susan L. Collins in the U.S. District Court of Northern Indiana Case No. 1:25-cv-00273.