Superhero Technology Hits Patent Court

Mova, a technology that captures actors’ facial expressions and tics, and transfers them to animated figures for motion pictures, won an Academy Award last year. Now it is the subject of a patent infringement suit in which Mova’s developer, San Francisco company Rearden, is countersuing a Chinese firm that has claimed ownership of the technology. Rearden lists a string of alleged patent and copyright violations, and asked a judge to award financial damages and block the distribution of movies and other entertainment it claims have been made by infringing Mova technology patents and trademarks.