Meta Platforms Inc. (META) and its smart glasses partner EssilorLuxottica SA are being sued by Solos Technology Ltd., a smaller tech eyewear company that is alleging patent infringement, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
The report said Solos filed the complaint in a federal Massachusetts court and is seeking “multiple billions of dollars” in damages and an injunction.
The infringement filing mostly focuses on the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer Gen 1 but says, “Defendants’ later releases are derivative of the Gen 1 platform and continue to implement Solos’ patented technologies, resulting in ongoing and continuous infringement,” the report said.
Solos also claims that Oakley employees were introduced to its preliminary glasses technology as early as 2015, with a former senior executive later receiving a commercial pair for testing purposes in 2019.
Similarly, the complaint alleges that EssilorLuxottica met with Solos personnel throughout 2017 and gained knowledge of the company’s concepts and roadmap.
As for Meta, Solos alleges that MIT Sloan Fellow Priyanka Shekar published a 2021 research study titled “Audio Wearable Product Strategy: Expanding User Experience for Solos Smart Glasses” and then brought that knowledge to Meta when she joined the company as a product manager. Her study cited Solos’ patents as one of the company’s strengths.
“By the time Meta jointly commercialized smart-glasses products in or around 2021 with EssilorLuxottica, both sides had accumulated years of direct, senior-level, and increasingly detailed knowledge of Solos’ smart-glasses technology,” the complaint said.