Oxylabs Goes on the Offensive against Bright Data
After fending off multiple lawsuits over patent infringement, Oxylabs has filed a lawsuit of its own.
- Published: January 10, 2022
The proxy wars are gaining steam, this time on Bright Data’s and Oxylabs’ front. Dating back to July 2018, the on-going hydra of a dispute is about grow another head.
Oxylabs has announced a new lawsuit against Bright Data. In it, the company claims that Bright Data has been infringing upon three of its patents. The patents involve Oxylabs’ Smart Proxy Rotator and web script management technologies.
According to the CEO of Oxylabs, Julius Cerniauskas, the move seeks to bring justice and restore balance to the market:
Oxylabs is committed to principles of ethics and fairness in the proxy marketplace. That includes respecting valid intellectual property rights. With this lawsuit, we have made it known to Bright Data that it must respect Oxylabs’ existing and growing patent portfolio. We believe that Bright Data’s unfair business practices stifle innovation and competition, leading to potential market monopolization.
We won’t judge whether Bright Data’s actions are fair, but it’s clear that the Israeli data collection service has put its legal team into overdrive. The company is litigating against most of its largest competitors, including GeoSurf and NetNut. Some, like SOAX, have stopped offering proxy IPs in Texas to prevent creating a basis for new legal action.
The dispute between Bright Data and Oxylabs spans multiple cases. Two of them concluded in settlements, while the third one recently resulted in a setback for Oxylabs: a Texan jury awarded Bright Data with $7.5 million of damages for lost profit. The verdict didn’t affect Oxylabs’ services and will reportedly be appealed.
