EGLA Corp Files Lawsuit Against Stingray Group for Trade Secret Theft and Patent Infringement

MIAMI, FL – In a significant development in the tech and entertainment industry, EGLA Corp and its founder, Dr. Edwin Hernandez, have filed a lawsuit against Stingray Group, Inc., Mood Media, and other defendants. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges trade secret theft, fraud, and patent infringement.

Dr. Hernandez, a globally recognized patent expert with a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida, founded EGLA Corp in 2010 after successful stints at Microsoft and Motorola. The company focuses on generating intellectual property for AI, media, health technologies, and wireless communication industries. Dr. Hernandez has successfully licensed other of his technologies to companies like Verizon Wireless and many others mobile players.

The lawsuit centers on three issued U.S. patents and alleged misappropriation of trade secrets. According to Dr. Hernandez’s case came to light in April 2021 when he discovered a public Trello board containing Stingray’s UbiquiCAST software bug tracking database. This discovery revealed strong evidence that Stingray’s technology not only infringed on his patents but also contained proprietary innovations known only to Dr. Hernandez and his company, EGLA CORP.

The complaint describes that in 2014 during Mood Media’s sale for $16M to Stingray. At that time, MOOD was using Dr. Hernandez and EGLA CORP technologies and servers to service over 20M subscribers in multiple cable operators. MOOD Media did not disclose the sale and the relationship with Stingray to Dr. Hernandez, and breached confidentiality agreements in place when MOOD employees became Stingray employees and for months, kept using moodmedia.com emails. Therefore, Stingray gained illegal access to all servers that contained trade secrets and software to distribute music content to cable operators. The evidence indicates that Dr. Hernandez and EGLA Corp’s intellectual property was transferred without consent. 

Around  December 2013,  before the transaction was completed in mid April 2014, MOOD Media and EGLA CORP negotiated and signed a “Term sheet”  agreement for EGLA CORP’s technologies, including cloud, web, and other systems. Once Dr. Hernandez discovered that his servers around March 2014 were under Stingray’s possession and was about to delete them, MOOD MEDIA threatened Dr. Hernandez with a $16M lawsuit if Stingray was unable to complete the transaction by mid 2014.  Dr. Hernandez and EGLA CORP honored the “term sheet” and maintained all servers and cloud operational and the transaction consummated.  A few days later, MOOD MEDIA terminated the “Term Sheet.” 

Despite all assurances made by MOOD MEDIA to EGLA CORP and Dr. Hernandez, that no IP transfer had taken place, the evidence found on trello shows that Stingray gained illegal access to the servers involved in the 2014 transaction, leading to the development of Stingray’s Ubiqiucast OSE2 software version, which allegedly bears striking similarities to EGLA Corp’s trade secrets and patented technologies.  

The Ubiquicast OSE2 technologies had been instrumental in distributing Stingray products worldwide and, by 2021, Stingray made the last payment of the $13M in a settlement agreement with Music Choice in a patent and breach of contract lawsuit, in which Singray also allegedly spent over $9M in legal fees.  In that lawsuit, Music Choice showed how the OSE2 version of Ubiquicast was instrumental in gaining US market share in 2015.

Stingray Group, a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of approximately $500 million, has been a major player in the music entertainment industry. Founded in 2007 by Eric Boyko, the company reported over $340 million in revenue for fiscal year 2023. Stingray’s UbiquiCAST technology, central to this lawsuit, serves 540 million customers in over 150 countries.

“This lawsuit seeks to protect years of innovation and hard work,” said Dr. Hernandez. “We believe our intellectual property has been misappropriated and used to build a multi-million dollar empire without proper attribution or compensation.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Jeffrey Mangels Butler & Mitchel, LLP and Gray Robinson, LLP, and have requested a jury trial. As the case unfolds, it promises to shed light on critical issues of intellectual property rights in the fast-paced world of technology and entertainment.

Stingray Group, and the other defendants are expected to respond to the complaint this month. The outcome of this case could have far-reaching implications for the industry and set important precedents for intellectual property protection in the digital age.

For more information, please contact:

Press Contact:

Edwin Hernandez  edwinhm@eglacorp.com sinjin@eglacorp.com 

Related sites:

EGLA CORP Files Second Amended Complaint Against Stingray and other defendants
Music Choice vs Stingray Settlement – Accurate Analysis by EGLA

About EGLA Corp:

EGLA Corp is a high-tech corporation focused on the generation of groundbreaking intellectual property innovations in AI, healthcare, cloud, and wireless communications. EGLA Corp has licensed its portfolio of patents to numerous tech giants including Verizon ( NYSE: VZ ) and has been nominated to several business and innovation awards as Go Global Awards.  EGLA’s  portfolio of intellectual property includes several US and European patents.  EGLA CORP has assisted startups since 2017 at EGLAVATOR, a technology incubator and accelerator program with physical presence from 2017 to 2023, and now working in a virtual fashion.

About Dr. Edwin Hernandez:

Dr. Edwin Hernandez received his PhD in Computer Engineering at the University of Florida where he was a Fulbright Scholar and winner of the University of Florida school’s business plan competition in 2002, and was co-founder of several ventures including an Internet Service Provider (COMPUNET)  in his native Honduras. Upon graduating from the University of Florida, Dr. Hernandez worked with Microsoft at their Redmond campus serving as a Technical Product Manager and authoring several patents for the Windows Operating System. Dr. Hernandez returned to Florida to be near family to join Motorola to work as a Principal Software Engineer where he led the development of iDEN and CDMA phones, and one of the  first Android phones. Dr. Hernandez left the corporate world in 2010 to lead EGLA Corp where he has engineered and invested in leading edge technologies concentrated in consumer media, connected devices, and cybersecurity, and collaborated in several startups including Guiltless To Go, MedMatch, Conduction Labs, PointsKash, and many others that were part of his accelerator program called EGLAVATOR.  Dr. Hernandez enjoys playing soccer, jamming on his electric  guitar, and giving back to aspiring entrepreneurs who seek to make the world a better place.