Entangled Media v. Dropbox: district-court rulings favor Dropbox on both patents and a scheduled trial is called off, final status unconfirmed
December 2022 – August 2026
Entangled Media sued Dropbox over two patents on cloud-based file systems; the patent office declined to review the patents, and by August 2026 the court had ruled against Entangled Media on both patents at the district-court level and called off a scheduled trial, though it remains unknown whether final judgment has been entered or an appeal filed.
What happened
Entangled Media, LLC sued Dropbox on 16 December 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asserting U.S. Patent Nos. 8,296,338 and 8,484,260, which relate to cloud-based file systems. On Dropbox's motion, the case was transferred in June 2023 to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Entangled Media, LLC v. Dropbox, Inc., No. 5:23-cv-03264).
Dropbox petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for inter partes review of both patents (IPR2024-00284 and IPR2024-00285) in December 2023, but the patent office issued notices declining to institute review, so the patents were not invalidated at the agency level and the litigation continued in court. On 13 August 2025 Judge P. Casey Pitts signed an order granting in part both sides' motions for summary judgment and granting Dropbox's motions to strike certain new infringement theories and exclude testimony.
That August 2025 order narrowed the case but, by itself, did not resolve it or establish any finding of liability against Dropbox; further developments through 2026 are detailed below.
Reporting on the 13 August 2025 order gave more specific detail than the docket text available to this archive: Judge Pitts 'granted Dropbox's request for judgment on all allegations tied to Entangled Media LLC's US Patent No. 8,484,260, but he left intact infringement claims over US Patent No. 8,296,338' (Bloomberg Law, 14 August 2025). A trial on the surviving 8,296,338 patent claims was subsequently set for 8 September 2026. On 25 August 2026, Law360 reported that a judge 'ruled that Entangled Media could not prove that Dropbox infringed a patent covering cloud-based data storage under an alternative theory, calling off a Sept. 8 trial date since Entangled had already received a ruling against it on literal infringement.' The text of the underlying orders is not publicly accessible to this archive, and whether final judgment has been entered in the case, or an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit filed, is unknown as of 6 September 2026 — which is why this entry's resolution is still recorded as ongoing.
Impact
Entangled Media is among Dropbox's more durable patent adversaries: because the IPR petitions were not instituted, Dropbox could not knock the patents out at the patent office and instead had to litigate the merits in district court. By August 2026, rulings on both asserted patents had gone Dropbox's way at the district-court level and the scheduled trial was called off, though whether that outcome is final — absent confirmation of a final judgment or any appeal — is unknown as of 6 September 2026.
Sources
- 01
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- 03FindLaw — Entangled Media LLC v. Dropbox Inc (N.D. Cal. 2025)Court / Legal2025
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