Genius Sports is suing SportsCastr Inc. for allegedly infringing on patents covering real-time graphics overlaid onto live sports broadcasts.
Sports data giant Genius Sports is taking SportsCastr Inc., the company behind the PANDA Interactive brand, to court over patents covering real-time graphics overlaid onto live sports broadcasts.
The suit landed in the Southern District of New York on 11 May. Three patents are at issue, all originally developed by Second Spectrum, a Los Angeles-based sports analytics firm that Genius acquired in 2021.
The patents in question are filed under numbers 10,769,446, 11,120,271 and 11,373,405.
The patents broadly cover systems for augmenting live sports video with real-time graphics, analytics and interactive overlays.
The suit alleges: “[Panda] imports, offers for sale, sells, distributes, and/or uses in the United States the infringing product (‘Accused Product’), and encourages others to use the Accused Product in an infringing manner.
“The Accused Product includes, at least, PANDA Studio, including PANDA Studio software alone and/or in combination with hardware (e.g., personal computers, mobile phones, tablets, or servers) that executes the PANDA Studio software.”
Genius alleges that the PANDA Studio software does exactly that, without authorisation. It is seeking a permanent injunction, “treble damages” for what it calls wilful infringement, and recovery of its legal costs. Kirkland & Ellis is acting for Genius.
In a previous, similar case in 2023, Panda sued Genius Sports, alleging patent infringement in a related technology dispute that also ensnared Sportradar. That case had Genius as a defendant; this filing puts Panda in that position, instead.
SportsCastr and Genius filed a motion on 13 February 2026 to dismiss the previous case. In it, they cited that “all matters in controversy between the Parties in Case No. 2:23-cv-00472-JRG” had been settled.
Back to square one
Second Spectrum, whose patents sit at the heart of the claim, was no small operation. Founded in 2013 by two University of Southern California computer science professors, it became the NBA’s official optical tracking provider from the 2017-18 season onwards.
The English Premier League and Major League Soccer were also clients. Genius paid to bring all of that under its roof, then built its GeniusIQ artificial intelligence platform on top of it in 2024.
Panda, by contrast, is a seed-stage company. Kevin April founded it in New York in 2017. PANDA Studio, the accused product, did not launch until 2020.
Genius makes pointed note of that gap in its complaint, arguing Panda built a competing product by riding on technology it had no right to use.
Establishing New York as the proper venue took up considerable space in the filing. Genius catalogued specific details about Panda’s operations to nail down jurisdiction.
Panda has not responded publicly to the complaint at the time of publication.