"Cybersex toy industry heats up as infamous 'teledildonics' patent climaxes"

As the Financial Times' David Keohane might have said—but didn't* when he had the chance—
Huh.

From Ars Technica, August 18:

EFF lawyer: "At least startups in the space won't immediately get sued."

Sex toy innovators of America: we have good news for you!

The so-called "teledildonics patent," owned by a company that many would deem a "patent troll," has just expired. Now US sex toy companies can create the Internet-controlled vibrators, dildos, and whatever else of their dreams with significantly less fear of being sued.

On Friday, US Patent No. 6,368,268 expired after being on file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for 20 years. The company that had previously held the patent, TZU Technologies, LLC, of Pasadena, California, had filed 10 lawsuits alleging infringement since 2015—one as recently as December 2017. All suits appear to have been settled, with TZU Technologies receiving a payout in exchange for dropping the lawsuit....MORE

*No, instead of that marvelous all-purpose monosyllable comment he damn near should have copyrighted, he went with explainer journalism and skirted dangerously close to assuming facts not in evidence:

December 1, 2016
Further Reading

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....—The rise of teledildonics,  for those few who don’t know, that’s an industry built around “sex toys that connect to wireless networks.”

To his credit, Mr. Keohane was early to the story.

It took us until October 2017 to post:

Apparently Bluetooth Enabled Buttplugs Are Not As Secure As One Would Hope
Can be hacked and used as tracking devices.
Tracking?
What on earth are people doing?

Here are some of the headlines, NSFW, or anywhere actually:...

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... There go the dreams of a teledildonics empire, I guess it's back to a real perversion, treasury curve flatteners.

If interested here's the Amazon page, with the usual question:
What do customers buy after viewing this item?