Retired Georgia Tech Professor Is Suing Uber, Lyft For Patent Infringement (ajc.com) 109
McGruber shares a report from American City Business Journals: A retired Georgia Tech professor is suing ride-sharing giant Uber, claiming he invented the technology that "is absolutely core to the way in which Uber operates its business." In a complaint filed May 31 in federal court, Stephen Dickerson charges that Uber is infringing on a patent he won in 2004 for a "communications and computing based urban transit system." "The core of Uber's business and technical platforms for its rideshare, bikeshare, and scooter sharing services practice the transportation system of Professor Dickerson's invention; without that system, Uber literally cannot operate. Throughout its existence, Uber has egregiously infringed [Dickerson's] patent without paying any compensation for such use," Dickerson's lawsuit alleges. Last July, Dickerson sued Lyft in federal court in New York, making the same allegations he is making against Uber. In a court filing, Lyft denies it infringed on Dickerson's technology. The lawsuit is continuing. To clarify, Dickerson's company, RideApp, filed the suit because it "developed in 1999 the idea of bringing cell phones, the global positioning system and digital payments together to get people around congested Atlanta," reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The patent was apparently owned by Georgia Tech, but the college failed to act on it and reassigned the patent back to him in 2018.
The patent was apparently owned by Georgia Tech, but the college failed to act on it and reassigned the patent back to him in 2018.
Minimising social costs? (Score:3, Funny)
The patent abstract explicitly mentions "minimizing social costs of urban transportation" - uber's policy of paying a pittance to it's drivers have massive social costs! Ergo, no infringement.
The patent is all obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
Any competent practitioner of systems analysis and design could then come up with a s
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Are you suggesting he is missing his period?
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Learn to not use an Apple device.
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Y wood eye lern too spell Ãoeits.à wen it's knot evan à werd?
There will be prior art somewhere... (Score:1)
There's no way nobody has written about a wireless vehicle to passenger assignment system before 2004.
Uber will just find that, case closed!
Idea? (Score:2, Interesting)
"developed in 1999 the idea of bringing ..."
So he didn't actually invent anything, he had an idea for something that someone else eventually invented."
Re: Idea? (Score:1)
Actually, that's the whole why the patent system was created in the first place. People without the means to produce a product can still create innovative ideas and license then to an entity with the means to produce it.
Before patents, some folks would not disclose their ideas to the public because they were afraid a large entity would not pay them for the idea.
All that being said, I do agree the parent system, at least in the US, has long ago been abused and one could argue it has the opposite effect.
Re: Idea? (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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IANAL,but my understanding is that since the patent holder at the time (Georgia Tech) never granted Lyft/Uber permission to use the patent, the patent was violated. Whoever holds the patent currently can sue for violations of the patent, past and present. So, with the patent came the ability to sue (because the patent existed at the time.)
But, as I am not a lawyer, I could be really offbase.
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Only if the patent is valid and practiced by them.
Patents don't cover ideas, however: only the invention involved in an implementation.
"developed in 1999 the idea of bringing cell phones, the global positioning system and digital payments together to get people around congested Atlanta,"
How will this not be simply The obvious synthesis of new technologies introduced: Smartphones + GPS + Apps + ECommerce.
You only have an invention if you come up with a Novel unexpected combination of elements which wo
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Umm... in 1999 there weren't Smartphones that had "GPS, Internet connection and Mapping software." Also, you're reading the summary. It's like saying "Titanic was a derivative movie, there was already a 'best love story of all time'". That's meaningless. You have to look at the actual claims.
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Umm... in 1999 there weren't Smartphones that had "GPS, Internet connection and Mapping software." Also, you're reading the summary. It's like saying "Titanic was a derivative movie, there was already a 'best love story of all time'". That's meaningless. You have to look at the actual claims.
There were GPS and cellular modem add-ons available for the Palm III in 1999. TCP/IP stack was built-in, with browser and email capabilities.
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You only have an invention if you come up with a Novel unexpected combination of elements which would not be obvious to the general public
Not "to the general public." From here [bitlaw.com], the "novel" requirement is:
"Ordinary skill in the art." I cannot imagine how anyone skilled in computer communications could not see this as an obvious use of the pieces. Yes, this is all magic and new to the general public, but that's the same general public where half of th
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Next to these technologies the ride sharing app is pretty tame, in fact a friend of mine suggested a s
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Only if the patent is valid and practiced by them.
You don't need to have a product to have your patent infringed by someone else's product. In Information for Infrastructure VS Microsoft the Microsoft lawyers had a large cash penalty to pay because they kept trying to tell the jury that i4i wasn't using the patent and therefore could not collect damages when in fact they COULD collect damages. The judge corrected them each time and warned them about repeating the offense. The penalty came after the 3rd repetition - there wasn't a 4th :). i4i won every c
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Probably not.
They will either just buy the rights of the patent from him. Being a Retired Professor I doubt he wants to spend his golden days fighting off two large companies for decades and will probably take a decent settlement, so he has a comfortable retirement.
Or Uber and Lift, can probably fine ways that the patent doesn't apply to them for some particular reason.
If Georgia Tech had decided to defend its patent vs the Professor, I expect it may be a bit different.
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Nobody will do anything but defend unless he actually gets an injunction against them. The patent probably should never have been granted, and in any case doesn't sound like it actually applies due to billing differences between ride-sharing services, and the way his patent is written.
This is getting ridiculous (Score:1)
Why don't you pay up for the Patent on Thinking while you're at it....
"communications and computing based urban transit system."
Oh FFS so obvious and vague it should be counted as previous art.
Breaking it down... (Score:5, Informative)
Not a patent lawyer, or any type of lawyer. I did get into reading patents for a while. The thing with a patent is the parent claims. You need to be on target with those and if your thing doesn't fit then it doesn't apply...
This patent doesn't hold up well against Uber or Lyft very well from what I can gather.
I won't put the patent itself here - just what I think won't hold up.
In claim 1:
A - Invoices are not periodic they are instant.
B - Communication is not done with the vehicle but the driver of the vehicle.
under the wherein clause...
D - You don't get to operate the vehicle.
Claim 2:
A - Invoices are not periodic they are instant.
B - Communication is not done with the vehicle but the driver of the vehicle. Drive may not be in the vehicle when the message is delivered. His claim is with the vehicle.
Claim 3:
A - Invoices are not periodic they are instant.
B - Communication is not done with the vehicle but the driver of the vehicle.
Claim 4:
A - Uber and Lyft are not car rental companies. Time doesn't expire either...
B - Uber and Lyft are not car rental companies.
Claim 6:
A - Invoices are not periodic they are instant.
B - Communication is not done with the vehicle but the driver of the vehicle. Drive may not be in the vehicle when the message is delivered. His claim is with the vehicle.
So every claim is probably not applicable to Uber and Lyft as it only takes one part of a claim that isn't applicable to make the whole claim not applicable. Only the parent claims count too as the child claims, like 5, rely on the parent being held up.
Should be a no brainer for the defense against this.
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From this brief description, it sounds like a better target of this suit might be Zipcar...
But that's not nearly as compelling a fight.
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Good point on a better target and less of a compelling fight...
I may be totally wrong on this too, my knowledge about patents is very very far complete. I was taught just some basic stuff and would love to know if I'm on the right track. I can't believe someone would go ahead with law suits if it was this obvious so I must be missing something.
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rides billed to your cell phone? and dial-up? (Score:1)
It is a great convenience not to need to make payment by cash, tokens,or credit cards each time a trip or segment of trip is made. Rather a periodic billing is made, perhaps monthlyas part of the cellular communications bill.
Claims 1, 2, 3, and 6 are all based on this idea of monthly charging instead of charging at the time of the trip. (Claims 2, 3, and 6 are subsets of claim 1.) (Claim 1 also requires the capability for the passenger to operate the vehicle; 2, 3, and 6 drop that requirement.)
Claim 4 is a subset of claim 1 specifically for rental cars.
And claim 5 is claim 1 specifically for rental, carpool, or mass transit vehicles.
hahahahaha:
Modems are used to connect the computers of the centralassigning system to phone lines, including particularly high speed versions such as DSL and T1
Patents like this are horrible to begin with. (Score:5, Insightful)
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As is typical of these patents the entire patentability aspect is combining things that already existed and doing them on a computer. Recent supreme court precedent likely makes these patents invalid as the court found that simply doing something on a computer that's existed for generations is not unique use of the machine precedent.
The professor is likely to lose this if someone fights back and he'll probably get his patent invalidated. But it will take millions and the company that fights back will never
Pizza, Phones, Cars... (Score:4, Funny)
Step #1 Patents the Idea of using a phone to order Pizza and have it delivered by some one with a car.
Step #2 ?
Step #3 Profit from two companies that have never earned any.
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The whole point of public patents is that if you have an idea you put a stake in the ground and claim it. its like a mining claim. if you dont file the claim someone else might. However you dont actually have to start digging for gold to prevent someone else from digging for gold on that claim and if someone does you can sue them.
The system is there so that ideas come out in the public. Even if you dont have the capacity to implement the idea the patent gives you a motive to put it out there so if somebody
You're Infringing (Score:1)
I'm suing you all for using my patent on "A device useful for occupying spare time during business hours."
I will be filing in the Eastern District of Texas, it's only a short drive for me so it's not a real problem.
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Of course my employer does not recognize this "spare time" concept, but I find your purely theoretical conclusion interesting.
There should be no claim until notice (Score:1)
A Patent Owner should not ever be able to recover claims for infringement unless until they notify the infringer in writing and make a good faith effort to license the patents.
This whole shit with "let them infringe for years without complaining and then suddenly sue for billions" shouldn't be allowed.
Patents should be like Trademarks - failure to defend against infringement in a timely manner should render the patent null and void.
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The filing in a public Patent Office IS THE NOTICE.
Nothing prevent Uber and Lyft from checking the Patent database before starting their business.
You would want every patent holder have to check all the million secret business plans to check for infringement instead of the business owners check the PUBLIC patent database for the ONE idea they are planning to base their business on.
Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?
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Unfortunately it's risky to do your due diligence. Searching the patent database is a risk because if you make a mistake and miss a patent, and you wind up infringing in spite of your diligence, it will be deemed willful infringement and subject you to triple damages. Whereas if you turn a blind eye to it and stumble forward at your own risk you won't get nailed as hard.
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A Patent Owner should not ever be able to recover claims for infringement unless until they notify the infringer in writing and make a good faith effort to license the patents.
For all we know, he did do this and both Lyft and Uber threw away the email. Letters like those don't generally make the news.
That said, exactly why do you think patent holders should be required to do this? Should patent holders be forced to accept fees that are lower than what they would ask for in court?
Just wondering (Score:2)
Is Georgia Tech a privately held University?
Submarine patent (Score:2)
Sorry, but I really think this suit should be tossed or at least trimmed down.
This is a classic case of laches, because Georgia Tech sat on its duff and let the rideshare market grow and bloom, when it should have known full well that there was ongoing infringement.
It's no different from a patent troll twiddling it's thumbs waiting for an infringing market to fatten up just so it can swoop in and pounce at optimal ripeness.
Bottom line, GT failed to defend its patent rights by litigating when it had a pruden
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Laches doesn't apply. [thompsoncoburn.com]
GPS + Mobile App + Payment System... (Score:2)
Go ask Alice (Score:1)