IBM seeks $167M from Groupon in dispute over early internet patents

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ibm-groupon-lawsuit/ibm-seeks-167-million-from-groupon-in-dispute-over-early-internet-patents-idUSKBN1K62VA

by Jerry2 • 8 years ago

95 32 8 years ago

reuters.com

thefounder• 8 years ago

How could they patent SSO?

mikekchar2• 8 years ago

Or... How could they be trying to enforce a patent from the late 80's (if the article is correct)? Quite a lot of things don't add up here. I'd love to see some actual information here. Bloomberg's article has slightly more content: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-16/ibm-seeks... I'd really like to see what patents they are talking about, though...

Found the actual suit: https://www.b2ipreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Intern...

Edit again: That's a memorandum opinion, not the suit :-) But at least it lists the patents...

mikekchar2• 8 years ago

I won't bother to edit again. The SSO patent is here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...

Filed in 2005 (on April Fool's day no less!) and published in 2006. It looks like the strongest of the 4 patents. The other ones look pretty weak to me. The first 2 (from 1989!!!) seem to be discussing displaying cached data on a monitor... I couldn't actually get much sense from it. The third one seems to be describing a cookie... But it's pretty darn general.

Not an expert in patents by any stretch of the imagination, though...

lloydde• 8 years ago

arstechnica.com article "IBM sues Groupon over 1990s patents related to Prodigy" [1] from March, 2016 includes some more details and links to 4 patents:

- US5796967 Method for presenting applications in an interactive service https://patents.google.com/patent/US5796967

- US7072849 Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service

- US5961601 Preserving state information in a continuing conversation between a client and server networked via a stateless protocol

- US7631346 Method and system for a runtime user account creation operation within a single-sign-on process in a federated computing environment

1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/ibm-sues-groupon...

amdelamar• 8 years ago

Simple. IBM filed first.

Reminds me of the "online shopping cart" patent that was sueing all major e-retailers years ago. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crush...

The difference here, is IBM loves to license out their innovations. And I think that makes it easier (cheaper) for Facebook, Google, Amazon, to decide to pay the fee rather than battle in court.

josh_fyi• 8 years ago

You know a company is in its last legs when it turns to patent-trolling.

_binder• 8 years ago

Its business!

kevinSuttle3• 8 years ago

This is one of the oldest companies in existence. It is hardly on its last legs.

Also, patents are a huge revenue stream at IBM. Always have been. However, that merely makes them the original patent troll. :)

Marsymars• 8 years ago

This is one of the oldest companies in existence

One of the oldest tech companies.

There are many hundreds of companies that have been around longer than the United States.

Ensorceled• 8 years ago

IBM has been a "patent troll" for a long, long time. Heck, the term "ninja lawyer" was invented for their patent teams.

ProAm• 8 years ago

Most job postings I see are for a "Rockstar lawyer"

ballenf• 8 years ago

Generally patent trolling is claimed when a company has never used the patents themselves (a non-practicing entity). Here IBM and Sears, iirc, created Prodigy which was innovative technically on several fronts. They spent a lot of resources solving problems and they got patents on some of those solutions.

I think we risk legitimizing actual patent trolls by lumping them in with IBM's behavior in this case. That being said, I think the patent scheme is broken and "non-obvious" needs start meaning something again, not to mention that granting software (ed.) patents is so problematic.

SSO serves the same function as a credit rating or identity verification service has served for decades. I'd call that non-obvious (applying a concept in one domain to a new domain), even if it took some serious engineering to implement that functionality "on the internet". But I also haven't read the patent.

Another perspective on patents held by publicly traded companies is the perspective of the investors (admittedly an equally unpopular perspective). The person who invests in a company's stock knowing what IP that company holds has a legitimate interest in not letting those assets be devalued. With IBM, there's not a strong claim given that the licensing fees are rounding errors, but the principle is worth considering.

dagenix• 8 years ago

"Patent Troll: a company that obtains the rights to one or more patents in order to profit by means of licensing or litigation, rather than by producing its own goods or services."

While distasteful, this isn't patent trolling and it's not at all clear why you assert IBM is on its last legs.

zjaffee• 8 years ago

IBM is one of if not still the largest filler for patents in the US. If not to litigate on those patents, what's the point.

code4tee• 8 years ago

Two failing companies fighting in court. In the end, only the lawyers win.

Retric2• 8 years ago

IBM is hardly failing. They know how to litigate and have gotten far more money from litigation than it's cost them.

If nothing else cases like this scare other people into paying licencing fees. So, fighting wounded companies like Groupon can be very useful.

prklmn• 8 years ago

What’s your definition of failing?

https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/IBM#eyJpbnRlcnZhbCI6IndlZWsi...

calt• 8 years ago

This isn't an isolated incident or new news. It's standard IBM at this point, and the world deserves to know.

dmix• 8 years ago

Desmarais told jurors IBM is a prolific innovator

And when this is no longer the case you let the lawyers do the innovating...

paulsutter• 8 years ago

IBM had a patent for images displayed on pages, which they accused every internet company of violating around 1999. They called it the “Technology Licensing Program”

IBM seeks $167M from Groupon in dispute over early internet patents

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