- General
- July 27, 2018
- 5 minutes read
IBM is awarded $83 million by Jury over patent dispute case with Groupon
image credit : Groupon A recent patent dispute between e-commerce company Groupon and IBM which went to the jury has…
image credit : Groupon
A recent patent dispute between e-commerce company Groupon and IBM which went to the jury has now ended up in a favor on IBM’s side with the jury awarding the company $83 million to be paid by Groupon following a judgement for patent infringement for International Business Machines Corp which counts as the company with the most secured patents in the U.S. over the past 25 years.
In the lawsuit brought by IBM, The company’s lawyers said Groupon developed its online coupon business on the foundation of IBM’s e-commerce inventions, An allegation Groupon grossly denies with its spokesman Bill Roberts stating “We continue to believe that we do not infringe on any valid IBM patents, To the extent these patents have any value at all — which we believe they do not — the value is far less than what the jury awarded.”
IBM initially sought $167 million in damages saying it developed technology very crucial to the formation of the web with the patents involved in this case being related to IBM’s Prodigy precursor to the web.
Groupon’s lawyer David Hadden counters by stating of the IBM patents involved not being used for the company’s products and services but instead relies “on its huge portfolio to extract money from other companies.”
IBM argues that by making note of its investment across several fields including AI and quantum computing which costs the company $5.6 Billion annually with the spend on research & development being made to “to make our lives better,” as stated in a closing argument by the company’s lawyer John Desmarais.
According to Groupon, Some of IBM’s patent shouldn’t be granted as they describe obvious ideas while also terming IBM’s damage request as unreasonable.
IBM’s licenses patents to major technology companies including the likes of Alphabet, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and LinkedIn among several others with an IBM licensing executive stating of the companies listed here paying between $20-$50 million for cross-licensing deals which gave them access to its portfolio.
Last year alone, IBM generated $1.2 Billion in licensing revenue and stands as the highest patent winner in the U.S. region for the past 25 years till now.
“Not paying someone for something you don’t use, that’s not being reckless,” David Hadden said. “That’s not being an upstart. That’s just standing up for what’s right.”
Several companies which paid IBM for cross-licensing deals intervened and demanded that information related to their prior IBM deals should not be made public as this case went on. The include GoDaddy, Twitter, LinkedIn and several others.
Hadden stated of the 42 companies which paid IBM for its licensing technologies as doing so “because IBM came at them” as none of them testified at the trial with what Hadden said is due to coercion by IBM.
This patent case stands as the first involving IBM to get to the jury in a span of at least 20 years. IBM currently has over 45,000 patents in its portfolio and has taken to legal battles in the past with several companies over alleged infringement on its patents.
