Week 8: Airbnb's IP

In this blogpost, I am going to discuss the patent portfolio of Airbnb.

(a) How many patents (issued and/or pending, US and/or foreign) do we have in our IP portfolio at this time?
At this time, we have 8 patents in our portfolio. They can be found here.

(b) Identify three of our main competitors in the market.  How is their IP position compared to ours? What are the risks of our competitors having a better IP position that ours?
Our main competitors in the market are-
1) Homeaway - None
2) FlipKey- 2 Patents
3) 9flats - None

Since the business models of most of the peer-to-peer rental services are very similar, if we have a better IP position than our competitors, we are more secure from being sued for infringing on their patents. This is because if we have a better portfolio, we have covered our bases better than them. If our competitors have a better IP position then that may be able to sue us and in the situation that they win, we may lose market share.

(c) What can we do to bolster our IP portfolio - what are some sources of patents that we can go to, and what are the types of transactions that we can engage in to bring those patents in? 
To bolster our IP portfolio, we could start identifying our unique features and begin patenting them. We could even buy patents of certain technologies developed by other companies that are not doing as well and integrate it into our technology to strengthen our IP portfolio.

Week 8: Uber's IPs

In this post, I am going to discuss the IP portfolio of Uber Technologies.

(a) How many patents (issued and/or pending, US and/or foreign) do we have in our IP portfolio at this time?

As Efrat and Lynn pointed out in the article, Unicorns do not enough patents, but Uber has significantly increased its US patent portfolio in recent months, in part from acquisitions, as well as organic patenting efforts. Uber currently owns 34 US patents, with 29 utility patents and 6 design patents. Here is a graphical representation of Uber's IP portfolio:

(b) Identify three of our main competitors in the market.  How is their IP position compared to ours? What are the risks of our competitors having a better IP position that ours?

I am going to look at Uber's competition worldwide and not just in the US:

1) Lyft (USA): 2 patents 

2) Ola Cabs (India)

3)  Didi Kuaidi (China)- Also in Top 5 of Fortune's Unicorn list

 I could not find information on Ola and Didi since they are internationally owned companies. To better understand the patent situation of Ola cabs, I made a call to my hometown in India- I found out that they own 0 patents. This is interesting because Ola Cabs has 20 times the marketshare of Uber (4%) in India.  

Since most of the ridesharing companies have similar service model, there is high likelihood of having very similar features and even technologies. If a competitor has a better IP position than ours, there is high likelihood that we could be infringing on its patents and could end up in a patent litigation case. With this, we will not only take a hit on our finances but also on public relations. 

However, in the service industries that are highly localized, it might be more difficult for companies like Uber to sue companies like Ola in India. 

(c) What can we do to bolster our IP portfolio - what are some sources of patents that we can go to, and what are the types of transactions that we can engage in to bring those patents in? 

To bolster our IP portfolio, we could research some defunct ride-sharing companies that hold patents and buy from them. Some examples are RideCell and RelayRide. We could absorb these defunct companies in their entirety as well. 

There has been a lingering patent owned by GM that seems to be a threat to Uber. Uber should look into the patent, and if it is infringing on the patent, it should try to license it from GM. If Uber has the financial capabilities, it may even want to buy the patent off. GM has recently made a deal with Lyft on self-driving cars, so Lyft may be exempt from a patent litigation, which poses serious threat to Uber. GM bought these patents from Sidecar, an early competitor of Uber and Lyft.

Week 7: Nintendo vs UltimatePointer Claim Analysis

Last week, I discussed a case between Nintendo and UltimatePointer and this week, I am going to give a more in-depth analysis of one of the claims in the patent owned by UltimatePointer.

Quick Summary of the case: A patent troll company called UltimatePointer, LLC claimed that Nintendo’s motion-controlled Wii hardware infringed on its patents. However, on March 1, 2016, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals found that Nintendo’s Wii console does not infringe patents asserted by UltimatePointer. The patent that I am going to discuss is as follows-

Patent Number 8,049,729: Provides a method for controlling movement of a computer display cursor based on a point-of-aim of a pointing device within an interaction region includes projecting an image of a computer display to create the interaction region. 

Claim 1: 

CLAIM COMPONENT	ANALYSIS
An apparatus for controlling a feature on a computer generated image, the apparatus comprising:	The method requires a physical equipment to control an aspect on a computer generated image (for example, a video game), which means that if the image is not computer generated (for example, drawn with a chalk on board) then the claim doesn’t hold
A handheld device including**	Thus, if the device is to be “held”, so if it’s a wristband or an anklet, then this does not hold.
an image sensor, said image sensor generating data related to the distance between a first point and a second point, the first point having a predetermined relation to the computer generated image and the second point having a predetermined relation to a handheld enclosure; and	This handheld device must have an image sensor that helps determine the distance between the first point (from computer generated image) and second point (from the handheld device)**
a processor coupled to said handheld device to receive said generated data related to the distance between a first point and a second point and programmed to use the distance between the first point and the second point to control the feature on the image.	The handheld device is a machine with an image sensor AND a processer, which is used to receive the aforementioned generated data, and it is through this distance that the device is programmed to control the aforementioned feature on the image (for example, movement of hand on video game).

**Although there were several bases for the district court’s decision, the primary basis was that the Wii remote was not a “handheld device,” as the term had been construed by the Texas court. The Washington court began by noting that, under the Texas court’s construction, the claims required a “‘direct,’ as opposed to an ‘indirect,’ pointing device,” id., which the court characterized as “a product that places the cursor on the screen at the physical point of aim,” id. at *2. The Washington court concluded that UltimatePointer had not put forth sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment because the Wii remote was an indirect pointing device, not a direct one. Id. at *1–2. Specifically, the Washington court determined that although the Wii system can give the impression that the cursor is placed as a result of the user’s aim, “in reality it is the remote’s interaction with the Wii sensor bar, not the screen, that is relevant to the placement of the cursor.” Id. at *2.

Week 7: IBM vs Groupon Claim Analysis

Hi everyone! Last week I talked about a case between IBM and Groupon, and briefly addressed one of the patents and claim in-suit. This week, I am going to delve a little deep into one of the claims.

Quick summary of the case: IBM sued Groupon last week claiming that Groupon had been infringing on 3 of its patents. According to IBM Groupon had built its entire business model around these patents and was asking that the court halt further infringement and pay damages.
I am going to further discuss one of the patent claims by breaking it down-

Patent 76,31,346: Method and system for a runtime user account creation operation within a single-sign-on process in a federated computing environment.
For example, it helps allow users to sign into Groupon using their Facebook account.

Claim 1 

CLAIM COMPONENT	ANALYSIS
A method for managing user authentication within a distributed data processing system, wherein a first system and a second system interact within a federated computing environment and support single-sign-on operations in order to provide access to protected resources, at least one of the first system and the second system comprising a processor,	So this method pertains to interaction between two systems to enable user authentication, which means that if there are more than or less than two this claim would not hold. Also, it is to support a "single sign-on" process to provide access to protected resources, which means that if the access to the resource is unprotected/unrestricted then the defendant may argue that this claim is invalid. Groupon can argue that its resources are not "protected" because we can still view the deals even if we haven't signed in.
receiving from the first system at the second system an identifier associated with the user;	This means there has be a common link between the two systems, for example an email/ user account.
the method comprising; triggering a single-sign-on operation on behalf of the user in order to obtain access to a protected resource that is hosted by the second system, wherein the second system requires a user account for the user to complete the single-sign-on operation prior to providing access to the protected resource;	In addition, the second system (the one from which we are going to facilitate the single sign-on process) needs to have the user's account to complete this process. This means that if the second system in question does not have a database of users (for example, 4chan), this claim does not apply.
and creating a user account for the user at the second system based at least in part on the received identifier associated with the user after triggering the single-sign-on operation but before generating at the second system a response for accessing the protected resource, wherein the created user account supports single-sign-on operations between the first system and the second system on behalf of the user.	This means that the second system will provide some information (even if partial) that is enough to create a user account on the first system using this single sign-on process. For example, Groupon requires the user's mailing address, during checkout but does not require it for access to deals in the area. So, logging in with Gmail will provide information like Name, Gender, Age, etc. which is enough to create an account with Groupon.

I am not well-versed with this technology, but this claim's obviousness is apparent and I can see why IBM believes that Groupon has infringed on this patent.

Week 6: IBM vs Groupon

VS

On March 2, 2016, IBM sued Groupon for infringing on four of its patents, which included two that emerged from Prodigy, the online service launched by IBM and partners ahead of the World Wide Web. According to IBM's complaint, Groupon has built its business model on its patents. They claim that despite their repeated attempts to negotiate, Groupon refuses to take a license, but continues to use its property. IBM is asking the court to order Groupon to halt further infringement and pay the damages.

IBM alleges that websites under Groupon’s control and its mobile applications use the technology claimed by the patents-in-suit for online local commerce marketplaces to connect merchants to consumers by offering goods and services at a discount. I will further discuss the patents below:

• US Patents No. 5,796,967 and 7,072,849: Its inventors developed new methods for presenting applications and advertisements in an interactive service that would take advantage of the computing power of each user’s PC and reduce demand on host servers. 
• US Patent No. 5,961,601: It was developed to find a better way of preserving state information in Internet communications, such as between an online merchant and a customer.
• US Patent No. 7,631,346: It was developed for a single-sign on process in a federated computer environment, which would, for example, allow users to sign into Groupon using their Facebook account. One of the claims from this patent is as follow:
• Claim 3: ...sending a message from the second system to the first system to pull authentication information for the user from the first system to the second system in order to trigger the single-sign-on operation for the user at the second system
• As mentioned above, we can logically connect this to the "Connect with Facebook" or "Sign-in with Google" option available on most websites today. It simplifies our registration process by drawing information from a source/website that already holds the necessary information. I think this can be made possible because most registration processes require similar information (eg. Name, Birthday, Zipcode). As we have seen, we might have to add further information (like Address). 

I found the last one to be particularly interesting (hence, I delved more into one of the claims): So, since almost every website uses this feature would every website have licensed it from IBM? Or would they have developed a slightly different way of integrating it? I don't think every website is licensing it (or IBM would be suing everyone left right and center given the right financial motivation). Rather, I think IBM decided to sue Groupon on this patent to add to the infringement of other more 'important' patents. What do you think?