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from the going-for-a-piece-of-the-pie^W-IPO dept.
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 (pdf) in federal court in Atlanta, Stephen Dickerson charges that Uber Technologies Inc. is infringing on a patent he won in 2004 (pdf) 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, he sued Lyft Inc. in federal court in New York (pdf), making the same allegations he is making against Uber. In a court filing, Lyft denies it infringed on Dickerson's technology (pdf). The lawsuit is continuing. (Read a discussion of the issues in the case here (pdf).)
[Updated 20190605_120341 UTC to fix links and formatting; noted which links were to .pdf documents. --martyb]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 05 2019, @07:56PM
Even if he went after them in 2005, obvious and previously practiced still apply, but I have a hard time believing that this has been simmering since 2005 without settlement. Even though lawyers do like to get paid as much as possible, they also like to wrap things up when risk is at a minimum - dragging for too long puts the whole payoff at risk. Uber was a juicy target even before the IPO, I'm thinking that nobody would pursue this for him at risk until Uber was so very large and entangled in other matters that they might be inclined to settle for the cost of a good defense.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/