The new suit follow a suits filed against agent Diane Sarkisian for using map-based software for real estate searches that the patent owner, REAL, claims infringes. The suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by REAL is against:
• The National Association of Realtors (NAR), with approximately 1.3 million real estate broker and agent members nationwide;
• Nationwide real estate brokerage firms, including RE/MAX and Keller Williams Realty;
• Home builders, such as Pulte Homes and Ryland Group;
• The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB);
• Enterprise computer software providers to the real estate industry, including Fidelity National
• Real Estate Solutions, First American Corporation, and others;
• MOVE, Inc., the company that operates flagship real estate websites such as Realtor.com, MOVE.com, HomeBuilder.com, RentNet.com, and SeniorHousingNet.com; and
• More than 25 other defendants representing nationwide classes of claimed infringers: real estate brokers, agents, multiple listing services, new home builders, and rental property owners/managers.
REAL is putting together five class action suits to demand remediation for "direct infringement, contributory infringement, and inducement to infringe." REAL expects compensatory and triple damages.
Mark Tornetta who originated the patent, explains that he and REAL have tried to get organizations to license the patent with little luck. Now, he said, they can't wait any longer.
News on this story has always come from Inman.com (a real estate site, which I suspect has this behind its
pay wall) and via Scott Tatro, an interested party who often passes along information. This story, a
press release which I found at the American Homeowners Resource Center, is based on a material from Linden Alschuler & Kaplan, Inc., a Public Relations firm. That tells me the plaintiffs want to get the story out in a big way.
Update: Scott Tatro sent me a copy of the release after I'd posted this.
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AHRC
A couple of examples. Back in 1979/1980 I worked on a start up application that allowed real estate agents to use a PC (running CPM!) to specify an integrated set of geospatial and attribute search criteria that were then communicated to a MLS server. The server processed the query and returned a result set as text of all the properties in the MLS database that met the search criteria. Obviously, no graphics were involved in the initial version and communication was limited to 1200 Baud - but the application worked and was deployed for use by a real estate agency in Ft. Collins, CO.
Then in 1986, I worked on an application in which the GenaMap (DeltaMap back then) GIS running on an HP Unix workstation was networked with an HP 3000 running various local government financial and database applications including property management. The integrated application provided a GUI on the UNIX workstation that allowed the user to specify a query such as find all of the properties in North Sydney with 3 bedrooms, two baths, in a given price range and in a given geographic area. The returned set of properties was displayed as a map. The user could then zoom in/out, pan, point and query, generate reports, and perform drill down search operations, such as find out the zoning for each property or whether a given property was in a 100 year flood zone. This application was first deployed in 1986 in North Sydney and Campbell Town Councils in New South Wales.