Tuesday, November 10. 2009

Slew of Online Mappers Sued by WebMap Technologies for Patent Infringement

Fifteen companies that offer Web maps being sued by WebMap Technologies LLC for infringement of patent 6,772,142 called Method and Apparatus for Collecting and Expressing Geographically Referenced Data.

The patent in question: 6,772,142 "Method and Apparatus for Collecting and Expressing Geographically Referenced Data"

It's from 2004 and originally assigned to Cornell Research Foundation, Inc. (Ithaca, NY) and National Audubon Society, Inc. (New York, NY). It seems to have come from work with saving data about birds. Both organizations are known for their work with birds.

The companies in the suit include Expedia, Google, Microsoft, the Washington Post, Ticketmaster, Travelocity, Tripadvisor, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and Zagat Survey. (full list here)

WebMap Technologies is based in Frisco, TX and claims to be the only licensee of the patent. WebMap Tech alleges in the complaint that Google has known about the potential infringement for some time before the suit was filed. The plaintiff wants a permanent injunction enjoining defendants, damages, costs, expenses, interest, enhanced damages, attorneys' fees and other relief to which it may be entitled. Oh, and a jury trial. The suite was filed Nov 3.

Fast Company refers to Webmap Technologies as a defunct navigation company (but TechCrunch confirms that company is not involved in the suit, it's just a company that had the same name). No one seems at all sure who is behind the news WebMap Technologies.

Fast Company calls the suit "the most bloated and fatuous IP lawsuit in recent memory." It also points out that the Bilski decision pretty much negated any software patents making this case moot. But, Bilski is now under review by the Supreme Court (the case began Nov 9, WSJ coverage). So, if it's overturned Webmap Technologies could be in business, if in fact the patent is valid and the companies did infringe.

TG Daily via GIS Lounge

See also: SE Texas Record, Fast Company, TechCrunch

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Patents at 07:57 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

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It was only a matter of time. I am surprised this hadn't surfaced sooner.

#1 Drew (Link) on 2009-11-10 14:25 (Reply)

Well, GenaMap had a spatial web broker product back in the mid 1990's. The Web Broker provided access to ALL GIS functionality in GenaMap, GenaCell and so forth. So, for example, an application could easily allow the use to point to a location, perform a distance search from that location, and display the result as a web map. The user could also use an external source (such as from a database) for the location of a point and perform any number of processes related to that point: point in polygon, nearest neighbor, proximity, and so forth.

I suspect that there are many other examples that pre-date the submission date by well over one year.

#2 Carl Reed on 2009-11-17 13:18 (Reply)

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