Latest news with #patent
TechCrunch
a day ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
How a decade-old patent dispute could upend Uber's business
A little-known patent infringement lawsuit could have big implications for Uber — and potentially dozens of other companies. Carma Technology, a company formed in 2007 by serial entrepreneur and SOSV Ventures founder Sean O'Sullivan, filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Uber alleging the company infringed on five of its patents that are related to the system of matching riders (or packages) with capacity in vehicles. In other words, ride-sharing — a business Carma operated in some form for a decade until it changed its business model and applied its tech to road-pricing services like GPS tolling and HOV verification. Carma has requested a jury trial and is seeking a permanent injunction against the company, mandatory future royalties on any Uber products that infringe on those patents as well as damages, and other costs related to the lawsuit. The lawsuit, which has been quietly winding its way through the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, is relatively new. The allegations have been swirling for nearly a decade. Carma lawyers first contacted Uber about its ride-sharing and ground transportation patents in 2016, according to the complaint. That was an auspicious time for Uber. The startup, which was founded just seven years before, had shot into the stratosphere — in terms of valuation, growth, and gravitas. Uber was valued at $66 billion at the time, and had a reputation for taking big, legally sticky swings into new markets that helped it grow to hundreds of cities in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and the Middle East. It had raised more than $12.5 billion in venture capital, and was using it to launch new products and even push into autonomous vehicles. Uber might have had the business model and the market share, but it didn't have the specific ride-sharing patents, O'Sullivan told TechCrunch in a recent interview. Carma does — plus a couple dozen others. Uber was allegedly aware of that fact as early as 2015 when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected one of its applications because it ran up against existing patents held by O'Sullivan and Carma, according to the lawsuit. Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW At least four of Uber's patent applications — and in some cases numerous revisions to those patents — were rejected between 2016 and 2019 for the same reason. The ride-share giant would eventually abandon some of those applications. Uber still holds hundreds of other patents covering a broad swath of technology and ideas that have been applied to its business. O'Sullivan argues the core service of what Carma's patents describes is exactly how the modern day ride-sharing experience operates. And he contends that Uber is infringing on those patents even if the company's business model operates more like a taxi business. The case is a complicated one, intellectual property attorney Larry Ashery told TechCrunch. (Ashery is not involved in the case.) 'What's important to understand here is Carma isn't just asserting five patents,' said Ashery, whose practice is based in Greater Philadelphia area. 'They have had a very sophisticated strategy of patent procurement that they've been working on for the past 18 years.' He noted the five patents are part of a 30-patent family that are all related and connected to the original filing date. That matters because each of the five asserted patents contains multiple patent claims, which define the legal boundaries of the invention. These individual claims — not just the patents as a whole — are what Carma is asserting against Uber. That means Uber will have to address and defend against each asserted claim, making the litigation more complex and difficult to defeat, he noted. Ashery said Uber's strategy will likely be to try an invalidate these patents, which will be a challenge. A nine-year gap Image Credits:Carma While Carma might have been armed with these specific patents, it took nine years for the company to actually sue Uber. Bunsow De Mory, a Redwood City-based law firm, is representing Carma in the case. 'When any business starts, it's all about just actually capturing the market and winning in the marketplace,' O'Sullivan said. 'Patents are meant to protect against aggressors from stealing the idea, but it's not the main focus of your business to get patent revenue. It's more as a protective mechanism.' Carma, he said, has been 'very busy building a multi-million dollar business and getting to profitability.' But there are other reasons for that nine-year time gap, O'Sullivan explained. For one, the cost. 'It's incredibly expensive to sue a large company over IP and Carma is a relatively small organization,' he said in a recent interview. 'To come up with the $10 million-plus to take on a big patent suit, which is what it takes these days, is not a small task.' O'Sullivan said the company did reach out to Uber as far back as 2016 'in the hopes that they would do the right thing and license our patents.' 'It really took us a while to come to terms with the idea that we actually had to sue Uber in order for them to respond,' he added. Uber declined to comment on the lawsuit. Uber's attorneys did make two procedural motions this week, including a sealed motion to dismiss for improper venue or alternatively to transfer venue for convenience. This procedural motion signals Uber's desire for the case to be litigated in the Northern District of California, where it is based, rather than in Texas. Notably, the lawsuit is aimed at Uber, not Lyft or other companies using ride-sharing. O'Sullivan explained Carma is 'going after the biggest player first' and noted that about 60 other companies are likely infringing on its patents. The five-patent argument The primary argument in the lawsuit ties back to five patents that have been granted to O'Sullivan and Carma, which was originally named Avego. It all started with O'Sullivan's frustration with traffic congestion, which ultimately led to thoughts about car-pooling and how an automated system using smartphones could help people coordinate rides. That idea would turn into the startup Avego and become the basis of the first patent — No. 7,840,427. The first patent, which O'Sullivan applied for in 2007 and was granted in 2010, created a shared transport system that matches empty space in a vehicle with riders or goods. The system established a set of pick-up and drop-off points and then matched users and drivers traveling along a similar route. Before the patent was granted Avego's ride-sharing app debuted on Apple's App Store in 2008, the same year the iPhone launched. Avego showed off its so-called Shared Transport app at the DEMO conference in 2008, which showed how a driver with an iPhone 3G could use the app to accept or reject a ride request. Once accepted, the rider was notified as the driver approached and then was prompted to enter a pin code to prove their identity and authorize an electronic payment. Avego, which would later change its name to Carma, was focused on the promotion of ride-sharing (as in carpooling) and not taxis, according to O'Sullivan. The company operated the carpooling business until October 2016, when the app was withdrawn from the App store. However, it still had other forms of ride-sharing, like its partnership with Toyota, until phasing it out altogether in April 2018. 'If you look at the definition of ride-sharing in federal legislation, it is carpooling,' O'Sullivan said, noting that Carma built up a multi-million dollar ride-sharing business in its early days. When Uber and Lyft came in and tried to co-opt the term ride-sharing to mean taxi-hailing it caused confusion in the market, prompting Carma to change its business model and apply its tech in new ways. 'Uber and Lyft really took ride-sharing in the direction of taxi services, but our company Carma didn't want to,' O'Sullivan said. Carma is still focused on reducing traffic congestion, but its tech is applied to a different business model. Today, Carma uses its app to help transit authorities manage tolls and express lanes — a product line the company first rolled out in 2013. For instance, the app can be used by a driver on a toll road or even track vehicle occupancy for HOV lanes. The app is designed to get more riders into cars and reward those people by reducing tolls or giving drivers access to the HOV lane. The idea, O'Sullivan said, is to offer toll authorities a way to reduce capital expenditure by up to 20 times by not using large gantry-based infrastructure systems. And it has paid off. O'Sullivan says Carma is profitable, although pursuing this lawsuit will cut into its bottom line. Still, he said it's worth the cost. 'I think there's a danger in society where we can't rely on our patents to protect the rights of of the inventors, and the patent system exists specifically to protect the rights of investors, not to reward copycats that just have happen to have deeper pockets,' he said, pointing to Uber's attempts at its own patents and the rejection of them by the USPTO. 'We think it's something that's important to recognize that the rights of a relatively small inventor, are being trampled upon. But it's not just for Carma, really. We think of this as a problem for the entire system. It's a test of whether the rule of law still applies when a powerful tech giant is involved.'
Phone Arena
a day ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips in trouble after judge refuses to dismiss lawsuit
Qualcomm's beloved and highly-praised Snapdragon chips are in hot water after a judge refused to dismiss a patent infringement lawsuit filed against the company. If the judge rules in favor of Collabo Innovations Inc. — which filed the lawsuit — Qualcomm might be forced to change how its chipsets are Innovations Inc. alleges that Qualcomm infringed a patent that the former had acquired from Panasonic. The patent involves a microcontroller chip that handles the shutdown processes of a system. Qualcomm had asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, but the judge ruled that this request was Alan Albright said that there were ongoing disagreements about certain terms like 'microcontroller'. The judge also ruled that Qualcomm's motion to dismiss the lawsuit would be considered at a later date after further sorts of lawsuits often end up with the accused party paying a sum or royalties to the entity that had sued them. If the judge rules in favor of Collabo Innovations Inc., Qualcomm might be ordered to pay a handsome sum of money to the company. However, a harsher result may see Qualcomm being told to stop using the microcontroller chip in its Snapdragon processors entirely. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is being used in the Samsung Galaxy S25 lineup. | Image credit — Samsung This is far from the only problem that Qualcomm has to worry about nowadays. Samsung and Apple are ditching Qualcomm, and that is going to cut into the company's revenue very deeply. In fact, Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala recently revealed exactly how much its share in the iPhone 17 series was expected to the company's rumored decisions to jack up the price of its upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 chip will only drive big customers like Samsung even further away. Samsung has been investing heavily into perfecting its Exynos processors so that it can stop relying on Snapdragon chips that cost it hundreds of millions of Dollars a year. The Snapdragon processors are some of the most powerful chipsets that phone manufacturers can use today. However, this lawsuit — in addition to the other problems cornering the company — threaten to change the smartphone industry's landscape pretty soon.
Reuters
2 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Intel wins jury trial over patent licenses in $3 billion VLSI fight
May 29 (Reuters) - A Texas federal jury determined on Thursday that Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab may have a license to patents owned by VLSI Technology, boosting Intel's efforts to overturn patent infringement verdicts that awarded VLSI more than $3 billion in damages. The jury agreed with Intel that Fortress Investment Group controls both VLSI and fellow Fortress affiliate Finjan Inc. Intel has argued that Fortress' control of both companies means that the chipmaker's patent license with Finjan also applies to VLSI. A VLSI spokesperson declined to comment other than to confirm the verdict. An Intel spokesperson also declined to comment. VLSI has sued Intel in multiple U.S. courts for allegedly infringing several patents covering semiconductor technology. A jury in Waco, Texas awarded VLSI $2.18 billion in their first trial, opens new tab in 2021, which a U.S. appeals court has since overturned and sent back for new proceedings. An Austin, Texas jury determined that VLSI was entitled to nearly $949 million from Intel in a separate patent infringement trial in 2022. Intel has argued in that case that the verdicts should be thrown out based on a 2012 agreement that gave it a license to patents owned by Finjan and other companies "under common control" with it. U.S. District Judge Alan Albright held the latest jury trial in Austin to determine whether Finjan and VLSI were under the "common control" of Fortress. VLSI said it was not subject to the Finjan agreement, and that the company did not even exist until four years after it was signed. A consortium led by Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Company acquired a majority stake in Fortress last year from Japan-based Softbank Group Corp.
Phone Arena
3 days ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
If you liked how thin the Galaxy S25 was, you're not ready for the Galaxy S26
It seems like Samsung is on a mission to make its flagship phones even thinner than the already pretty slim Galaxy S25 series. A new report states that the company is working on a major redesign for its upcoming Galaxy S26 flagship series that would shrink one of the bulkiest components inside: the camera module. Every tiny bit counts. | Image credit – Samsung Electronics The report goes into further detail to explain that Samsung Electro-Mechanics is developing a slimmer camera module by replacing traditional film layers between lenses with matte ink applied using an inkjet printing process. These film layers are typically used to reduce flare and ghosting caused by internal light reflections, but Samsung's new approach tries to achieve the same result while shaving down the depth of the camera module. A drawing from Samsung's patent application in 2018 showing a method of applying matte ink instead of film layers. The company reportedly refers to this method as a 'ring pattern' design. The image above, taken from a Samsung patent filed back in 2018, offers a visual explanation. In the illustration, part 30 indicates the material used between lens elements to reduce internal reflections—now targeted for replacement with printed matte ink. The patent is still pending approval, but industry sources suggest Samsung plans to implement this technology in time for the Galaxy S26 series. Even with a thinner camera module, Samsung will need to look elsewhere to shave off more millimeters. Beyond switching to inkjet-based anti-flare coatings, a thinner Galaxy S26 may also require: A shift to SiC battery technology More compact vapor chamber cooling systems Slimmer protective glass for both the front and back panels Together, these changes could help Samsung offer a significantly thinner device without cutting down on features or battery life. The new camera module design could be a hint into Samsung's plans for the future. | Image credit – PhoneArena If successful, Samsung's new camera module design may eliminate one of the most common compromises in phone design: the camera bump. It's too early to say whether the S26 Ultra or even the base S26 will lose the bulge entirely. Reducing module thickness could lead to sleeker aesthetics, improved pocketability, and lower weight. Whether the average consumer wants thinner phones is a different topic, but it seems all major manufacturers, Samsung included, are betting on these changes as the next thing they can promote their phones with. That said, pursuing an even slimmer profile inevitably raises concerns around battery life, thermal management, and structural integrity. It's also a curious move, considering that Samsung just introduced the Galaxy S25 Edge, a brand-new variant that stakes its entire identity on being exceptionally thin. Pushing the rest of the Galaxy S26 lineup in a similar direction so soon could either dilute the Edge's uniqueness or signal a broader shift in Samsung's design philosophy. In any case, the Galaxy S26 series is still many months away from launch, and these reported hardware changes are likely still being finalized. Whether Samsung is aiming for a unified design language or simply experimenting with component efficiency remains to be seen.
National Post
4 days ago
- Business
- National Post
PureAir Filtration Secures U.S. Patent for LIFEGARD™ Media Bed Monitor
Article content ATLANTA — PureAir Filtration, a leader in air purification and gas-phase filtration solutions, is proud to announce the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 12,312,548, granted on May 27, 2025, for the company's groundbreaking LIFEGARD™ Media Bed Monitor. Article content Article content New patent strengthens PureAir Filtration's leadership in gas-phase filtration monitoring, building on earlier innovations to deliver real-time performance data, enable predictive maintenance, and advance air quality management and system protection. This newly issued patent protects critical innovations that enable real-time monitoring and predictive data analysis of chemical filtration media life — marking another major advancement in air quality management. It builds on PureAir's earlier patented monitoring technologies, U.S. Patent No. 10,132,740 (issued November 20, 2018, 'Media Bed Monitoring Device and System') and U.S. Patent No. 10,801,946 (issued October 13, 2020, 'Electronic Monitoring of Gas Adsorbent Media Bed'), further strengthening the company's leadership in the development of gas-phase filtration monitoring systems. Article content The LIFEGARD™ Media Bed Monitor features externally mounted sensors that continuously track media bed performance. It provides both wired and wireless data transmission, early-warning predictive alarms, and supports proactive maintenance scheduling—enabling users to plan media changeouts in advance and minimize unplanned downtime. Article content Originally introduced as the Electronic Bed Monitor (EBM and EBMv2), the system was rebranded as LIFEGARD™ media bed monitor to reflect its enhanced functionality and its vital role in protecting mission-critical environments and equipment. Article content For more information about the LIFEGARD™ Media Bed Monitor or PureAir Filtration's complete range of patented air purification technologies, visit Article content PureAir Filtration, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is the global leader in gas-phase filtration, specializing in the removal of gases, odors, and vapors. With more than 20 years of industry experience and locations both in Atlanta (Georgia) and Amsterdam (Netherlands), the company delivers custom gas-phase filtration solutions across a wide-range of industries. Article content Article content Article content Article content Contacts Article content Article content Article content
