Groupon is firing back against IBM two months after the computing giant accused it of patent infringement, filing a countersuit and calling the company “a dial-up-era dinosaur.”
“IBM, a relic of once-great 20th Century technology firms, has now resorted to usurping the intellectual property of companies born this millennium,” Groupon’s lawyers wrote in the complaint, filed Monday in Illinois district court.
Groupon claims that IBM infringed on a patent issued in 2010 for a “System for Providing a Service to Venues where People Aggregate.” The suit says IBM’s WebSphere Commerce product, which allows businesses to use customers’ real-time locations to send them targeted marketing messages, violates a Groupon patent.
“Unfortunately, IBM is trying to shed its status as a dial-up-era dinosaur by infringing on the intellectual property rights of current technology companies, like Groupon,” spokesman Bill Roberts said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to having this matter considered.”
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
IBM filed suit against Groupon in early March, alleging that the Chicago-based online marketplace infringed on four of its patents. Two of those relate to Prodigy, a late-1980s online service created by IBM and others.
IBM has sparred with Twitter, Amazon, Priceline and others over similar claims.
Groupon’s lawyers wrote that it is seeking royalties on “the billions of dollars in revenue that IBM has received based on its unlawful use of Groupon’s patented technology.” They said IBM knew of the patent violation at least as early as June 2015, a claim IBM said was “categorically false.”
“We believe that this counter suit is totally without merit,” IBM spokesman Doug Shelton said in an emailed statement. “Over the past three years, IBM has attempted to conclude a fair and reasonable patent license agreement with Groupon, and we are disappointed that Groupon is seeking to divert attention from its patent infringement by suing IBM.”
Shelton added that he hopes for a “fair conclusion” in which Groupon compensates IBM for using its patented technology.
Date: May 10, 2016