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It might have been a short week, but there was still plenty of news, including another Zoox recall, an update on the Stellantis-Amazon partnership, and a few startup-funding deals.
One item of note: This week, I wrote about Carma Technology and its patent infringement lawsuit against Uber. This isn’t a patent troll situation, and the IP attorneys I have spoken with say it will be a challenging case for Uber.
The gist? Carma, which was 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.
IP attorney Larry Ashery provided the money quote that explains why this is such a complicated and challenging case.
“What’s important to understand here is, Carma isn’t just asserting five patents. They have had a very sophisticated strategy of patent procurement that they’ve been working on for the past 18 years.”Carma’s 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, Ashery noted.
Let’s get into the rest of the news.
A little bird
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin
A few little birds have been chirping at us for months now about a new autonomous vehicle technology startup that has been quietly plugging along for a year. Th …