A scantly known startup out of Chicago called Earthcomber has filed a patent infringement suit against Loopt, a location-based social network.
The suit claims that Loopt has infringed an Earthcomber patent, filed in June 2003 and issued in July 2006, that outlines “a system and method for locating and notifying a user of a person, place or thing having attributes matching the user’s stated preferences.”
The Earthcomber web application, which we haven’t reviewed here before but has been covered on Webware, is available on a variety of mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry, WAP, etc) and helps you find nearby places of interests. You can also use it to share your current location with friends, although not using any GPS or triangulation - you actually have to enter your ZIP code or current intersection manually. Update: It appears as though GPS is available on some supported devices, just not all.
Overall, it’s a pretty weak offering when compared to the other location-aware mobile services out there (on the iPhone and elsewhere). So the suit may very well be just a desperate attempt to get the company some attention.
The suit appears to be aimed primarily at Loopt’s new Mix feature, which can be used to find people in your area that match particular criteria (only women between 24-28 who also enjoy imeem, for example).
Disclosure: We are promoting a co-branded community on Loopt. The company should therefore be considered a sponsor of ours.
Here we go…Let me begin:
Ban software/business-process patents now!
Whats with the valley snobbery? I hate process patents and I know loopt is much more established and probably has a better app. But this seems a bit one-sided and unfair, or maybe it’s this writeup that makes ya look a little less credible??
Its pretty clear that basic idea of locating friends via GPS has been around forever.
For example, this patent filed back in 2000:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7284033.html
It discusses the idea of locating people via GPS at length, for a Japan based mobile social network that was launched in 2001. I know for a fact they had implemented GPS by 2004. Perhaps even as early as 2003, when the patent in question was filed.
So there really doesn’t seem to be anything new or novel about this. Mark made a good call.
There are so many opinionated statements in your posting without any facts to back them up.
You say it’s a “rather absurd patent infringement suit.” Really? Are you a patent or trademark attorney? Did you speak to any to find out their opinion? How do you know then?
Then you say “as Loopt’s CEO Sam Altman points out, the ideas embodied by the patent certainly aren’t non-obvious or very novel.” Gee what do you expect him to say?: “I copied this my ideas are totally unoriginal.”
What’s obvious today wasn’t so years ago when Web 2.0 media was in its infancy and very few cell phones had GPS on it.
Just because someone though of an idea and didn’t implement it or implemented it poorly shouldn’t take away from the fact that they though of and invested in it first.
Instead of being dismissive of lawsuits (and there are many frivelous ones) you should put yourself in the shoes of someone who sees his/her ideas being executed by others.
Is Loopt doing a better job. Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have to pay the piper. Just ask RIMM.
@farhan: you’re an idiot
@bob -you are also an idiot, and a douche
Keep on encouraging the development of hte useful arts and sciences with awesome patents like this one.
And shit, if earthcomber is hard up for cash why don’t they get a billion dollar bailout so they can sleep at night.
America = shittier every day lol. Good luck innovating your way out of your probs.
“Are not non-obvious….”
Yea, it’s awkward but that’s the relevant legalese.
So if I extract a lesson from the rhetoric of the first sentence, and translate it:
“A scantly known startup…”
= smaller, less successful companies…
“…has filed a rather absurd patent infringement suit…”
= have no right to legally protect against infringement upon their rights, whether real or only perceived…
“…against Loopt, a location-based social network with a substantially higher profile in the Valley and elsewhere.”
= particularly when the accused is of larger success or notoriety. If they attempt to, it could *only* be out of jealously or an effort steal from the larger company’s successes.
Hmm… that’s the lowly “ad hominem”, correct?
But hey, you did give disclosure, that’s a definite step in the right direction. Meanwhile, I’m only arguing against your tone and assumptive perspective on where creative ideas come from. Successful companies can and will steal from smaller ones (ahem, M$, Apple, Adobe, et. al). Such is not necessarily the case here or always, but I loathe that many posit it as an unlikely or impossible scenario, which is unfortunately, far from the truth, and something that I think everyone should effort to have a balanced perspective upon.
I don’t doubt that large, successful companies “steal” ideas from smaller ones all the time. It’s just highly doubtful that that’s what happened here. The ideas embodied by the patent are not very original or special, so it’s ludicrous for Earthcomber to sue Loopt. That’s my basic point.
I have no background in law and don’t have time to read thick patents. So I don’t know the merits of this case. (Makes me perfect to express an opinion, eh?) But it seems to me that if little guys with good ideas can get run over by better funded companies, just because they’re better funded, then I think the rewards of innovation would flow exactly to the wrong places. It’s a scary picture to contemplate IBM, Microsoft, and Google owning everything.
So, I suggest everyone take a breath and let the process play out before weighing in on how “absurd” the complaint is. While we’re waiting, we can kill some time at the theater watching that new movie about the windshield wiper inventor.
On the other hand: what happens to little guys if the patent office is giving out hundreds-thousands of patents on trivial and obvious inventions in the software space (ie: patents on ideas so trivial and elementary that people would re-”invent” them in a matter of minutes once they try to solve the same problem)?
How many people are going to be comfortable starting a business around some obvious idea (hey! phones have gps and internet now! let’s show people interesting stuff near them!) if there’s all kinds of people unsuccessful enterprises (like Earthcomber) with land-grab patents waiting in secret to steal the fruits of success?
For a lot of web entrepreneurs it’s not IBM or Google they’re worrying about — the markets worth entering are too small for giants like that anyways — it’s people gaming the legal system and laying snares with patents that shouldn’t have been issued in the first place.
So, the patent examiner wasn’t able to spend 20 minutes and find Dodgeball or Vindigo, both of which contain this functionality and predate the application date by at least a few years?
Patent’s not “absurd” at all. Absurd means “ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous.” If you read the claims of this patent, as I have just now, you will see that the patent is _perfectly reasonable_ and really seems to do a lot of what Loopt does.
The patent *infringement suit* is absurd.
That’s what I thought too. I usually get annoyed when patent trolls will sue -when they dont have a working product-, but these guys do seem to, which also helps their case I guess
Also - in regards to the patent. I love it how Sam Altam says the patent isn’t novel or obvious - this was FILED IN 27 JUN 2003 - NO ONE was doing or even thinking about something like this in June 2003.
So i think its a bit rich to claim its “not novel” - in 2003 it was VERY NOVEL and VERY NOT OBVIOUS.
NO ONE was doing or even thinking about something like this in June 2003.
Really? What about Dodgeball and probably dozens of other small startups?
This is another one of those useless patents.
Dodgeball (the mobile-web based service that helped you find stuff interesting to you near you) was around in 2002, a year before this crap was filed.
Calling this patent “novel” is like calling BN.COM novel.
I think dodgeball was around in 2002 but it wasnt using GPS technology for location - rather just sms. so dodgeball as a service was entirely different to the nature of this patent.
If you look at the paragraph just above “Field of the Invention”, you’ll see that this was actually filed a year prior - in June 2002 - as a provisional patent, and although I’m not a lawyer, I *think* that becomes the effective date for prior art disputes.
It’s just a year’s difference, but in this case, that may be pretty important.
If you accept dodgeball as prior art, it was around in early 2002 (from web archive), earlier than June, so it counts as prior art.
Early dodgeball didn’t use GPS: you texted your street address and got recommendations that way.
If the distinction between “send a text message containing an address to a service and get notification of people and things of interest near your location” and “read your location from a gps unit and send a message containing your latitude and longitude to a service and get notification of people and things of interest near your location” is going to rule out dodgeball as prior art, I think a lot less of Earthcomber than I did before typing this out.
I mean, really: dodgeball is out and about in 2002 and lets you text your address to a location and get notifications of things-of-interest near there. In what way is it NOT obvious to clone that idea but use gps instead of hand-entered addresses?
While after reading the patent I agree the suit is without merit, your writeup mentions nothing about the patent itself to support your claims.
At least read it and provide an analysis, even if you’re not a lawyer.
Have you read it? Anything in there that refutes my claims?
When it comes to programming the whole patent system is outdated and needs a revamp. I am still waiting on friendster to sue the pants off all other social networks for infringement.
I don’t know why it should be labeled an absurd patent infringement case. If all the elements of one of the claims in this patent is present in LoopT’s offering, then they are infringing unless they can prove otherwise or that the patent is invalid. Quick way to check is to read the claims and if all the elements of any of the claims are in LoopT’s offering, it is a serious issue that LoopT will have to deal with. Sure, the entire patent system may be absurd, but it is the law and this patent has as much legal standing at this point as any other.
While the patent office has driven me crazy on occasion, they don’t just rubber stamp these things. The patent office probably forced them to narrow down their claims significantly from their originals, and the claims probably cover more narrow ground than you think when you read the entire patent. The claims really are the most important part. I’m not a patent lawyer, so I’ll call this a simplistic, hypothetical example. Let’s say I built something that has every element of Claim 1 but instead of having the user create his own profile, the system automagically does it. I’m not infringing anymore because I don’t have all of the elements specified in the claim. In fact, I may be able to get a patent with my automagical profile creation.
Really, it is all pretty complicated stuff with lots of pieces to consider. So, labeling it absurd or frivolous isn’t really fair. ..and it is an issued patent, which means that the set of elements in the claims have been determined by the patent office to be “special” at the time of the filing. It doesn’t matter if it looks obvious to you today.
Mark - Your statement “Have you read it? Anything in there that refutes my claims?” completely misses the point. The issue is whether there is anything that supports your published assertion that it’s “a rather absurd patent infringement suit”. Of course, I’m assuming your striving to provide unbiased, serious reporting, although that’s likely a stretch.
We’re not talking about an individual filing suit against Starbuck’s because they spilled their hot coffee when driving on the highway while text messaging. One party filed a patent application with an effective filing date of June 2002 (can could potentially swear back up to another year) that issued into a patent. There are three independent claims, and several dependent claims. Not sure which claims have been asserted but each are presumed valid unless can be shown to be invalid. Loopt could very well have a strong argument of unenforceability and/or noninfringement. Who knows? Claim 1 is set forth below. If you can provide a basis why the claim is invalid, please do. It would support your argument and help your sponsor Loopt.
Regards, john
1. A method of notifying a user using a device about people, places and things having attributes that match explicit preferences of the user and are within a desired proximity to a location associated with the user, the method comprising the steps of: creating a user preference profile, wherein the user preference profile is created by the user; storing the user preference profile; creating a profile of at least one of the people, places and things; storing the at least one of the people, places and things profile; determining the location of the user; comparing the user preference profile and the at least one of the people, places and things profile to determine if the at least one of the people, places and things has attributes that match the preferences of the user, wherein the step of comparing the user preference profile with the at least one of the people, places and things profile comprises the step of determining whether the at least one of the people, places and things is within a distance that is specified by the user in the user preference profile; and notifying the user of all of the at least one of the people, places and things that match the user’s explicit preferences and are within the desired proximity to the user’s location.
Slander?
1. A scantily known startup called Earthcomber out of Chicago. Incorrect. Earthcomber is a download feature on Nokia phones and winner of 2008 Nokia application contest.
2. has filed a rather absurd patent infringement suit against Loopt, a location-based social network with a substantially higher profile in the Valley and elsewhere.
3. You can also use it to share your current location with friends, although not using any GPS or triangulation. Incorrect. IT has a GPS component. I have a Nokia N 95 with GPS and Earthcomber is a downloaded feature on it. It flys with the GPS component.
What Are Defamation, Libel and Slander?
Generally speaking, defamation is the issuance of a false statement about another person or entity, which causes that person or entity to suffer harm. Slander involves the making of defamatory statements by a transitory (non-fixed) representation, usually an oral (spoken) representation. Libel involves the making of defamatory statements in a printed or fixed medium, such as a magazine or newspaper.
Typically, the elements of a cause of action for defamation include:
1. A false and defamatory statement concerning another;
2. The unprivileged publication of the statement to a third party (that is, somebody other than the person defamed by the statement);
3. If the defamatory matter is of public concern, fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the publisher; and
4. Damage to the plaintiff.
In the context of defamation law, a statement is “published” when it is made to the third party. That term does not mean that the statement has to be in print.
Mike Redding, are you done hogging the comments?
Earthcomber sent us a press release touting their patent infringement lawsuit. They wanted attention, so they got it. We contacted Loopt for comment. That was the first they heard of the suit.
There is a conflict of interest here, true. We disclosed it. Mark explained why he thinks the patent is bogus. Readers can make their own judgments.
We’ll see if the suit goes anywhere. Maybe Earthcomber should hire Mike Redding as an expert witness. He seems like a big fan.
Quit bellyaching, Erick.
You got favorable responses from Danny Amonte, Steven Glass, Hitler and David Duke.
What are you complaining about?
Looks like Earthcomber is sueing TechCrunch now, too. So they give you this press release, then you cover them in a way they don’t like, and now you’re getting sued for infringing on their patent along with Loopt? That is a bit strange. Why aren’t they suing ANYONE with a branded network on Loopt?
I found out about this here: http://www.labnol.org/internet.....oopt/4828/ and they include a link to the argument itself: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/149566/techcrunch.pdf
Ah, all the Earthcomber employees seem to have come out to comment.