IBM Asks Jury To Award $167 MM For Former Prodigy Patents
Reporting for Reuters, Jan Wolfe writes:
International Business Machines Corp on Monday asked a U.S. jury to award it $167 million in a lawsuit accusing e-commerce marketplace operator Groupon Inc of using patented technology without authorization.
Desmarais famously left Kirkland & Ellis in 2010 and formed his own firm around a licensing campaign of 4500 former Micron patents. Desmarais also represented Intellectual Ventures in several lawsuits.
As is typical, IBM’s lawsuit is the result of arbitrary hold-out behavior by Groupon:
“Most big companies have taken licenses to these patents,” Desmarais said. “Groupon has not. The new kid on the block refuses to take responsibility for using these inventions.”
…
Desmarais told jurors IBM is a prolific innovator and seeks to license its patents on reasonable terms. IBM had no choice but to sue Groupon after it refused to negotiate a licensing deal, he said.
IBM claims that complies like Amazon and Google have already licensed the patents for $20-$50MM each.
