A US jury awarded International Business Machines (IBM) USD 83 Million (Around INR 569 Crores), on Friday, involving a patent dispute with famous e-commerce company called as Groupon.
A jury said that Groupon without any authorization used IBM’s patented e-commerce technology which led to the two-week trial in Delaware.
“IBM invests nearly $6 billion annually in research and development, producing innovations for society,” IBM spokesman Douglas Shelton said in a statement. “We rely on our patents to protect our innovations. We are pleased by the jury’s verdict.”
“We continue to believe that we do not infringe on any valid IBM patents,” Groupon spokesman Bill Roberts said in a statement. “To the extent, these patents have any value at all – which we believe they do not – the value is far less than what the jury awarded.”
The jury in its verdict said that the company Groupon’s infringement was willful, allowing IBM to ask a judge to award additional damages to that.
IBM had demanded USD 167 million (Approx. 1,146 crores) in damages, it developed widely licensed technology very important to the development of the Internet. Two of those patents relate to Prodigy, IBM’s late-1980s precursor to the Web.
According to Groupon’s arguments, some of IBM’s patents should not have been granted due to the fact they describe obvious ideas and also said that the computing company’s damages request was unreasonable.
Armonk, which is based in New York IBM has managed to secure more than US patents compared to any other company for the past 25 years.
The case was under watch very closely in the technology industry especially because of it offering a glimpse into IBM’s efforts to license its large patent portfolio to other companies.
An IBM licensing executive confirmed that Amazon, Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have all paid IBM USD 20 million to USD 50 million (approx.. Rs. 137 crores) as part of cross-licensing deals that gave them access to the patent portfolio.
In the year 2017 alone, IBM managed to generate around USD 1.2 billion (roughly INR 8,235 Crores) in revenue from its licensing activities.
As the trial was going on, Groupon lawyer J. David Hadden tried to portray IBM as using outdated patents to squeeze money out of other tech companies with threats of litigation.
The lawyer of IBM John Desmarais said to the jurors that the company had no choice except to sue after the company Groupon which refused to take any responsibility to use IBM’s foundational technology.
“The verdict is a vindication for IBM’s licensing program,” Desmarais said by phone.
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