Microsoft and Google team up to fight the GeoTag Patent Troll

Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) have joined forces to defeat patent troll GeoTag, which has sued hundreds of companies for allegedly infringing its patent.

GeoTag claims that nearly 400 companies are using Bing maps and Google Maps – all based on its patented technology. According to GeoTag, its patent covers using mapping services to create store locators on websites.

According to GeoTag, its patented GeoTag geo-location technology is a spatial information management technology that makes possible a range of location-enabled online applications. GeoTag further claims that these online applications can use its technology to interactively and dynamically retrieve data from a database and associate retrieved data with a location.

GeoTag has been suing customers of Microsoft and Google including Boeing and Pizza Hut.

Microsoft and Google have joined forces and are going on the offensive. They asked a Texas court to rule that they have not infringed GeoTag's patent. They also asked the court to stop GeoTag from patent trolling and to order GeoTag to compensate Microsoft and Google for incurred costs. Microsoft and Google state that the patent concerned (U.S. Patent No. 5,930,474) is invalid for a number of reasons.

The patent was “invented” in the mid-1990s by Peter D. Dunworth, John W. Veenstra and Joan Nagelkirck. The patent was assigned to Z Land LLC. After unsuccessful attempts to commercialize the patent, the patent rights were assigned to Geomas Ltd.,an intellectual property holding company.

Around 2001, Jason W. Galanis, a U.S. entrepreneur, began investing in Geomas which apparently provided the capital to bring a patent infringement lawsuit in November 2006. In that lawsuit, Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VZ) and Idearc Information Services, Inc. were accused of infringement of the patent. Mr. Galanis arranged $20 million in institutional financing to support the lawsuit which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. That lawsuit was settled in December 2008; the terms of the settlement remain confidential.

The patent was then acquired by Ubixo Ltd. That company formed Ubixo, Inc. and assigned the patent and associated rights to it. In July 12, 2010, Ubixo, Inc. was spun off as an independent corporation and reincorporated in Delaware under the name GeoTag, Inc. GeoTag has therefore only held this one patent for two years, despite its claims that it makes a living licensing patents.

At this moment, GeoTag has been suing 423 companies for alleged patent infringement.

Let’s hope that the courts stop this kind of patent trolling soon.

(Image courtesy of Stu's Views )