In an Eastern District of Texas complaint, Carma Technology Limited and Carma Technology Corporation have sued Uber (2:25-cv-00029) over the provision of ridesharing and delivery services, targeting features allegedly shared between the two that relate to driver matching, soliciting ratings, pickups along a route, and ride safety monitoring. The new pleading emphasizes the background of the sole named inventor for the asserted patents, Sean O'Sullivan, characterized as "a well-known and successful technologist and entrepreneur".
The complaint recounts a version of O'Sullivan's work history, from "coding at the age of 12 and [being] subsequently employed as a programmer at age 14 through a government program designed to help disadvantaged youths" to cofounding MapInfo ("the first widely available system to allow people to type a street address into a computer and see it on a map"), purportedly acquired by Pitney Bowes in 2007 for $408M, from the 1995 cofounding of "SOSV (formerly SOSventures), a venture capital and investment management firm that seeks to invest in the earliest stages of start-up companies via a family of startup development programs, with a focus on supporting human health, industrial efficiency, and planetary health" to living in Los Angeles, California shortly thereafter, where Carma pleads that he "began envisioning ways to improve the city's traffic and infrastructure problem by utilizing empty vehicle capacity".
As described in the complaint, the asserted patents generally relate to various aspects of ridesharing and/or delivery systems, including driver/user matching (7,840,427); "proxy messaging" between riders and drivers (10,741,071); chaining multiple deliveries in a sequence (10,916,138); tracking a vehicle's location, monitoring for "anomalous conditions", and escalating to the rider or authorities if needed (11,017,668); and an "end-to-end ridesharing service" with certain features (11,164,456).
Carma Technology Limited was formed in Ireland in March 2009 as "Avego Limited"; its directors are O'Sullivan; Carma's current CEO, Lawrence Mulligan; Joseph Cunningham, who holds himself out as a Carma director on social media; and Alan Moore, who lists a role as "Director (Non-Executive)" there. The complaint details how O'Sullivan spun off Avego from MapFlow, an "Irish GIS (Geographic Information Systems) company" in which he acquired a controlling interest in 2006. Carma Technology Corporation was formed in Delaware in February 2009. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Irish plaintiff.
Carma, both as Avego and after it purportedly relaunched as Carma in 2013, has at certain points in its history offered ridesharing apps and services as well as services related to using smartphones to verify high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane compliance, for the latter touting various government partnerships. Its current offerings focus on HOV compliance, tolling, mileage reporting, congestion pricing, and "monitoring and influencing travel behavior".
Carma asserts that Uber's infringement has been willful, alleging that in addition to the date of an August 2016 communication alleging infringement, Uber had knowledge of the asserted patents as early as March 2015, when a series of Uber patent applications were allegedly rejected over the Carma patents; that Uber also had knowledge through its citation of Carma patents in other Uber patent applications; and additionally, that it would have had knowledge of Carma as a ride-sharing competitor in the early 2010s.
USPTO assignment records suggest that Carma Technology Limited holds the patents-in-suit; the plaintiffs plead that "Carma" (defined collectively) owns them. McKool Smith filed the new case for the plaintiffs. Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap has been assigned to preside. 1/14, Eastern District of Texas.
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