At the beginning of the federal trial, IBM's lawyers said that Groupon used IBM's e-commerce inventions without permission to develop its own online group buying business and demanded claims for patent infringement. IBM asked jurors Let Groupon compensate $166.5 million for using its four patented technologies. IBM lawyer John De Mares said in court that Groupon, based in Chicago, entered the e-commerce market 'relatively late', using IBM's existing technology to build The business. He said that many companies, including Amazon and Facebook, have purchased licenses for patented technology from IBM, but Groupon has not purchased them.
A jury in Delaware ruled after two weeks of trials that Groupon used IBM's patented e-commerce technology without authorization.
IBM spokesperson Douglas Shelton said in a statement: 'IBM invests nearly $6 billion a year in research and development to produce innovative products for the entire society, and we rely on patents to protect our innovation. We are jury I am happy with this decision.'
Groupon spokesperson Bill Roberts stated: 'We still believe that we have not infringed any valid patents of IBM. We believe that these patents are in fact worthless, even if they have any value, their value is much lower than the jury Determine the level of compensation. '
The jury found Groupon's infringement to be intentional, so IBM could ask the judge to rule that the company would have to pay more compensation to IBM. IBM had previously claimed compensation of $167 million, and the company said it has extensively developed the Internet to Important patent technology. Groupon believes that some of IBM's patents should not have been approved, because these patents describe a very obvious concept, and said that it believes that the amount of compensation IBM requires is unreasonable.