Google is again in the news for its patents wars. With every leading company wanting to satisfy its customers by providing the best street view mapping software, Google too hasn’t left any stone unturned. Google was sued by Vederi in 2010, alleging that Google’s “Street View” infringed claims of related patents, which concerns ways of creating images of a geographical area that can be navigated by computer.
Google Street View has already been the subject of a number of lawsuits. But now Google faces a lawsuit by Vederi, LLC, a company based in Pasadena, California. Vederi holds three U.S. patents (7,239,760; 7,805,025; 7,813, 596) entitled “System and Method for Creating, Storing and Utilizing Images of a Geographic Location.”
Vederi claims to have filed for a provisional patent on Street Browser technology back in 2000. However, the formal patent was filed in June 2007 and the patent was issued in August 2009. Therefore, Vederi may not get the benefit of having filed a provisional patent application back in 2000. Google Street View was launched in May 2007, one month before Vederi’s patent application was filed. However, the main focus of dispute was on the meaning and scope of “substantially elevations,” which appeared in all of the asserted claims.
The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up Google’s appeal leaves the former ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit intact, which implicated that Google did infringe Vederi’s patents. Therefore, the case will now return to lower courts for further proceedings.
The post is contributed by Kanmani NS.
