Sunday, October 27, 2013

Microsoft, Kewazinga Settle Suit over Web Mapping Service

Case Filed: Jun 27, 2013

Case Closed: Oct 21, 2013

Court: Delaware District Court

Judge: Gregory M. Sleet

Case Summary:
Kewazinga and K Licensing (KL) claimed Microsoft's Streetside and Bing Maps violate two of its patents.  The patents in suit were: US6535226 and US6522325 both entitled ‘Navigable telepresence method and system utilizing an array of cameras’ issued on Mar 18, 2003 and Feb 18, 2003 (respectively). The patents expire[i] by Apr 01, 2019. Horrow Sports Ventures is the current assignee[ii] of the patents (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database). As per the complaint, Kewazinga is the owner and KL is the exclusive licensee of the patents.

It is said in the Court document that Kewazinga exposed its proprietary and confidential information, including business and technological ideas, plans and strategies with high-level executives at Microsoft. Without the permission of Kewazinga, Microsoft has implemented or plans to implement certain of their proprietary and confidential ideas disclosed to Microsoft including adding navigable street-level imagery to Bing Maps. 

It alleged that Microsoft infringed the claims of the  '226 and ‘325 patents by making, having made, using, providing, selling and/or offering for sale systems and methods protected including Streetside and Bing Maps with Streetside that provide street level imagery and controls for navigating among images. Kewazinga asked the Court for judgment that the patents have been infringed, a permanent injunction preventing infringement, damages, interest on damages and legal fees.

It appears that the parties have settled the case and Kewazinga filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, pursuant to which the Court granted dismissal without prejudice, thereby closing the case.

See 1:13-cv-01147 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents. 
[ii] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.

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