FourKites Wins Dismissal of MacroPoint Patent Suit
A U.S. District Court judge dismissed a suit by freight tracking technology provider MacroPoint that competitor FourKites had infringed on a MacroPoint patent.
MacroPoint in May filed the patent case against Chicago-based FourKites, which involves technology that allows brokers or other third parties to track load status through a driver’s mobile phone, electronic logging device or GPS. MacroPoint, which is based in Cleveland, told Transport Topics that the ruling will be appealed.
Judge Paricia Gaughan ruled that “the patents-in-suit are directed to the abstract idea of tracking freight. The steps in the claimed invention do involve well-understood, routine, conventional activity. Upholding the patents would risk disproportionately tying up the use of the underlying conventional steps.”
The court cited a 2014 Supreme Court decision Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank International in its ruling.
“Due to the highly variable layers of patent laws and decisions right now, this is par for the course in patent cases,” MacroPoint President Bennett Adelson said.
The Alice Corp. ruling “has created confusion in the business community and is now running the risk of not providing clarity of intellectual property rights for innovative companies like MacroPoint,” Adelson said.
FourKites CEO Matthew Elenjickal said the ruling “is a significant victory not only for FourKites, but also for the entire transportation industry. Real-time freight tracking is the core of transportation. We believe that the industry is best served when we compete based on the merits of our products in an open marketplace.”
