Patent-Holding Company Files Lawsuit Against More Than 200 Trucking Fleets

This story appears in the April 11 print edition of Transport Topics.

A patent-holding company has filed suit against more than 200 motor carriers, alleging those fleets infringed upon a patent it holds by using certain tracking and communications systems in their trucks, according to court documents.

The company, PJC Logistics of Hewitt, Texas, filed suit in nine federal courts across the country. PJC filed the first of its lawsuits March 16 in the Northern District of Texas.

The motor carriers, PJC Logistics said in court filings, all use “electronic position-based fleet management tracking systems” that “infringe the patent in suit.” The company is seeking damages, with interest, for the alleged infringements.

Patrick Curry, the owner of PJC Logistics, could not be reached for additional comment by press time. Dietz & Jarrad, the law firm representing PJC, did not respond to a request for comment.

An attorney representing several of the trucking companies that were sued said that PJC Logistics’ legal strategy was similar to the tactics used by so-called “patent trolls” — shell companies that purchase patents and attempt to collect royalties or settlement money for alleged infringement.

“It’s pretty common that a plaintiff of this type . . . uses the litigation process and the disruption of a lawsuit like this to extract settlement payments from the defendants,” said Steven Auvil, partner and chairman of the Intellectual Property Practice Group at Benesch, a law firm in Cleveland.

The patent-holder’s gamble, in such cases, typically is “not so much based on the merits of the claims, [but] based on the business disruption that’s caused by the lawsuit,” Auvil said.

None of the trucking companies being sued had filed documents with the courts at press time and no hearings have been scheduled.

As a group, the defendants represent almost every niche of the U.S. trucking industry. Enormous publicly traded carriers with thousands of trucks and privately owned operators with tractor counts in the hundreds were named as defendants, court filings show. Even operating units of the two largest for-hire carriers in the country, UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp., were alleged to have infringed on PJC’s patent.

Truckload carrier U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Chattanooga, Tenn., said through a spokesman that it was aware of the suit, but “as this is pending litigation, we would respectfully decline to comment on the case at this time.”

Among the 200 carriers named in PJC’s lawsuits are users of telematics and tracking sys-

tems from all the major industry suppliers.

Qualcomm Inc., PeopleNet and Xata Corp. all told Transport Topics last week that they had trucking industry customers who were named in the lawsuits. Likewise, these companies said that they had retained outside counsel to investigate the issue on behalf of their customers in trucking.

Schneider National, one of the largest truck fleets in the country and also one of the biggest Qualcomm customers, said through a spokeswoman that the company had not yet decided whether it would retain the services of the firm Qualcomm hired.

Telematics suppliers notably were not named as defendants in PJC Logistics’ lawsuit. However, those companies are potential targets because they sell technology that PJC said infringes on its patent, said Auvil, the lawyer with Benesch.

“You can sue the customers as well as the vendors,” Auvil said, but there are “at most a handful” of vendors, compared with many more users.

Auvil also affirmed that carriers potentially can be sued for infringement simply for using patented technology without the patent holder’s approval. In addition, he said, an act of infringement could make a carrier liable for damages, even if the carrier had no idea it was infringing upon a patent.

A lawyer with American Trucking Associations lauded trucking-industry technology vendors for “stepping up” and helping their customers get legal help.

In cases involving the legal complexities of patent and intellectual property law, “it’s easier for the trucking industry to rely on suppliers,” said Robert Digges, ATA’s chief counsel.

The patent upon which defendants in the PJC lawsuits were alleged to have infringed was filed in 1992. John Mansell and William Riley are listed as the inventors of a “vehicle tracking and security system which allows immediate response in case of vehicle theft, an accident, vehicle breakdown, or other emergency,” according to records retrieved from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent originally was assigned to an entity called Auto-Trac Inc., which at the time the patent was filed was based in Dallas, records show. Auto-Trac could not be reached last week.

PJC Logistics said in court documents that it now is the “assignee and owner of the right, title, and interest in and to” the patent. PJC’s court filings did not say when the company acquired the patent at the center of the lawsuits.

PJC Logistics was formed in February, according to the law firm Benesch.