Groupon must pay IBM compensation of 57 million U.S. dollars for patent infringement

Groupon must pay IBM a total of 57 million dollars to resolve the patent dispute. Originally, IBM wanted compensation of $167 million, but now the two tech giants have solved the problems between themselves. All patent cases are stopped and the companies start working together.

As part of the collaboration, an agreement will be reached whereby Groupon and IBM will exchange patents. Combined with the payment of 57 million dollars, the business can be stopped. The original case was brought in 2016. At the time, IBM claimed that Groupon was deliberately infringing certain of IBM’s patents and that it refused to discuss them. IBM requested last July for that reason, compensation of 167 million U.S. dollars.

Similar deals

After a two-week case, IBM won the dispute and was awarded $83 million in damages. That’s roughly half of what IBM originally wanted paid for. However, Groupon has been able to reduce that amount even further by concluding this patent agreement with IBM.

At the same time, the 57 million dollars that Groupon has to pay is still the top prize. Amazon, Facebook and Google have similar agreements with IBM and pay amounts between twenty and fifty million dollars. The patents they use affect the way advertisements are loaded on the internet, among other things.

Billions in R&D

IBM invests more than five billion dollars a year in research and development, according to William Lafontaine, IBM’s general intellectual property manager. This agreement demonstrates the value of our intellectual property resulting from this innovation even further. We are pleased that this dispute has been resolved.

As part of the new agreement, IBM will also consider making certain Groupon products available to its staff. These products would then form part of the package of benefits that IBM employees already receive anyway.