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A California federal court has considered whether the websites operated by Move, Inc. (“Website Operator”), including REALTOR.com, infringed upon patents owned by the Real Estate Alliance, Ltd. (“REAL”).
In 2007, the Website Operator brought a lawsuit against REAL seeking a declaratory judgment that the Website Operator did not infringe REAL’s patents. REAL’s patents allegedly involve a process for locating properties on a map via a computer. REAL filed a countersuit, naming a wide variety of defendants covering the real estate industry. The trial court denied REAL’s attempt to have the case certified as a class action, and also entered judgment that the Website Operator did not infringe either of REAL’s patents. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the trial court’s claim construction for one of the patents and sent the case back to the trial court. Both parties filed motions seeking judgment in their favor.
The United States District Court for the Central District of California entered judgment in favor of the Website Operator. Using the new claim construction ordered by the Federal Circuit, the court examined whether the Website Operator had infringed REAL’s patent.
The Website Operator argued that it did not infringe the patent at issue because it did not engage in two of the described steps contained in the patent. Steps (c) and (f) involve “selecting a first area having boundaries” and “selecting a second area having boundaries”. The appellate court’s claim construction of these steps in the patent required the user to choose a geographic area with boundaries, not define the area’s boundaries for the website search.
The court ruled that the Website Operator’s website search operations do not select a geographic area having boundaries and so therefore did not infringe REAL's patent. The Website Operator allows users to search its sites either by map or by zip code. To search, users either click on an area of map or select from an area named in a drop down menu. Users can then either narrow or expand the geographic area by clicking further on the map. Users can also enter zip codes to search the area covered by a particular zip code. Because users were the ones selecting the geographic area and the websites were simply gathering the information requested by the users, the sites of the Website operator were not selecting the geographic search area and so did not infringe the patent.
REAL argued that the Website operator selected the geographic boundaries for the users’ search and therefore this process is covered by the patent. The court rejected this, as there are specific geographic boundaries for zip codes or towns/cities, and so these boundaries were not selected by the Website Operator. Similarly, when the user zooms in or out during a search, the user is the one who is enlarging or shrinking the search boundaries. Thus, the user was the one selecting the geographic search boundaries for his/her search and not the Website Operator. Therefore, the court entered judgment in favor of the Website Operator that it did not infringe REAL’s patent.
Move, Inc. v. Real Estate Alliance Ltd., No. CV 07-2185-GHK (AJWx) (C.D. Ca. Jan. 26, 2012) 2013 WL 781645 C.A.Fed. (Cal.),2013.