Jury awards $82.5M to IBM in patent dispute with Groupon

A U.S. jury awarded International Business Machines Corp. $82.5 million after finding that Groupon Inc. infringed four of its e-commerce patents.

Friday’s verdict is a boon to IBM’s intellectual-property licensing business, which last year brought in $1.19 billion for the company, holder of more than 45,000 patents. Groupon shares fell 7.8 percent to $4.84 in New York trading.

IBM sued Groupon for $167 million, accusing it of building its online coupon business on the back of the IBM e-commerce inventions without permission. Midway through their first full day of deliberations in Wilmington, Del., jurors sided with IBM, finding that Groupon infringed the patents intentionally.

The ruling means the judge can increase the damages award.

“IBM invests nearly $6 billion annually in research and development, producing innovations for society,” IBM spokesman Doug Shelton said after the verdict. “We rely on our patents to protect our innovations.”

IBM shares fell 1.1 percent to $145.15.

Groupon is weighing its options and considering post-trial motions and an appeal, said spokesman Bill Roberts.

“We continue to believe that we do not infringe on any valid IBM patents,” he said. “To the extent these patents have any value at all — which we believe they do not — the value is far less than what the jury awarded.”

Two of the patents came out of the Prodigy online service, which started in the late 1980s and predated the Web. Another is related to preserving information in a continuing conversation between clients and servers. The fourth is related to authentication and expires in 2025.

IBM argued during the twoweek trial that companies have paid from $20 million to $50 million for licenses to use its thousands of patents, including tech giants such as Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. Groupon didn’t seek IBM’s permission.

The trial marked the first time in at least 20 years that a patent lawsuit filed by IBM has made it to the start of a jury trial, Shelton said.

The case was closely watched in the online advertising and marketing sector.