Hailo Technologies LLC, a company whose name resembles that of app-enabled cab service Hailo, today filed a lawsuit against larger competitor Uber alleging that Uber infringed on its 1999 patent of an “automated vehicle dispatch and payment honoring system.”
Southern California law firm Cotman IP submitted the suit in U.S. District Court for California’s Central District on behalf of Hailo, which left the American market in 2014 and more recently merged with Daimler’s MyTaxi.
The case concerns a patent filed more than a decade before Hailo was founded. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the patent to Alexis Paredes of Orlando, Florida. The patent covers several steps — including asking for the number of passengers, showing destinations, displaying a fare, requesting a ride, and estimating arrival time — at least one of which Hailo says Uber infringes on.
It’s not clear how or when Hailo acquired the patent. But now, effectively, Daimler appears to be mounting a legal challenge against Uber despite a partnership between the two companies that Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick himself announced in January.
Uber is also facing a patent infringement claim from Alphabet’s Waymo in the area of self-driving cars. And the company is in the middle of an investigation on sexual harassment inside the company.
Uber has not yet responded to the case. Uber did not immediately respond to VentureBeat’s request for comment.
Here’s the original complaint:
Update on April 22: In a tweet, a representative for Daimler’s MyTaxi wrote that this article is incorrect and that “it must be a different Hailo company that filed the lawsuit.” The lawyers who filed the case have not yet responded to a request for comment.