Real estate patent lawsuit targets NAR, MLSs, brokers
By Glenn Roberts Jr.
A barrage of lawsuits over a real estate mapping patent dispute has
thickened, with the company that claims rights to the patent attempting to draw
a range of real estate industry trade groups and companies into the fray.
Real Estate Alliance Ltd., a Pennsylvania-based company that sells licenses
to an electronic mapping technology, in July 2005 filed a lawsuit charging
patent infringement by Pennsylvania Realtor Diane Sarkisian, among
others. 
And now, in a separate lawsuit pending in California, REAL is seeking to draw
in the National Association of Realtors, National Association of Home Builders,
several multiple listing services, several real estate brokerage companies, home
builders, rental property companies, and software and technology companies in
its counterclaim against Realtor.com operator Move Inc.
REAL issued a public announcement today about its latest court motion,
stating that the company seeks five nationwide class actions "in a full range of
claims designed to secure industry-wide compensation for intentional, massive
and ongoing patent infringement." The announcement charges that possibly
"hundreds of billions of dollars in real estate transactions have been and
continued to be facilitated by the unlawful infringement" of the patents.
Interactive mapping technology is now ubiquitous in the real estate industry,
with many major real estate sites integrating maps with their online home-search
tools. The patents in the case (patents 5,032,989
and 4,870,576) relate to methods for locating real estate property
for sale, lease or rental using a database of available properties, and
displaying the location of the properties and information about the
properties.
In its original complaint against Sarkisian, REAL had sought to
expand the complaint into a class-action lawsuit against active participants in
a regional multiple listing service and some Realtors who purchased enhanced
features for property listings displayed at the Realtor.com property-search
site, though the court in September denied REAL's motion to certify the proposed
class-action group that included Realtor.com's users. The court is now
considering whether to issue a summary judgment in that lawsuit.
A related countersuit alleges that the patent backers violated federal
racketeering laws by threatening agents with lawsuits if they did not purchase
licenses for the disputed mapping technology.
And a separate lawsuit, filed by Move Inc. in California in April, seeks a
court judgment on whether Move Inc. infringes on the patents that are the focus
of REAL's lawsuit.
According to a Sept. 30, 2007, quarterly earnings report, Move
seeks a judgment "that the REAL patents are invalid and/or unenforceable," and
charges that REAL and its licensing agent Equias Technology Development LLC
interfered with contractual relations and engaged in unfair competition under
California law.
REAL and Equias denied the allegations and filed counterclaims against Move
that assert infringement of the REAL patents and seek a range of damages against
Move, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission. Move "has denied REAL's allegations" and "intends to vigorously
prosecute the California action and defend against REAL's allegations."
The National Association of Realtors has supported Sarkisian's defense in the
initial lawsuit, and has already approved in excess of $1 million in legal
assistance for the case.
Asked to comment on the latest development in the lawsuit, NAR spokesperson
Lucien Salvant on Thursday said, "We haven't received any notification yet, so
we don't have any comment."
Mark Tornetta, the inventor of the patents in question, in 1998 filed lawsuits charging that Cyberhomes.com (then operated by Moore USA) and Microsoft Corp.'s HomeAdvisor sites infringed upon his mapping patents, and those lawsuits were later dropped.
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