SmarterAgent sues Real Estate Webmasters, HomeAway
“SmarterAgent invented systems and methods generally related to location-aware search engines, providing content to those location-aware search engines, and making databases supporting location-aware search engines more efficient,” the complaint against HomeAway reads. “SmarterAgent has offered for sale software applications embodying or related to those inventions.”
I had written about the patents SmarterAgent had and how they might continue to enforce them. But here’s the super impressive part…
In 2013, SmarterAgent LLC split into two separate entities – SmarterAgent LLC and SmarterAgent Mobile. The former focused on patent licensing and the latter on mobile technology. In 2018, Keller Williams acquired a controlling stake in SmarterAgent Mobile, as the real estate franchise giant moved toward buildings its new end-to-end real estate platform and consumer-facing home search website and app.
So it looks like SmarterAgent only sold a “controlling interest” in the company that controlled the “mobile technology”, not the “patents”. Those Blumbergs are pretty freaking “smart”!
