Patents cover popular online mapping of homes for sale, damages could be billions - an update

Another update from REAL has been released today on the continuing legal batter over the infringement of a mapping patent involving the real estate industry. From the annoucement... "In a dramatic expansion of a legal battle pitting the rights of pioneering inventors and consumers against the real estate industry’s notorious and unauthorized use of patented methods used by millions of consumers to locate real estate on line, the nation’s largest real estate firms, home builders, and industry umbrella groups are being subject to suit for patent infringement in a case pending in Los Angeles federal court." The inventor's patents patents, “Real Estate Search and Location System and Method,” were applied for in 1986, and granted by the U.S. Government in 1989 and 1991, when both the Internet and personal computing were in their infancy. See more here