Group buying site Groupon
is suing one of the many small startups trying to emulate its successful social shopping model over a patent that was originally filed over a decade ago. The target of the lawsuit is MobGob, which enables people to use their existing social networks to gather their purchasing powers and collectively buy goods or services from sellers online. The complaint is embedded below.
Groupon alleges that MobGob infringes one of its patents by operating a system for aggregating demand for the purchase of a product by a number of individual buyers.
MobGob, as many group buying sites these days, allows sellers to provide a conditional sales offer for a product or service and set a price depending on the aggregate amount of acceptances of the conditional sales offer made in a specified and limited time.
Full story: Groupon sues fellow group buying site MobGob over 9-year-old patent