Gish PLLC Invalidates Seven Patents for HopDrive
03/29/2024Gish PLLC has secured the complete dismissal of a patent infringement lawsuit on behalf of the innovative commercial rideshare company, HopDrive, invalidating all seven asserted patents as directed to patent-ineligible abstract subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
In April 2020, market incumbent Draiver sued HopDrive for patent infringement in the Eastern District of Virginia. The seven asserted patents fell into two patent families, which the Court referred to as the "the trip scheduling patents" (U.S. Patent Nos. 10,304,027, 11,100,451, 11,562,316, and 11,694,151) and "the driver allocation patents" (U.S. Patent Nos. 10,518,720, 10,787,133, 10,800,354). On behalf of HopDrive, Gish PLLC argued that the patents should be invalidated under § 101 because they claimed the abstract ideas of scheduling a trip and allocating drivers for a trip, rather than technology to implement those ideas. The Court agreed. In a lengthy and detailed opinion, Judge Hannah Lauck found that the patents "recite only nonspecific steps to perform the abstract ideas of scheduling a trip with a task or allocating a driver, but on a computer." The Court also "expresse[d] its concern" about the breadth of the patent claims, stating that "[t]he challenged patent claims do not recite any specific limitations that would cabin their reach, and as a result all other app-based trip scheduling or driver allocation software solutions risk preemption."
The case caption is DriverDo, LLC d/b/a Draiver v. Social Auto Transport, Inc., d/b/a HopDrive (E.D. Virginia Case No. 3:23-cv-00265-MHL).
Gish PLLC partners Andrew Gish, Ryan Iwahashi, and Marti Johnson represented HopDrive.