Google, Microsoft, Yahoo others sued over mapping software

A case started in Texas against a number of defendants alleging that they had infringed a patent owned by a company called Webmap Technologies LLC.

The case started in the US district court for the Eastern Distric of Texas, Marshall Division. That’s a fast tracking patent court.

The defendants include Expedia, Google, Microsoft, the Washington Post, Ticketmaster, Travelocity, Tripadvisor, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, Yelp and Zagat Survey.

The patent, 6,772,142 and called Method and Apparatus for Collecting and Expressing Geographically Referenced Data, was filed on 31 October 2000 and granted on 3 August 2004.

All the defendants are accused of creating applications using interactive mapping  that Webmap Technologies.

Webmap wants the usual – a jury trial and damages from the defendants.