In the last few weeks, a company called Purple Leaf LLC filed a patent lawsuit in an east Texas court against Google. The suit claims that the search engine giant has infringed on technology related to online payments and receipts by systems like Google’s Checkout service. Specifically, the company refers to Google Checkout in its suit as infringing on its ‘311 patent, but asserts that the infringement is not limited to Checkout. The case is being handled in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, under the case name of Purple Leaf LLC v Google, Inc.
The Google Checkout service is used across Google’s vast collection of services, including services on Android phones and tablets. Purple Leaf is seeking to recoup losses due to the cost of the court case and due to estimated damages from the infringement itself on profits. It’s interesting to note that Purple Leaf is also targeting other large companies on the same grounds, including American Express, PNC Bank, SAP, CitiGroup and others.
Most recently, Purple Leaf added to this long list by filing a patent infringement lawsuit against eBay and Paypal in the same District court. Purple Leaf is a Texas-based company that is headquartered in Plano, and records show that the ‘311 patent is the only one assigned to that company. This patent covers methods and systems used for electronic transactions. It features 39 claims, 4 of which are independent.
The first of the independent claims involves electronic receipts featuring payment information and the actual data structure of the payment receipt form, including the data fields in which a payer can enter data that is kept hidden from the payee. The description sounds rather vague, but Purple Leaf seems to think it is enough to win a case against some of the biggest companies in the world.