David Eraker, the cofounder of Redfin (a Seattle-based
real-estate company founded in 2004), has quite recently filed a Patent
Infringement lawsuit against Redfin to stop it from making
use of the image-based rendering patents owned by Surefield (a real estate
company founded by David Eraker in 2012). The lawsuit is filed at United States
District Court for the Western District of Texas in Waco.
Eraker had stopped working at Redfin in 2006.
In his lawsuit filed, Eraker has claimed that Redfin
has copied several aspects of Surefield’s online home tour, which was launched
in 2014. Through the 3D home-tour technology launched by Surefield in 2014, the
sellers are no longer required to pay a 3% buyer’s agent commission for getting
the buyers into their home.
Surefield created its proprietary, virtual 3D
home-tour system by using the computer-vision technology, thereby giving buyers
a realistic and remote tour of a home.
It was only four months after Surefield had launched
its 3D home tours in 2014 that Redfin came up with its new product, known as
the 3D Walkthrough. According to Surefield, Redfin’s new product has made use
of its image rendering technology, that too, with a similar interface.
Eraker is Redfin’s third cofounder to file a lawsuit
against the real estate company itself.
In a recent statement, Eraker has said that
Surefield’s image-based rendering approach is the first solution in the market
to a critical problem lasting in the residential real estate, which is to get
people into houses, and Redfin copied it quickly, without causing any delay.
The major issue and concern that Eraker has seen in
the patent infringement committed by Redfin in its 3D home tours is the
technology that it leverages in 3D reconstruction and image-based rendering to
create models of a home for real estate sales automatically, which are both
spatially navigable and photorealistic.
Surefield has been awarded claims by the US
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its
image-based rendering system, which focuses on the use of composite images such
as 3D reconstruction approaches to determine the geometry of a home, rendered
panoramas, and spatial data labels, to name a few.
In its lawsuit filed, Surefield has claimed that
Redfin has repeatedly declined to stop using its patents and has also refused
to license them. The company is now looking forward to seeking damages and an
injunction.
Surefield has also filed another claim for
misappropriation of Intellectual Property (IP) against
Redfin and Madrona Venture Group in King County Superior Court in Seattle. As
per the claim, both the companies have misappropriated the IP corresponding to
the map-based search and other inventions of Surefield. For view source: https://www.kashishipr.com/blog/redfins-cofounder-sues-redfin-alleging-patent-infringement/
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