Back last May, we reported that Searchmetrics US had to flle bankruptcy over receptive lawsuits by Brightedge over patent infringement allegations. It really angered the SEO community at large because Searchmetrics and the CEO, Marcus Tober is beloved by the community. Plus most people in our industry dislike lawsuits around patent infringement in general.
Well, yesterday Searchmetrics won the case according to Law 360:
A California federal judge Friday tossed litigation accusing Berlin-based Searchmetrics GmbH and a California subsidiary of infringing a rival search engine optimization firm’s patents, agreeing the asserted inventions related to statistical market analysis and market share growth and were not patentable under the U.S. Supreme Court's Alice ruling.U.S. District Court Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. granted Searchmetrics' motion for judgment on the pleadings in a suit brought by BrightEdge Technologies Inc., finding the defendants had met their burden of proving invalidity.
Search Engine Land has a quote from the CEO of Searchmetrics:
In our competitive industry the ruling means that we can all focus even more on what matters most: applying innovation that helps our customers to succeed online.
Searchmetrics is estimated to have spent over $10 million on this specific legal issue, all of which could have been spent making better SEO and SEM tools for the industry.
Here is some of the industry reaction:
This is great news. https://t.co/55eEX8oJd3
— John Doherty 🤓 (@dohertyjf) January 23, 2018
Nice, that seemed crazy, glad it had a good ending
— Stephen (@firstconversion) January 23, 2018
So on top of the bad buzz they took when starting the lawsuit they lost!
— Julien Berard (@seomuscle) January 23, 2018
Good. I'm glad Brightedge lost this ridiculous lawsuit. And I hope they stop trying to generate revenue through bullshit tactics like that. https://t.co/MgDsRdMEA8
— Alan Bleiweiss (@AlanBleiweiss) January 23, 2018
I gave them so much feedback in 2012-13 - if i had a team of developers i would have a better product and would be eating their lunch. There were so many things they could have done to make it better for all types of businesses (including small biz)
— JadedTLC (@JadedTLC) January 24, 2018
Searchmetrics wins important victory in patent infringement lawsuit by @MichelleRobbins https://t.co/8GnsONjC5X
— Search Engine Land (@sengineland) January 23, 2018
Brightedge's patent lawsuit against SearchMetrics was tossed out of court yesterday. Good news for everyone in web marketing, SEO software, and the software world more broadly (via https://t.co/KS7PxMfXCu registration req'd) pic.twitter.com/TK0oLTanI5
— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) January 23, 2018
Great news for the whole SEO industry @brightedge wont sue any more SEO companies over patents that aren't theirs. Congrats @Searchmetrics !!https://t.co/OI2yHXXyog
— Bartosz Góralewicz (@bart_goralewicz) January 24, 2018
Great news for anyone building tools in the SEO space. Congrats @marcustober - Hope you get those legal fees back. https://t.co/x3oEkETvlN
— Glen Allsopp (@ViperChill) January 24, 2018
Huge congratulations to the @Searchmetrics team for fighting against vile anti competitive patent trolling in the USA, and winning.
— Richard Baxter (@richardbaxter) January 24, 2018
Ya for Marcus and @Searchmetrics !! https://t.co/rwZcTrWwqV
— Cindy Krum (@Suzzicks) January 23, 2018
Congratulations @Searchmetrics for finally getting this frivolous #SEO lawsuit with @brightedge tossed out! https://t.co/876H7jy7sy
— Kirby Burke (@KirbyBurkeJr) January 23, 2018
Forum discussion at Twitter.
