Sparks Networks, owner of JDate.com, isn’t just suing JSwipe over a trademark or the letter “J.” There is a controversial and familiar patent issue in the midst as well. Back in 2011, Sparks sued Zoosk, OkCupid, and 2RedBeans (a dating website for Chinese-Americans) for infringement of the same patent at issue here. None of the 2011 cases went to final judgment, which presumably means that they all settled, bolstering the views of those who see Sparks as a “patent bully.”
The “‘200 Patent,” which is short for “Method and Apparatus for Detection of Reciprocal Interest or Feelings and Subsequent Notification,” is a computer program aimed at “confidentiality while maintaining complete anonymity” in the online dating world. It matches people based on their shared interests, and notifies them of the match “if and only if” both individuals expressed a reciprocal interest in one another.
Several people have expressed negative feelings about the patent. Some claim that the patent is overly broad and in a certain way grants Sparks a monopoly over online dating, while others say that the idea behind the method is simply not that innovative, and does not deserve patent protection. Just a few weeks ago, thejewishweek.com interviewed an intellectual property professor who said that JSwipe has “the odds in its favor” because courts have recently been “rejecting (as ‘abstract’) claims to methods of doing with computers what was once done by hand.”
By Brian Unger
Abe Cohn
Abe is managing partner of Cohn Legal, PLLC, Head of the firm’s Intellectual Property and Transactional Group, and works in the New York office in Midtown Manhattan. Abe is committed to his client's success.