Uber Bid for Surge-Pricing Patent Review Falls Short at Tribunal

Uber Technologies Inc. failed to convince a US Patent and Trademark Office administrative tribunal to review a patent that its surge pricing feature is accused of infringing.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied the request for inter partes review of SurgeTech LLC’s US Patent No. 11,360,999, characterizing Uber’s analysis as “deficient” and lacking particularity.

The ride-hailing company’s challenges to the patent were “indiscernible” because it advanced over 19,000 alternative challenges and didn’t describe the relevancy of certain figures and annotations, the tribunal’s Oct. 6 decision said.

SurgeTech sued Uber in June 2022 claiming infringement of the ‘999 patent …