A 12-member Texarkana jury returned a defense verdict in favor of DoorDash Thursday after a four-day trial before U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder, finding Fall Line Patents failed to prove the delivery company infringed its patent.
“We were very pleased that they seemed to have understood our position very well and went with us because of it very quickly,” DoorDash’s counsel Ahtoosa Dale told The Texas Lawbook.
The Dallas King & Spalding partner noted that it was Judge Schroeder’s first time having a 12-person jury.
Fall Line filed suit in November 2024, alleging DoorDash infringed its patent, titled “System and Method for Data Management” that covers the automatic collection of location information for questionnaires.
Fall Line claimed that DoorDash’s mobile app used a location-specific questionnaire to gather user responses in a manner that infringed on its patent.
Dale said they had three primary noninfringement positions and that their strongest argument was that the app does not display a pop-up asking users, “Where are you?”
“The phone always, unprompted, sends the location without being asked a question, and the reason being is there’s privacy concerns of a server asking a person where they are,” Dale explained.
The second issue that Fall Line raised was the requirement that a device has to send a questionnaire and then a different device receives the responses.
And lastly, the company raised an issue that a GPS receiver was used.
Dale said plaintiff was not able to prove those issues.
Fall Line asked the jury to award $37.8 million, but after an hour of deliberation, the jurors concluded the company hadn’t presented sufficient evidence to prove infringement.
Elizabeth DeRieux of Capshaw DeRieux and Larry Thompson, Rehan Safiullah, Zachariah Harrington and Matthew Antonelli of Antonelli, Harrington & Thompson represented Fall Line. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Along with Dale, Jack Myers, Kyle Dockendorf and Michael Rueckheim of King & Spalding and Tom Gorham of Gillam & Smith represented DoorDash.
The case number is 5:24-cv-00179.