How a decade-old patent dispute could upend Uber's business
A little-known patent infringement lawsuit could have big implications
for Uber -- and potentially dozens of other companies.
Carma Technology, a company formed in 2007 by serial entrepreneur and
SOSV founder Sean O'Sullivan, filed a lawsuit earlier this year
against Uber alleging the company infringed on five of its patents
that are related to the system of matching riders (or packages) with
capacity in vehicles. In other words, ridesharing -- a business Carma
operated in some form for a decade until it changed its business model
and applied its tech to road-pricing services like GPS tolling and HOV verification.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/30/how-a-decade-old-patent-dispute-could-upend-ubers-business/
system of matching riders (or packages) with capacity in vehicles.
Airlines were doing this before 1950s....not really a "new idea" in my
mind.
Early airline reservation systems
1940s: Manual Reservation Systems. Initially, airlines used manual
methods to track reservations, involving large books and physical
ledgers.
1946: Electromechanical Reservisor. American Airlines installed the
first automated booking system called the Electromechanical
Reservisor. This was followed by the Magnetronic Reservisor, which
included temporary storage based on a magnetic drum. Although
innovative, the system required human operators for lookups, making
the process lengthy.
1953: American Airlines and IBM Collaboration. American Airlines' CEO,
C.R. Smith, met an IBM sales representative to seek improvements in
the Reservisor system. This collaboration led to the idea of a fully
automated airline reservation system.
https://www.cbtravel.com/post/airline-reservation-systems-history-101
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