Covid-19: US startup risks clash with Apple, Google over virus-app royalties

Tech giants like Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc, the parent of Google, which both offer contact tracing tools via mobile phone apps, aggressively seek to get patents cancelled through the USPTO and are even more relentless in court. The type of patent Pittman has could be vulnerable under a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that limited the types of software that can be patented. — AFP

A Utah-based startup says it has exclusive business rights to the use of smartphones and other electronic devices for tracing people who have come into contact with a person with Covid-19, setting up a potential patent-infringement battle with some of the biggest technology companies.

Blyncsy, Inc, which describes itself as a “movement and data intelligence” company headquartered in Salt Lake City, holds the business method patent for “tracking proximity relationships and uses thereof” by identifying the movements of people with a contagious disease, chief executive officer Mark Pittman said.