Zillow Defends its Brands from Infringement Lawsuit

The iBuying and real estate listing giant, Zillow, has had its fair share of court filings both for and against it. In the company's latest news outside of information and updates pertaining to the Coronavirus, Zillow and its subsidiary, Trulia, were sued by Corus Realty Holdings over a patent from almost 20 years ago. 

Corus stated that both Zillow and Trulia mobile listing search apps violated its 2001 patent, 'Real-estate information search and retrieval system.'

The patent includes such features as:

• A data hub which displays selectable properties in a specific market on a digital map. The information per property comes from an MLS or other database associated with the map. 
• Links to property information, including visual media via the map.
• GPS capabilities.

Zillow Group's response was to file a counter-suit, saying that it did not violate the patent, which it claimed was invalid. The group filed a motion for summary judgement, as well, which would claim that both the Zillow and Trulia apps were not infringing on the patent because they use remote online databases to search for property data, not a single stored local device like the patent states. 

In the end, the court ruled in favorite of Zillow and Trulia and the group has no further plans to pursue counterclaims.

Within the last year, Zillow has seen a number of court filings. In March of last year, the group won a copyright battle against VHT over property photographs and how they are used on the internet. In April of last year, Zillow sued rival Compass over intellectual property fraud.