DraftKings challenges Interactive Games wagering patent
DraftKings has asked the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board to cancel all 18 claims of a mobile wagering patent held by Interactive Games LLC, arguing the technology behind the patent was already well known before it was filed.
The petition, filed through subsidiary DK Crown Holdings Inc. on September 17, targets Interactive Games’ U.S. Patent No. 12,406,284, titled “Mobile device proximity tracking for selective content delivery and formatting.” The patent covers a mobile wagering system that uses a device’s location to determine whether a customer is in a jurisdiction where betting is permitted, and controls how wagering and promotional content is displayed on that device.
DraftKings has petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to invalidate an Interactive Games mobile wagering patent central to ongoing federal litigation between the two companies.
DraftKings’ central argument is that the patent’s 18 claims combine mobile wagering, geolocation and display technologies that were already known well before the patent’s claimed priority date of February 13, 2009. The petition states that a skilled developer at the time could have combined those existing technologies in an obvious way, citing earlier patents and technical references covering battery management, ambient light and noise detection, digital signatures and device-to-device communications.
“During prosecution, the Examiner did not apply the material prior art or straightforward combinations presented here, which render every challenged claim obvious,” DraftKings said in its petition. The filing also points to Nevada mobile gaming rules dating back to 2006 that required systems to restrict mobile wagering to approved areas and detect when a device entered a non-gaming zone.
Patent tied to federal lawsuit
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenge is directly linked to ongoing litigation between the two companies. Interactive Games, a successor to Cantor Gaming and an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald, filed a patent infringement suit against DraftKings in the US District Court for Massachusetts on 2 April, asserting the same ‘284 patent as one of five patents at the centre of the case. Two of the five patents were invented by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during his time as Cantor Gaming CEO.
If the PTAB agrees to review the patent and ultimately cancels the claims, that could materially weaken Interactive Games’ infringement case, according to DraftKings’ filing. At this stage, the board must first decide whether to institute an inter partes review before the merits of the challenge are determined.
FanDuel faces a parallel fight
Interactive Games filed a separate infringement case against FanDuel in New Jersey on April 1, one day before its case against DraftKings in Massachusetts. The two operators, despite being commercial rivals, have previously joined forces in at least one PTAB challenge against a separate Interactive Games patent.
Precedent from an earlier dispute could favor DraftKings. FanDuel previously challenged another Interactive Games mobile gambling patent at the PTAB, which ruled that all but one of the challenged claims were unpatentable, a decision the Federal Circuit upheld in 2020.
Patent disputes remain a recurring feature of the U.S. gambling technology sector, with operators and suppliers including Penn Entertainment, Light & Wonder and PrizePicks regularly drawn into similar litigation.
