Startup Risks Clash With Apple, Google Over Virus-App Royalties
- Asks companies to get licenses, submit to privacy review
- May face uphill battle against tech titans like Apple, Google
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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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.