MLSs face potential patent infringement liability 
MLSs, vendors must decide whether to pay up for licensing agreement
By Matt Carter, Thursday, May 12, 2011.
WASHINGTON -- The National Association of Realtors has taken a lead role in negotiating a proposed $7.5 million licensing agreement that's intended to provide blanket protection for multiple listing services and the industry as a whole from patent infringement claims by a company that has already sued Realtor.com operator Move Inc. and two major MLSs.
The company, CIVIX-DDI LLC, filed a lawsuit in December 2005 against NAR, Move Inc. and Hotels.com. The suit claimed Move and NAR had infringed on four patents by providing location-based search services on Realtor.com. Move settled the suit in December 2009 for an undisclosed sum.
More recently, CIVIX has filed lawsuits against two of the nation's largest MLSs -- Illinois-based Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED), and Maryland-based Metropolitan Regional Information Services Inc. (MRIS). MRIS and its lead MLS vendor, Tarasoft, chose to settle the lawsuit against them by entering into a licensing agreement with CIVIX.
In the last few weeks, many MLSs served by Rapattoni have received letters from CIVIX demanding they pay a licensing fee of $6 per member per year for four years.
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