Without any doubt the most important news is the demand of Progressive against Liberty for violating its patent 6.06.497 rights with its subsidiary SAFECO project. It was something that was foreseeable, given the expectations that the MyRate project was arising and the manifest unease expressed by Progressive to see that everyone wanted to get on the train that they had started.
It seems difficult that Progressive will license their patents to their closest competitors and it is not easy for these competitors to design products that can sidestep the patents that Progressive has gained in all these years of hard work. So hopefully that will paralyze all UBI projects being developed in the USA.
The short term effects may include:
– A reduction of growth expectations of the UBI applications.
– An increase in billing by mileage insurance, as a reaction to the penetration of Progressive.
– An increase in the UBI activities of American companies in other geographical areas.
– The acceptance of the culture of patents in the insurance sector, which traditionally had been very reluctant to its adoption.
In the conference held in mid-September in Chicago we will see what will be the real impact of the demand for Progressive. It would be interesting to have the presence of Mr. Nowotarsky, an expert on the subject of patents in the insurance sector.
In Europe the situation regarding patents is much more complex, the significant from the point of view of UBI are the ES 2108613, the EP 0700009 and the EP 1481344 and each of them are valid for a certain group of countries, their owners have different interests and constraints, each country maintains its own legal system, there are wide differences in the interpretation of patent law and in the predictability of court judgments among different countries. Despite of all it is not recommended at all to ignore this issue or think that is something that is only responsibility of the suppliers.
We can not forget the Frosh and Sullivan and Ptolomus publications on market prospects in Europe or the publication of EMB on Usage Based Insurance Project.
As always, I have upgraded my “Pay As You Drive Directory” and my News Bulletin.
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