DCT

1:24-cv-03660

Bootler LLC v. Google LLC

Log In

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

  • Parties & Counsel:
  • Case Identification: 1:24-cv-03660, N.D. Ill., 09/25/2025
  • Venue Allegations: Venue is alleged to be proper in the Northern District of Illinois because Google maintains regular and established places of business within the district.
  • Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant has unlawfully created and maintained a monopoly in the "Comparative Restaurant Delivery Search" market by leveraging its dominance in general search and engaging in predatory pricing, in violation of federal and state antitrust laws.
  • Technical Context: The technology at issue involves online search platforms that aggregate data from multiple third-party restaurant delivery services, allowing consumers to compare pricing, fees, and delivery times in a single, unified interface.
  • Key Procedural History: The filing is an Amended Complaint. While this complaint does not allege patent infringement, the Plaintiff is the assignee of patents related to the core technology. The complaint also notes a prior lawsuit filed against Google in Florida regarding its practice of allegedly raising costs for restaurants and consumers (Left Field Holdings I, LLC v. Google LLC).

Case Timeline

Date Event
2015-05 Google launched its "Place Actions" program
2016-11-01 Priority Date for '683 and '090 Patents
2017 Plaintiff FoodBoss began operating
2019-05 Google partnered with DoorDash and Postmates
2019-10-15 U.S. Patent No. 10,445,683 issued
2021-06-15 U.S. Patent No. 11,037,090 issued
2025-09-25 Amended Complaint filed

II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis

U.S. Patent No. 10,445,683 - "Methods, Systems and Program Products for Aggregating and Presenting Service Data from Multiple Sources Over a Network"

The Invention Explained

  • Problem Addressed: The patent's background describes the difficulty consumers face when trying to compare food delivery options. Different delivery services offer different restaurants and varying prices for the same items, and their data is stored in different, incompatible formats, preventing a convenient, direct comparison. (’683 Patent, col. 3:26-44).
  • The Patented Solution: The invention provides a system to solve this data interoperability problem. It works by first acquiring "source data in a plurality of formats" from various delivery service computers, mapping this disparate data into a standardized format, and then linking data from different services to the correct, common restaurant. (’683 Patent, Abstract). The system then identifies identical menu items across these services, combines them into a single "master menu item," and imports this aggregated data into a searchable database, enabling a unified comparison for the end-user. (’683 Patent, col. 1:49-col. 2:2).
  • Technical Importance: This technical approach creates a meta-search engine for the specific vertical of food delivery, enabling comparison shopping in a market segment where data fragmentation would otherwise make it impractical.

Key Claims at a Glance

  • The complaint does not assert any patent claims. For analytical purposes, independent claim 1 is examined.
  • Key elements of independent claim 1 include:
    • Acquiring source data from multiple delivery service computers in a plurality of formats.
    • Mapping the acquired data to a predetermined format.
    • Linking the formatted data to common restaurants using restaurant identifier data.
    • Identifying common menu items across the different services.
    • Associating the various source menu items for an identical food item with a single "master menu item."
    • Combining the linked restaurant data and master menu items into a master data set.
    • Importing and storing this master data set in a searchable database.

U.S. Patent No. 11,037,090 - "Methods, Systems and Program Products for Aggregating and Presenting Service Data from Multiple Sources Over a Network"

The Invention Explained

  • Problem Addressed: As a continuation of the application leading to the ’683 Patent, the ’090 Patent addresses the same technical problem of data incompatibility and fragmentation among different online food delivery services. (’090 Patent, col. 3:30-49).
  • The Patented Solution: The ’090 Patent discloses the same general solution of acquiring, mapping, linking, and combining data from disparate sources to create a unified, searchable data structure for comparison. (’090 Patent, Abstract). The claims focus on similar steps of data aggregation and standardization.
  • Technical Importance: This patent builds on the technical approach of the ’683 Patent to enable comparison shopping for food delivery.

Key Claims at a Glance

  • The complaint does not assert any patent claims. For analytical purposes, independent claim 1 is examined.
  • Key elements of independent claim 1 include:
    • Acquiring service data from multiple delivery service computers.
    • Mapping the data to a predetermined format.
    • Linking the formatted data to "common sources of the source menu items," with each source being represented by "source identification data uniquely identifying a respective one of the sources."
    • Identifying common menu items.
    • Associating the common menu items with a master menu item.
    • Combining the data into a master data set.
    • Importing the master data set and the source identification data into a searchable aggregated data structure.

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

  • The complaint identifies Defendant's "Comparative Restaurant Delivery Search" platform, also referred to as "Google Food," as the instrumentality underlying the alleged anticompetitive conduct (Compl. ¶1, ¶23).

Functionality and Market Context

  • The service is integrated into Google's primary search engine at Google.com (Compl. ¶23). When a user performs a search for restaurants or food delivery, Google presents its own integrated "Places" module, which includes a map and restaurant listings, "above-the-fold" on the search engine results page (Compl. ¶26). This functionality is depicted in a screenshot of a Google search results page (Compl. ¶26 at p. 8).
  • Upon selecting a specific restaurant from these results, a sidebar appears providing details about the restaurant and an "Order online" option (Compl. ¶27). The complaint provides a screenshot showing this sidebar view for a Korean BBQ restaurant (Compl. ¶27 at p. 9).
  • Choosing the "Order online" option presents the user with a list of available third-party delivery services for that restaurant, such as DoorDash, Seamless, and Grubhub, along with their respective estimated fees and delivery times (Compl. ¶28). A screenshot illustrates this interface, showing multiple delivery providers for a single restaurant (Compl. ¶28 at p. 10).
  • After the user selects a delivery provider, Google directs the user to the website of that provider to complete the transaction (Compl. ¶29).
  • The complaint alleges that Google Food and FoodBoss are the only services in the U.S. that allow consumers to directly compare prices for various third-party delivery services within a single search result (Compl. ¶31). It further alleges that Google offers inclusion on its platform for free to restaurants and delivery services to build a dominant market position (Compl. ¶59, ¶64).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The provided Amended Complaint alleges monopolization and restraint of trade under the Sherman and Clayton Acts. It does not contain any counts or allegations of patent infringement. Accordingly, there are no specific infringement allegations from the complaint available for analysis.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

As the complaint does not allege patent infringement, there is no active dispute from which to identify key claim terms for construction.

VI. Other Allegations

The complaint does not allege patent infringement, and therefore makes no allegations of indirect or willful infringement.

VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case

While the current litigation is focused on antitrust claims, the technology described in the complaint and the patents held by the Plaintiff raises potential patent-related questions that could become relevant in a future dispute. The central open questions would likely be:

  • A core issue would be one of technological implementation: does Google's platform—which the complaint alleges leverages its general search dominance—operate by acquiring data in multiple formats, mapping it to a standardized structure, and linking it to common restaurants and menu items in a manner that falls within the scope of the methods claimed in the Bootler patents?
  • A key question of claim scope would be whether the patents' concept of a "master menu item," created by identifying and combining identical items from different source menus, can be construed to cover Google's functionality of presenting multiple delivery service options for a single, unified restaurant menu.
  • An evidentiary question would be one of technical functionality: what evidence exists to show how Google's system aggregates and presents data from its delivery partners? Does it perform the specific linking, mapping, and combining steps required by the claims, or does it use a fundamentally different technical architecture to achieve a similar end-user result?