Defendant
2 cases as defendant.
Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) is a publicly traded local-commerce marketplace headquartered at 35 W. Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 2008 by Andrew Mason, Eric Lefkofsky and Bradley Keywell and went public in November 2011. It is an independent, publicly listed company — not a subsidiary — with CEO Dušan Šenkypl. Headcount has fallen sharply during its restructuring: third-party profiles place it at roughly 1,700–2,100 employees, and revenue was about $492.6 million for FY2024 (down ~4% year over year), with a net loss of $56.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $69.3 million, per its FY2024 10-K and earnings release. Market capitalization has been reported in the low single-digit billions.
Operations. Groupon runs a "scaled two-sided marketplace" connecting consumers with merchants, delivered through its mobile apps and localized groupon.com sites in roughly a dozen-plus countries. It reports two geographic segments, North America and International, across three categories: Local (services and experiences — things to do, beauty and wellness, dining), Goods (merchandise such as electronics, apparel, jewelry, toys and household items), and Travel (hotels, airfare and package deals). Local is now the dominant revenue driver after the Goods business was largely wound down; Groupon monetizes through service revenue on vouchers, commissions on card-linked offers, and merchant advertising. It reported roughly 15.4 million active customers at year-end 2024.
Litigation posture. Groupon is an operating company, not a patent assertion entity. In the tracked data it appears only as a defendant (2 cases, 0 as plaintiff) — the classic signature of a practicing company defending against third-party patent suits rather than monetizing patents itself.
Notable cases. Both tracked matters are NPE-style infringement suits against Groupon: Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC v. Groupon, Inc., filed 2016-10-04 in the patent-friendly U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and Honeyman Cipher Solutions LLC v. Groupon, Inc. in the Northern District of Illinois. Neither is recorded as a Groupon-initiated action. Beyond these, Groupon's public profile is dominated by its post-IPO decline, cost restructuring and marketplace transformation rather than by its own patent enforcement activity.
PET infringement action against Groupon, Inc.; dismissed for improper venue after TC Heartland, with noninfringement arguments mooted.
Honeyman Cipher Solutions LLC sued Groupon, Inc. for infringement. Groupon filed a motion to dismiss challenging the sufficiency of infringement allegations on claim 1; the case was pending at the time of later reporting.