Defendant

Juno USA, LP

1 case as defendant.

Cases
1
Active
0
1 closed
Filed
2018
Top venue
S.D. New York
1 case

Company profile

Let me look into the specific patent case and the plaintiff.

Juno USA, LP (formerly Juno Lab, LP), commonly known as "Juno," was a New York City ride-hailing/vehicle-for-hire operator. It was founded in 2015 by Talmon Marco, the entrepreneur behind messaging app Viber, and launched its service in NYC in 2016 with headquarters at One World Trade Center. Juno was acquired by Israeli on-demand mobility company Gett in April 2017 for a reported ~$200 million (some reports cite up to ~$250 million); it had previously raised a reported $30 million Series A in 2016. Size figures are inconsistent across sources — PitchBook lists roughly 40 employees (circa 2017), while Wikipedia lists 273 — so a reliable headcount cannot be confirmed.

Products / operations: Juno operated a smartphone-based ride-hailing platform (iOS/Android) connecting TLC-licensed for-hire drivers with passengers in New York City, dispatched through its wholly owned black-car bases Omaha LLC and Vulcan Cars LLC. Its stated differentiators were lower driver commissions, driver equity participation, and flexible driver policies. At peak it reportedly contracted with roughly 50,000 drivers and dispatched close to 50,000 rides per day.

Patent-litigation posture: Juno was an operating company, not an NPE. The case data shows one tracked matter with Juno as defendant and zero as plaintiff. In RideApp, Inc. v. Juno USA, LP (1:18-cv-11579, S.D.N.Y., filed Dec. 11, 2018), plaintiff RideApp, Inc. asserted U.S. Patent No. 6,697,730 (a transit/GPS locating system) against Juno. The same patent was asserted against Lyft in parallel suits. Unified Patents filed an IPR against the '730 patent (IPR2019-00414) and characterized RideApp as an NPE. The suit was filed in the Southern District of New York, not a plaintiff-friendly Texas venue.

Notable context: Juno ceased operations on Nov. 18, 2019, and filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware in November 2019, citing New York City minimum-wage regulations and litigation from drivers, riders, and competitors; riders were directed to Lyft under a Gett–Lyft partnership. This litigation is best characterized as an operating company defending against a patent assertion, with the tracked case overlapping Juno's final year of operation.