Target Corporation is a major American retailer headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded by George Dayton, the company's origins trace back to the Dayton Dry Goods Company in 1902, with the first Target store opening in Roseville, Minnesota, in 1962. The parent company, Dayton-Hudson Corporation, was renamed Target Corporation in 2000. A publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker TGT, Target is a component of the S&P 500 Index. In recent fiscal years, the company has reported annual revenues exceeding $104 billion and employs over 400,000 people.
Target operates nearly 2,000 general merchandise stores across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The stores sell a wide range of products, including apparel, accessories, home décor, electronics, toys, and seasonal items. The company also offers a significant food assortment with perishables, dry groceries, dairy, and frozen foods. Target's retail portfolio includes various store formats, such as its standard discount stores, SuperTarget hypermarkets which feature full grocery departments, and smaller-format stores for urban areas. The company also runs a significant e-commerce business through Target.com and owns the delivery service Shipt and the media company Roundel.
As a large operating company, Target's patent litigation profile consists of defending against lawsuits. The database shows one tracked case where Target was a defendant and none where it was a plaintiff. This posture is typical for a major retailer whose business is selling goods, rather than licensing intellectual property. The single case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The tracked case is I/P Engine, Inc. v. AOL, Inc. et al., filed in 2011. Target was one of several co-defendants, including AOL and Google, in a patent infringement lawsuit concerning search engine technology. I/P Engine, the plaintiff, is a non-practicing entity (NPE). The multi-defendant case ultimately saw a judgment against the defendants overturned on appeal.