DraftKings has formally asked the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board to cancel all 18 claims of a mobile wagering patent filed against it in federal court.
The US sports betting giant, operating through its DK Crown Holdings entity, submitted the petition on 17 September, taking direct aim at Interactive Games LLC’s US Patent No. 12,406,284.
The patent in question covers a mobile wagering system that combines geolocation controls with how betting and promotional content is displayed on a user’s device.
Its functionality includes determining whether a customer is physically located in an authorised jurisdiction, such as a US state where sports betting is legally regulated.
The system is also designed to prevent wagers from being placed outside permitted areas while displaying alerts when a user cannot legally bet in their current location.
DraftKings’ central legal argument is that none of this technology was sufficiently novel to warrant patent protection in the first place.
The petition contends that the 18 claims amount to a combination of mobile wagering, geolocation and display technologies that were already well established long before the patent’s claimed priority date.
The Jason Robins-led company has asked the PTAB to initiate a formal review and ultimately declare all 18 claims unpatentable on those grounds.
The dispute carries significant weight for the broader US sports betting industry because some of the patented functionality underpins the standard modern mobile wagering experience.
Claim 1 of the patent, for example, covers sending GPS and IP data to servers, determining whether a user is within a gaming area, and blocking wagering when they fall outside it.
DraftKings argues those concepts were firmly established well before 2009, pointing specifically to Nevada mobile gaming rules dating as far back as 2006.
Those Nevada regulations already required systems to restrict mobile wagering to approved geographic areas and detect when a device moved into a non-gaming zone.
The petition also references several earlier patents and technical documents covering battery management, ambient light and noise detection, digital signatures, and device-to-device communications.
Each of these references targets specific components of Interactive Games’ broader patent, building a layered argument that the claims lack originality across multiple technical dimensions.
The PTAB petition is directly tied to active litigation between the two companies, as Interactive Games filed a patent infringement suit against DraftKings in the US District Court for Massachusetts on 2 April 2026.
That federal lawsuit asserts the same ‘284 patent, and DraftKings has formally identified the case as a related matter that could be affected by the outcome of the PTAB proceedings.
Should the board agree to review the patent and subsequently cancel its claims, that outcome could materially weaken Interactive Games’ infringement case in Massachusetts.
However, the PTAB must first decide whether to institute the inter partes review before the board can even begin assessing the merits of DraftKings’ arguments.
The case will be closely watched across the US igaming sector, given how central geolocation and mobile display technology is to everyday sports betting operations.
The outcome could set a meaningful precedent for how foundational mobile wagering patents are treated in future disputes across the rapidly growing American market.
