The petition, filed on September 17, 2026, through DK Crown Holdings, targets US Patent No. 12,406,284, which covers a mobile wagering system that uses a device’s location to control where betting is allowed and how promotional content is shown to users. The patent describes a system that checks whether someone is in a legal betting zone, blocks bets outside that zone, and alerts users when they’re not permitted to bet.
DraftKings argues the technology behind these 18 claims wasn’t new enough to deserve patent protection in the first place, pointing to the patent’s priority date of February 13, 2009. The company says a skilled developer at that time could have combined existing mobile wagering, geolocation, and display technologies without much difficulty, and cites Nevada’s 2006 mobile gaming rules, which already required systems to restrict betting to approved areas and detect when a device left one.
The patent sits at the center of a separate lawsuit Interactive Games filed against DraftKings in a Massachusetts federal court back in April. Additionally, Interactive Games filed a similar suit against FanDuel as well. FanDuel previously challenged another Interactive Games patent at the PTAB, which invalidated most of its claims before the Federal Circuit upheld the one that remained in 2020.
