Yum! Brands Hit With Patent Suit Over Taco Bell Phone App

A patent licensing company alleges that Yum! Brands Inc.‘s popular quick service brands—KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut among them—provide customers a mobile app that infringes its intellectual property.

Analytical Technologies LLC has a patent for showing a mobile phone user an up-to-date menu and using customer data to predict what they might want, to generate “intelligent selections at the front of the menu.” The patented application collects the customer’s information electronically and forwards their order to a store they selected.

The Wyoming-based company said it gave Yum! notice of the infringement on March 23 of this year. It ...