In fact, three of them are tangled in a lawsuit, alleging patent infringement.

Seattle-based Tippr has filed suit against two of its closest rivals, BuyWithMe and DealOn.

All three pale in comparison to the deal-swagger of Groupon and LivingSocial. While they may have close to a hundred employees and meddle in a dozen or so U.S. markets, in comparison, both LivingSocial and Groupon have thousands of employees who curate deals in hundreds of markets on an international basis.

In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Washington Tippr’s parent company is claiming that the two are infringing on patents related to the use of an online buying group system for aggregating demand. Kashless is requesting an award equal to an undisclosed amount of damages caused by such infringement.

This lawsuit could be seen coming from a mile away.

In December, Tippr announced a strategy around what it considers a very strong patent portfolio.

Tippr’s CEO Martin Tobias explained to us that in late 2009, it acquired the patent portfolio of defunct Mercata, a Paul Allen-backed group-buying venture from Web 1.0. Tobias traded stock in Kashless for the patents, which included more than half a dozen patents covering areas like price optimization, demand curve modeling and buyer-seller interaction models.

His idea is to license the right to use those patents to anyone, ranging from its white-label partners to its competitors. The idea even has a name: the patent licensing program for group-buying.

Tippr offers constant reminders that it owns these patents, listing them on the bottom of every page on its Web site. It also writes in its description that: “You can be assured that Tippr is using the most advanced proprietary technology to deliver you the best deals on anything you buy with us.”

This is not the first patent fight in the daily deals space. In November, Groupon counter-sued a company called MobGob in Chicago, referencing patents that predate the founding of the company.

Earlier this month, Tippr also filed for a preliminary injunction against BuyWithMe for “using or disclosing Kashless’s confidential information,” reports TechFlash. The suit claims a former Kashless employee, Andrew DeLorenzo, violated an agreement by disclosing financial information about Tippr to BuyWithMe founder Andrew Moss. (BuyWithMe has since hired Jim Crowley as CEO.)

Tobias said in a statement sent to us: “Tippr, the industry’s first patented, white-label group buying platform, owns the deepest portfolio of issued patents in the group buying space. Its patents cover many of the most fundamental aspects of group buying systems and methods. The company cannot comment on the pending litigation regarding patent infringement by the defendants, but Tippr continues to be committed to true innovation as reflected in its considerable patent portfolio.”

Another wrinkle in the plot is that DealOn was acquired by ReachLocal for $10 million last week.

As the No. 3 in the market, the Seattle-based company may be the next candidate, if things remain as frothy as they have been.

“My phone is certainly ringing,” Tobias said in an email yesterday.

Tippr has taken a slightly different approach than either LivingSocial or Groupon. It doesn’t have thousands of employees, for example–only 45, of whom 24 are in sales.

In February, it had launched in Seattle with five subscribers. Today, it’s up to 13 markets and “hundreds of thousands of subscribers.” The growth is not only thanks to their own sites, but also by enabling others to join the group-buying frenzy, as well.

Tippr wants to be a platform, not a brand, so if you haven’t heard of it, it’s possible you never will. Even in Seattle, deals seem sporadic, and most offers are from places within walking distance of Tippr’s Queen Anne neighborhood office.

But, to cast a wider net, Tippr recently signed a partnership with Belo Corp., a television network that leverages Tippr’s platform to power its own local deals site, Yollar.com. It uses its own local sales force to make deals with merchants in markets such as Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Seattle, St. Louis, Portland and Boise. All these individual sites, powered by their own sales force, creates a magnifying affect that Groupon can only match by adding more sales people.

“Groupon is not like Facebook or eBay, where the winner takes all,” he said. “This is more like search.”

EBay became successful by generating a critical mass of buyers and sellers, and Facebook has staying power because once you define your social network, Tobias posits, you don’t want to have to build it again.

“With Groupon there’s nothing locking you in,” he said. “You haven’t invested anything, and the merchants don’t care either.”

Tobias talks tough–despite the apparent lack of interest from Google or Amazon–because he believes he has the IP to back it up. In November 2009, he acquired the patent portfolio of defunct Mercata, a Paul Allen-backed group-buying venture from Web 1.0.

He traded stock in Tippr’s parent company Kashless for the patents, which include more than half a dozen granted patents covering areas like price optimization, demand curve modeling and buyer-seller interaction models. Today, Tippr is announcing a strategy around these patents. A spokesperson said its new “patent licensing program for group-buying” will charge anyone, from white label partners to competitors (theoretically, Groupon), a fee to license them.

Tobias is also bullish, because in his last venture he was attempting something much larger. As CEO of Imperium Renewables, he raised around $500 million in capital to produce biodiesel on a mass scale, which he admits is not enough “when taking on Exxon.”

But taking on Groupon, which may have annual revenues of up to $500 million? To him, that’s doable.

Kashless, a Seattle start-up, on Tuesday started a Web site called Tippr.com to resurrect the concept of harnessing the buying power of groups of online shoppers to get discounts on everything from restaurant vouchers to television sets to spa trips. Founded by Martin Tobias, a former Microsoft (MSFT) executive and serial entrepreneur, Kashless said it has purchased ten group-buying patents that originated from a firm called Mercata, one of the group-buying start-ups that fizzled a decade ago.

Mr. Tobias said he bought the patents for an amount he wouldn’t disclose from Vulcan Capital, a Seattle venture capital firm controlled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which backed Mercata.

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