The way Lyft Inc. sees it, a retired professor who claims to have patented the wireless ride-sharing platform should have quit when he was behind.

Lyft wants U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the Northern District of California to force RideApp Inc., a company founded by Georgia Tech professor emeritus Stephen Dickerson, to pay more than $500,000 in attorney fees that Lyft incurred after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office indicated last July that RideApp’s patent claims are indefinite.