Patent Law Insights : Software Patent Lawyer & Attorney : Perkins Coie Law Firm : Intellectual Property & Technology Law

In an en banc ruling yesterday in Cardiac Pacemaker v. St. Jude, the Federal Circuit decided that method claims do not have extraterritorial reach under 35 USC 271(f). In earlier cases, courts have ruled that some claim types (e.g., system claims reciting one or more components) have some extraterritorial reach, such as when patented components are separately exported and combined abroad to produce the infringing system or device.

When a patent applicant files a patent application, the minimum government fees cover three independent claims and twenty total claims. Patent attorneys sometimes recommend paying "excess claims fees" to file additional claims. Some clients, however, prefer not to pay the excess claims fees and decide to limit their claim coverage. Cardiac Pacemaker serves as another example that having different claim types can be useful.

The law evolves and it can be difficult to predict which claim types will be valuable (or lose value) in the future. Good patent attorneys draft multiple claim types to inoculate their clients' assets against future depreciation. 

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The Senate today confirmed the appointment of IBM's David Kappos to the position of Director, USPTO.  It is likely that Mr. Kappos will overhaul aspects of the USPTO's practice.

Judiciary Committee Chairperson Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a statement that he looks forward to working with the new Director on patent reform.

See prior blog entries on Kappos' signals and IPReview article.

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Several recent Twitter tweets pointed to a Justia article announcing that Texas company TechRadium has sued Twitter for patent infringement.  According to TechRadium's web site, that company is in the business of providing "mass notification and emergency alerting systems to a vast array of governmental, educational, commercial and non-profit entities."  According to the complaint Justia published, the relevant patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,130,389, 7,496,183, and 7,519,165.

The '389 patent's first claim is:

1. A digital notification and response system, comprising:

a. an administrator interface for preparing and transmitting a message from an administrator to at least one user contact device;

b. a dynamic information database for storing the message, wherein the dynamic information database comprises;

i. user contact data comprising:

1. user contact device information; and

2. user selected priority information that indicates a contact order for the user contact device;

ii. user selected grouping information comprising:

1. at least one group associated with each user contact device; and

2. a priority order for contacting each user contact device within the group;

iii. response data comprising:

1. user response information that indicates individual user contact devices have received the message; and

2. response information that indicates when insufficient user contact device information exists to contact the user contact devices;

wherein the administrator initiates distribution of the message using the grouping information, priority information, and the priority order, and wherein the message is transmitted through at least two industry standard gateways simultaneously, wherein the two industry standard gateways are selected from the group consisting of: a SMTP gateway a SIP, an H.323, an ISDN gateway, a PSTN gateway, a softswitch, and combinations thereof, wherein the message is received by the at least one user contact device, and the at least one user contact device transmits a response through the industry standard gateways to the dynamic information database.

The '183 patent's first claim is:

1. A method to provide a digital notification and response to groups of users having at least one contact device comprising:

storing in a dynamic information database:

user contact data for at least one group of users, wherein each user in the at least one group of users has at least one user contact device;

user selected priority information that comprises a contact order for each user contact device; and

user selected grouping information comprising at least one group associated with each user contact device;

using an administrator interface to form at least one message;

using an administrator in communication with at least one processor to initiate transmission of the at least one message simultaneously to a first group of user contact devices for all users in the at least one group of users and then simultaneously to a second group of user contact devices for all users in the at least one group of users using the user selected priority information and transmitting the at least one message through at least two industry standard gateways simultaneously; and

using the administrator interface to ensure each user in the at least one group of users is contacted on the first group of user contact devices before the second group of user contact devices using the user selected priority information.

The '165 patent's first claim is:

1. A method to provide a digital notification and response to groups of users having at least one contact device comprising:

storing in a dynamic information database: user contact data for at least one group of users, wherein each user in the at least one group has at least one user contact device information; user selected priority information that comprises a contact order for each user contact device; anduser selected grouping information comprising at least one group associated with each user contact device;

using an administrator interface to form at least one message;

using an administrator in communication with a processor to initiate transmission of the at least one message simultaneously to a first group of user contact devices for all users in the at least one group of users and then simultaneously to a second group of user contact devices for all users in the at least one group of users using the user selected priority information and transmitting the at least one message through at least two industry standard gateways simultaneously;

using the administrator interface to ensure each user in the at least one group of users is contacted on the first group of user contact devices before the second group of user contact devices using the user selected priority information; and

receiving responses from the user contact devices through the at least two industry standard gateways simultaneously by the administrator interface and storing the responses in the dynamic information database, wherein the responses indicate the user contact devices that have received the at least one message and the responses indicate when insufficient user contact device information exists to contact the user contact devices.
 

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