All 7 Patents ‘Invalid’ in Video Doorbell Infringement Complaint, ITC Told
The International Trade Commission should deny the Tariff Act Section 337 patent infringement investigation that SkyBell Technologies, SB IP Holdings and EyeTalk365 seek on video doorbells and IP cameras from Vivint Smart Home, SimpliSafe and Arlo Technologies (see 2012250001) because all seven of the asserted communications and monitoring systems patents are “invalid,” commented SimpliSafe and Arlo (logins required) Tuesday in docket 337-3517.
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Tuesday was the deadline for comments on the public interest ramifications of the import ban on the accused devices sought in the Dec. 18 complaint. Two of the three proposed respondents instead argued for the case to be thrown out or decided expeditiously. No Vivint filing was posted in the docket.
All seven of the allegedly infringed patents were “continuations” of an October 2002 application that “went abandoned” for nonpayment of fees, said SimpliSafe. “The applicant failed to timely cure that abandonment, and cannot now do so,” it said.
If the ITC votes anyway to launch an investigation, it should resolve the dispute through the agency’s early disposition program, not the normal chain of command, said the company. The complaint is “narrowly tailored and can be addressed through expedited discovery,” it said. “It is simply unfair to waste public resources and to force SimpliSafe to endure the enormous cost and business disruption of an entire ITC case.” The complainants didn’t respond to questions Wednesday.
Arlo similarly argued for the ITC to decline the investigation request on patent invalidity grounds. The assigned administrative law judge, “in the alternative,” should convene an “early evidentiary hearing, find facts, and issue an early decision, within 100 days,” it said. “Without any path to avoiding a dispositive invalidity finding on all asserted patents given the priority chain defect, institution of an investigation would be a waste of Commission and private party resources.”
The applicant allowed an application to go abandoned, “meaning there was a period of at least five months during which no application in the patent family was pending,” said Arlo. That constituted a “break in the chain of priority” under U.S. patent law, it said. “As a result, the patent applications filed after the break, which includes the applications leading to all asserted patents, cannot claim priority to patent applications filed before the break.”
Complainant SkyBell “is well aware of this issue,” because it was “fully briefed on summary judgment” in an earlier case involving one of the same asserted patents, said Arlo. “In opposing summary judgment, SkyBell did not dispute that if the court found the priority chain to have been broken, the earlier patent applications would invalidate the claims” of the asserted patent, it said. “Nor could it.”