HTC and Sony Ericsson sued by Mosaid for Patent Infringement - Patents Apparently Cover the 911 Standard

July 7, 2011: Mosaid Technologies (Plaintiff), with its primary place of business at 11 Hines Road, Suite 203, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Delaware. Mosaid has alleged patent infringement in the lawsuit by HTC America Inc (Defendant)  and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Inc (Defendant). An initial analysis of the three patents (US6518889, US5650770 and US6198390) mentioned in the lawsuit indicate that the patents are targeted towards the essential E-911 communication standard. According to Wikipedia, the E-911 standard is a telecommunication based system that links people who are experiencing emergency with the public resources that can help. The location of the person in emergency is determined and appropriate help is sent to the location of emergency. 


Mosaid has asserted that HTC and Sony manufacture and sell communication devices that infringe on the patents. Further, Mosaid has asserted that the defendants have in the past and continue to infringe, directly, indirectly, literally, under the doctrine of equivalents, contributory, and/or through inducement of others, the claims of the three patents mentioned in the lawsuit. The communication devices manufactured by HTC and Sony include, among other things, navigational receiver, a manually operated switch defining a panic button, and a radio transmitter for determining the location of the person when the panic button is pressed. According to Mosaid, these elements including their inter-connection, state and mode of operation is covered by the three patents, either explicitly or under doctrine of equivalents.


Details of the three patents are provided below for the benefit of this blog's readers:


US6518889: The application for this patent was filed on December 1, 2000 and the patent was issued on February 11, 2003. Mosaid technology acquired these patents from Hawthorne Heights on April18, 2011. Hawthorne Heights had probably acquired these patents from Zoltar Satellite  Alarm Systems in an auction in 2009. Check this interesting article which mentions that Zoltar had auctioned its patent in 2009. Hawthorne Heights, in turn, has sold these patents to Mosaid in April this year and it took Mosaid less than 3 months to file a lawsuit against HTC and Sony. A Google search of Hawthorne heights did not reveal much information about the company. The USPTO assignment database indicates that Hawthorne heights is based out of San Diego, California. This leads one to wonder whether Hawthorne is a shell company of some other big entity. Are we looking at more trolls?


The independent claim of '889 patent is focused towards personal alarm systems and in particular to portable, self-locating, voice-activated personal alarms. The first independent claim reads:
"A personal alarm system remote unit, comprising: a navigational receiver for providing a location of the remote unit; a voice-activated detector having an output signal that becomes active when a predetermined distress phrase is detected; and a radio transmitter connected for transmitting the remote unit location when the output signal becomes active"

US5650770: The application for this patent was filed on October 23, 1995 and the patent was issued on July 22, 1997. Like the '889 patent, this patent was also acquired by Mosaid from Hawthorne Heights on April 18, 2011. The '770 patent is focused towards personal alarm systems that that transmit at a high power level during emergency. The first independent claim reads: 
"A man-over-board alarm system, comprising:

a remote unit including a navigational receiver for receiving navigational information defining a location of the remote unit, and a radio transmitter for transmitting the remote unit location;

a base station including a radio receiver for receiving the remote unit location;

the remote unit and the base station defining a separation distance between the remote unit and the base station; and

the base station including measuring means for determining whether the separation distance exceeds a predetermined limit, and means responsive to the measuring means for giving an alarm and a display for displaying the remote unit location,

whereby, a separation distance exceeding the predetermined limit causes a man-over-board alarm and the base station displays the location of the remote unit."


US6198390: The application for this patent was filed on June 03, 1999 and the patent was issued on March 06, 2001. Similar to the '889 patent and '770 patent, this patent was also acquired by Mosaid from Hawthorne Heights on April 18, 2011. The '390 patent is focused towards personal alarm systems that that transmit at a high power level during emergency. The first independent claim reads:
"A man-over-board remote unit, comprising:

a navigational receiver for receiving navigational information defining a location of the remote unit;

a sensor having an output signal defining a sensor status; and

a radio transmitter connected for transmitting the remote unit location and the sensor status."


So what do you think? Are the mobile and cellular phones manufactured by HTC and Sony Infringing these patents? Let me know your thoughts.