In a previous order by a federal judge invalidated all of the claims of two security system patents for claiming abstract ideas. However in a following decision, judge concluded that she only had jurisdiction to rule on the claims asserted by plaintiff Joao Control & Monitoring Systems.
Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer of the Northern District of Illinois granted some parts of Joao Control & Monitoring Systems LLC’s motion to reconsider her March ruling in a suit against Telular Corporation where Judge Pallmeyer found all 200 claims of the patents were invalid under the Supreme Court’s Alice decision. She held under the revised order that she could only rule that the 12 claims Joao asserted were invalid. The infringement allegations were by Joao narrowed to cover those 12 claims under the district’s local patent rules. The Judge held that the company “effectively withdrew the portion of its complaint addressing the unasserted claims.”
Joao alleged in its complaint that Telular infringed two patents on security systems that monitor vehicles and buildings through a network connected to the internet, asserted Joao in the filed suit from 2014. Telular infringed one or more claims of the patent, one of which has 112 claims, the other of which has 88 claims, the complaint initially alleged. The numbers of asserted claims was later to 12.
Previously, the judge granted Telular’s motion for judgement on the pleadings. There the judge ruled that the judge patents cover only the abstract idea of monitoring and controlling property using generic computer functions like the internet. “Law enforcement officials have used several forms of electronic video and audio recording devices to monitor potential criminal activity on or around property since the mid-20 th century,” she noted. In the judge’s subsequent decision on reconsideration the judge rejected Joao’s argument that the invalidity findings should be limited to only the single claim. The other claims a very similar and “it benefits no one to have the court simply repeat its analysis 12 times,” the judge noted.
