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Home » Fitness » Patent troll that sued over Apple Watch and 80 other fitness products … – Ars Technica

Enlarge / Various versions of the Apple Watch are displayed at a December 2016 press conference in an Apple store in Saint-Germain, Paris.

Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images

A patent troll that has sued more than80 companies by laying broadclaims to Internet-connected "wearables" may be nearing the end of its road.

Thepatent appeals board at the USPatent and Trademark Office has agreed to reconsider 16patent claimsowned by Sportbrain Holdings, LLC. The Patent Office's decision comes just three days after Sportbrain filed a lawsuit against Apple (PDF). Taking on itshighest-profile target yet, Sportbrain claims thatthe Apple Watch violates US Patent No.7,454,002, titled "Integrating personal data capturing functionality into a portable computing device and a wireless communication device."

It has sued over software, too, filing cases againstpopular fitness apps like Strava and evenAetna (PDF). Sportbrain argues that the health insurance company infringes itspatent with its "Get Active" online platform.

Sportbrain Holdings, LLC follows a familiar track for patent-holding companiesa demise after the first dot-com bust and then a reincarnation more than a decade later as a patent enforcement company. In the year 2000, SportBrain Inc. launcheda kind of early wearable, a smart pedometer called the SportBrain tracker that connected to a computer via a special "SportPort."

"We believe the SportBrain personal fitness assistant (PFA)should become an essential part of everyone's lives," said Andreas Bibl, SportBrain CEO and cofounder, in a press release sent out that year. "As a nation, we need to get moving."

SportBrain's website in 2011 advertised a kind of smart pedometer. Today, the company has shut down and turned to patent enforcement.

http://www.sportbrain.com via archive.org

The owner of thesecond incarnation of SportBrain appears to bea man named Harry Heslop, who's a co-defendantin theinter partes reviewjust instituted at the Patent Office. Patent Office records show that Heslop moved the patents from SportBrain Inc. into Sportbrain Holdings LLC in January of 2016, when the campaign of lawsuits began.

Heslop couldn't be reached for this story, and the attorney for SportBrain Holdings didn't respond to a request for comment. The lead inventor of the '002 patent, Deane Gardner, also didn't respond to acall requesting comment.

"As one of the first to market, successfully traded for 10 years, and then [to be] squeezed out by a plethora of Goliaths was unquestionably devastating,"Heslop told Law360 when his litigation began last year. "As the 'David' in this story, we will slingshot our IP at all the offenders and unleash the full extent of the law until justice is served."

A petition for inter partes review (IPR) against the '002 patent was filed last year by Unified Patents, a defense-oriented patent company that bills itself as "The Anti-Troll."It was part of Unified'scampaign to challenge the "three most prolific patent trolls" of 2016: Sportbrain,Shipping and Transit, and Uniloc USA.

Thecase against Sportbrain Holdings has passed a key hurdle,with the Patent Office agreeing last week to institute an investigationover all 16 of the claims in the '002 patent.

In its decision (PDF), the Patent Office finds that it's likely that two earlier patents teach "collecting, storing, and compiling performance data at a web server." A Nike patent filed in 1999 by designerAlbert Shum, now at Microsoft, describes collecting use information for a product, "such as an article of footwear," and offering "rewards" based on the level of use. In 1998, a company called Liquid Spark filed for a patent on a GPS-based performance monitor.

IPR proceedings, created as part of the 2011 America Invents Act, have proven effective at knocking out patents at lower costs than traditional court proceedings. Most IPRs that are instituted by the Patent Officeresult in some or all of the patent claims being thrown out.

"This is a great example of a patent that we believe is invalid, and never should have issued in the first place," said Unified Patents CEO Kevin Jakel in an interview with Ars. "We're happy the USPTOinstituted the IPR, and the patent is well on its way to ultimately being canceled."

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Patent troll that sued over Apple Watch and 80 other fitness products ... - Ars Technica

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Home » Fitness » Patent troll that sued over Apple Watch and 80 other fitness products … – Ars Technica