DCT
5:25-cv-01026
Gongio Inc v. Hyperdoc Inc
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: Gong.io, Inc. (Delaware)
- Defendant: Hyperdoc Inc. d/b/a Recall.ai (Delaware)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
- Case Identification: 5:25-cv-01026, N.D. Cal., 06/27/2025
- Venue Allegations: Venue is alleged to be proper in the Northern District of California because Defendant is headquartered in San Francisco, maintains a regular and established place of business in the district, and has committed alleged acts of infringement within the district.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s API and bots for joining and recording online video conferences infringe a patent related to using a "virtual participant" to unintrusively record such meetings.
- Technical Context: The technology concerns automated, cross-platform recording of virtual meetings, a capability of significant commercial importance in enterprise sales, customer support, and remote work environments.
- Key Procedural History: The complaint alleges Plaintiff notified Defendant of the alleged infringement via a letter on September 20, 2024, and sent a draft complaint on December 20, 2024, prior to filing suit. These events are asserted as the basis for willful infringement.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2016-02-17 | '409 Patent Priority Date |
| 2017-07-04 | '409 Patent Issue Date |
| 2024-09-20 | Plaintiff sent letter to Defendant alleging infringement |
| 2024-12-20 | Plaintiff sent draft complaint to Defendant |
| 2025-06-27 | First Amended Complaint Filing Date |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 9,699,409 - Recording Web Conferences
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: Prior to the invention, recording online meetings often required manual, user-initiated screen capture software that could degrade computer performance, capture private on-screen information inadvertently, and struggle to record all audio streams correctly (Compl. ¶22-27). Furthermore, native recording features were often platform-specific and not universally available or extensible (Compl. ¶29).
- The Patented Solution: The invention describes a system where a "virtual participant"—a software bot—autonomously joins a web conference as if it were a human attendee ('409 Patent, col. 1:45-48). This bot operates from a separate computer or server, which solves performance issues by offloading the recording task ('409 Patent, Abstract; Compl. ¶40). Because it joins as a listed co-participant, its presence is transparent to human attendees, addressing privacy concerns (Compl. ¶39). The system can automatically identify scheduled conferences, for instance by accessing a user's calendar, removing the need for users to remember to press record ('409 Patent, col. 6:31-34).
- Technical Importance: This approach provides a centralized, automated, and platform-agnostic method for recording enterprise communications, which was an improvement over fragmented, manual, and often unreliable prior methods (Compl. ¶30, ¶37).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts infringement of at least independent claim 1 (Compl. ¶49, ¶71).
- The essential elements of independent claim 1 are:
- identifying a plurality of virtual conferences being operated by a conferencing system...the virtual conferences having human participants;
- executing a plurality of virtual participant processes in a processor;
- registering the virtual participant processes with the conferencing system as co-participants...by emulating human interactions with a graphical user interface; and
- recording information streams of the human participants using the virtual participant processes.
- The complaint realleges infringement of "one or more claims" but focuses its narrative on claim 1 (Compl. ¶68).
III. The Accused Instrumentality
Product Identification
- The accused instrumentality includes Recall.ai's API, bots, and related software and hardware (the "Accused Product") (Compl. ¶68).
Functionality and Market Context
- Recall.ai markets a "universal API for meeting bots" that allows software developers to programmatically instruct bots to join and record online video conferences across various platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams (Compl. ¶50, ¶54).
- The complaint alleges that for conferencing platforms that do not offer an official API for bots to connect (such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams), Recall.ai's bots join by interacting with the web-based version of the conferencing service (Compl. ¶84-87). This is a central point of the infringement allegation.
- A screenshot from Recall.ai's documentation shows instructions for a developer to create a bot and have it join a meeting via an API call. (Compl. ¶72).
- The complaint highlights Recall.ai's marketing of its technology for commercial use in sales, user research, and other enterprise fields (Compl. ¶56).
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
'409 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 1) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| identifying a plurality of virtual conferences being operated by a conferencing system connected to a communications network, the virtual conferences having human participants | Recall.ai instructs customers to integrate its bots with their Google or Microsoft Outlook calendars, which contain details of scheduled virtual conferences with human participants. | ¶73 | col. 6:31-34 |
| executing a plurality of virtual participant processes in a processor | Recall.ai's service supports the execution of multiple bots, where each bot is alleged to be a "virtual participant process" running in a processor. | ¶75 | col. 2:46-48 |
| registering the virtual participant processes with the conferencing system as co-participants in the virtual conferences by emulating human interactions with a graphical user interface | For platforms without a formal API (e.g., Google Meet, MS Teams), Recall.ai's bots are alleged to register for conferences by interacting with the web browser interface, such as by scanning the Document Object Model (DOM) to find and use meeting links, thereby emulating how a human user would interact with the GUI. A screenshot from the complaint shows the Microsoft Teams interface running in a web browser, illustrating the GUI the bot allegedly emulates. (Compl. ¶87). | ¶77, ¶83-84, ¶87-89 | col. 11:24-29 |
| recording information streams of the human participants using the virtual participant processes | Recall.ai's bots are instructed to join meetings for the purpose of creating a video recording of the conference, which includes the information streams from human participants. | ¶90 | col. 1:63-65 |
Identified Points of Contention
- Scope Questions: The complaint anticipates that a central dispute will be the meaning of "emulating human interactions with a graphical user interface" (Compl. ¶64). The case may turn on whether Recall.ai's alleged server-side interaction with a web page's DOM constitutes "emulation" of a "human interaction" with a "GUI" as those terms are understood in the context of the '409 patent.
- Technical Questions: A key factual question will be the precise mechanism by which Recall.ai's bots join meetings on platforms like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. The complaint alleges this is done by emulating a user via the web browser's DOM (Compl. ¶84), but the evidence required to prove this specific mode of operation will be critical.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
- The Term: "emulating human interactions with a graphical user interface"
- Context and Importance: This term is the lynchpin of the infringement allegation for at least some accused platforms. The complaint alleges Defendant's primary non-infringement argument is that its technology does not meet this limitation (Compl. ¶64-65). The definition of this phrase will determine whether programmatic, server-side interactions with a web application's code (the DOM) fall within the claim scope.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The patent specification explicitly states that when conferencing software runs in a web browser, "the information can be gathered by scanning its document object model (DOM)... The DOM can also be manipulated to emulate user interaction with the application" ('409 Patent, col. 11:24-29). Plaintiff will likely argue this language demonstrates that the inventors explicitly contemplated DOM manipulation as a form of the claimed "emulation."
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification also provides examples of emulation that are more akin to direct mimicry of physical user actions, such as emulating "a set of mouse clicks, key strokes and other actions that mimic a human participant joining a virtual conference" ('409 Patent, col. 6:65-col. 7:1). A defendant could argue that server-side DOM parsing is technically distinct from this type of direct GUI event simulation and therefore falls outside a narrower construction of the term.
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement by asserting that Recall.ai provides its customers with documentation and "Quickstart" guides that instruct them on how to use the bots to perform the allegedly infringing recording method (Compl. ¶70, ¶72). It also alleges contributory infringement, stating the bot software is a material component of the invention that is not a staple article of commerce with substantial non-infringing uses (Compl. ¶69).
- Willful Infringement: Willfulness is alleged based on pre-suit knowledge. The complaint states that Plaintiff sent Defendant a letter detailing the alleged infringement on September 20, 2024, more than nine months before the amended complaint was filed (Compl. ¶58, ¶66).
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
The resolution of this dispute will likely depend on the court's answers to two central questions:
A core issue will be one of definitional scope: Does the claim term "emulating human interactions with a graphical user interface" encompass a server-side process that programmatically parses a web page’s Document Object Model (DOM) to join a conference, or is its meaning restricted to more direct mimicry of user inputs like simulated mouse clicks and keystrokes?
A key evidentiary question will be one of technical proof: Can Plaintiff demonstrate that the Accused Product's method for joining conferences on platforms without a formal API, such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, in fact operates by the specific DOM-manipulation or GUI-emulation techniques alleged in the complaint, as opposed to an alternative, non-infringing technical architecture?