Payvox LLC v. Touchpoint Restaurant Innovations Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Payvox LLC (New Mexico)
  • Defendant: Touchpoint Restaurant Innovations, Inc. (Delaware)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Silverman, McDonald & Friedman; Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 1:26-cv-00039, D. Del., 01/14/2026
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper in the District of Delaware because Defendant is a Delaware corporation and has an established place of business in the district.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s unidentified products infringe a patent related to systems for initiating commercial transactions by wirelessly reading information from advertisements in mass media.
• Technical Context: The technology addresses methods for bridging physical advertising with e-commerce, allowing a consumer to use a mobile device to interact with a signal embedded in an advertisement to begin a purchase or information request.
• Key Procedural History: The asserted patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer, which may limit its enforceable term to that of an earlier patent in its family. The complaint does not mention any other prior litigation or administrative proceedings involving the patent-in-suit.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2004-03-12	’555 Patent - Earliest Priority Date
2020-09-01	’555 Patent - Issue Date
2026-01-14	Complaint Filing Date

II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis

U.S. Patent No. 10,762,555 - *Systems and methods for automated mass media commerce*

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent's background section describes the difficulty and effort required for a consumer to act on an advertisement in traditional mass media, such as a magazine or billboard. This friction, such as needing to remember or write down a phone number or URL, can cause the consumer to "simply lose interest" and result in a lost sales opportunity for the vendor (ʼ555 Patent, col. 1:47-53).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a system to automate consumer responses to advertisements. An advertisement in a "mass media publication" is equipped with a wireless transmitter, such as an RFID tag, that emits a signal containing commerce information (ʼ555 Patent, col. 3:6-15, Fig. 1). A consumer uses a portable device, like a smartphone, to read this signal, which then automatically generates and sends a transaction request (e.g., for more information or to make a purchase) to a vendor's system over a network (ʼ555 Patent, Abstract; col. 2:10-26).
• Technical Importance: This approach sought to reduce the barrier between a consumer's initial interest sparked by a physical advertisement and the consummation of an electronic transaction, thereby increasing advertising conversion rates (ʼ555 Patent, col. 1:54-63).

Key Claims at a Glance

The complaint asserts "exemplary method claims" without specifying claim numbers, but incorporates by reference an exhibit containing charts that purportedly identify them (Compl. ¶11). Assuming Claim 1 is asserted as a representative independent claim, its essential elements include:

• Transmitting a wireless identification signal from a transmitter associated with an advertisement to a mobile ordering device to initiate a transaction.
• Receiving the resulting electronic transaction request at a "commerce data system including a server" via a wireless network.
• Generating a response to the request from the commerce data system.
• Sending the response back to the mobile ordering device.

The complaint states that Plaintiff may assert other claims, including dependent claims (Compl. ¶11).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The complaint does not name specific accused products. It refers to "Exemplary Defendant Products" that are identified in "charts incorporated into this Count below" via an external Exhibit 2, which was not filed with the complaint (Compl. ¶¶11, 13).

Functionality and Market Context

The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of the accused products' specific functionality. It makes the conclusory allegation that the "Exemplary Defendant Products practice the technology claimed by the '555 Patent" and "satisfy all elements of the Exemplary '555 Patent Claims" (Compl. ¶13). No allegations are made regarding the products' market positioning or commercial importance.

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint alleges direct infringement of the ʼ555 Patent by Defendant’s "making, using, offering to sell, selling and/or importing" the accused products, as well as by its employees "internally test[ing] and us[ing]" them (Compl. ¶¶11-12). The specific factual basis for these allegations is contained in claim charts in an external Exhibit 2, which was not provided with the complaint (Compl. ¶¶13-14). The narrative infringement theory is that the accused products practice the patented technology and meet all claim limitations (Compl. ¶13).

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

Identified Points of Contention

Based on the patent’s claim language and the general nature of the allegations, the infringement analysis may raise several questions:

• Scope Questions: A central question may be how the claim term "commerce data system" maps onto the Defendant's potentially distributed cloud or server architecture. The claim requires this single "system" to both receive a request and generate a response, which could become a point of dispute if those functions are handled by separate, loosely coupled components in the accused instrumentality.
• Technical Questions: What is the nature of the "wireless identification signal" allegedly transmitted in the accused system? The analysis will question whether this signal is merely a generic identifier that allows a lookup in a remote database, or if it contains "information pertaining to the service" as recited in the claim, which may suggest a more substantive data payload is required.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

"commerce data system" (Claim 1)

• Context and Importance: This term defines the back-end server infrastructure that processes the transaction. Its construction is critical because the claim requires this single "system" to perform multiple steps (receiving a request, generating a response). Practitioners may focus on this term because Defendant could argue that its architecture does not constitute a single "system" under the patent's definition, potentially avoiding infringement of the method claim.
• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification describes the commerce system potentially including both "one or more vendor systems 12" and an optional "commerce data organization system 14," suggesting a distributed or multi-component architecture is contemplated ('555 Patent, col. 4:44-67). This could support an interpretation where the "system" encompasses various coordinated servers.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: Claim 1 recites "a commerce data system including a server" that performs specific actions. This phrasing, combined with diagrams showing a centralized "Commerce Data Organization System," could support a narrower construction requiring a more integrated or singular entity ('555 Patent, Fig. 3).

"wireless identification signal concerning information pertaining to the service" (Claim 1)

• Context and Importance: The definition of this term is central to determining what the mobile device must receive from the advertisement's transmitter. The dispute will likely focus on whether the signal itself must contain substantive data about the advertised service, or if it can be a simple identifier (e.g., a numerical code) that points to such information in a database.
• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification states that the RFID transmission "may include a particular number or numbers that may be associated with particular vendor, product and/or service information" and that this number "may be used to access the related information stored in a database" ('555 Patent, col. 4:16-25). This language provides strong support for a broad interpretation where the signal is an identifier that "concerns" the information by linking to it.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The claim language "concerning information pertaining to the service" could be argued to require more than an arbitrary pointer. The specification also discloses that the signal could contain richer data, such as "vendor name, vendor contact information... quantity information, cost, price, type of product, type of service, etc.," which could be used to argue that the signal itself must be informational ('555 Patent, col. 4:18-21).

VI. Other Allegations

Willful Infringement

The complaint does not allege willful infringement. While the prayer for relief requests that the case be declared "exceptional" for the purpose of recovering attorney's fees, it does not plead any facts related to pre-suit or post-suit knowledge of the patent by the Defendant (Compl. p. 4, ¶ E.i.).

VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case

• A primary issue is evidentiary and procedural: As the complaint's infringement allegations rely entirely on an unattached exhibit, the immediate focus will be on the specific products accused and the factual sufficiency of the infringement contentions once they are formally presented.
• A key question of claim scope will likely be the interpretation of "wireless identification signal concerning information pertaining to the service." Whether this term can be read broadly to cover simple identifiers that link to information in a database, as suggested by the specification, or is limited to signals carrying substantive data, will be critical in defining the patent's reach and its applicability to modern interactive systems.
• Another core issue will be one of definitional scope: The case may turn on whether the Defendant's back-end infrastructure constitutes "a commerce data system" as required by the claims. The resolution will depend on whether this term is construed to require a single, integrated platform or can encompass a collection of distributed services that work in concert.