New Life Ventures v. Darrian L Campbell

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: New Life Ventures, Inc. (Florida)
  • Defendant: Locke Lord, LLP (Texas), M. Scott Fuller, Paul D. Lein, Darrian L. Campbell, and Emmanuel Gonzalez
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Sriplaw PLLC
• Case Identification: 1:18-cv-24551, S.D. Fla., 02/13/2019
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because the "collective wrongful acts of Defendants... occurred, in substantial part, in this judicial district."
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges malicious prosecution against Defendant law firm and its attorneys, contending they initiated and pursued a baseless patent infringement lawsuit against Plaintiff without probable cause and with malice.
• Technical Context: The underlying patents from the prior litigation relate to systems and methods for categorizing websites using "multi-parameter digital labels" to improve the precision of internet searches.
• Key Procedural History: This action arises from a prior patent infringement case (the '907 Case) filed by Defendants on behalf of inventor Emmanuel Gonzalez against New Life Ventures. In that case, the district court granted summary judgment, finding the asserted patents invalid. The judgment was subsequently affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants were aware of dispositive prior art and evidence of non-infringement before and during the litigation.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2000-10-04	Earliest Priority Date for all asserted patents (Provisional App. 60/238,303)
2007-11-09	Date of Gonzalez's allegedly false response to USPTO inquiry on prior art
2009-07-07	U.S. Patent No. 7,558,807 Issues
2010-01-12	U.S. Patent No. 7,647,339 Issues
2011-01-18	U.S. Patent No. 7,873,665 Issues
2011-11-22	U.S. Patent No. 8,065,333 Issues
2012-10-23	U.S. Patent No. 8,296,325 Issues
2014-09-23	Underlying patent infringement complaint filed against New Life ('907 Case)
2014-11-14	New Life files answer in '907 Case, asserting non-infringement and invalidity
2015-11-05	Deposition of inventor Emmanuel Gonzalez taken
2016-04-26	District court grants summary judgment of invalidity of the Gonzalez Patents
2016-10-05	Final judgment entered in favor of New Life in '907 Case
2017-08-21	Federal Circuit affirms the district court's judgment of invalidity
2017-11-20	Judgment in '907 Case becomes final and unappealable
2019-02-13	First Amended Complaint for Malicious Prosecution filed

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

U.S. Patent No. 7,558,807 - "Host Website for Digitally Labeled Websites and Method"

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent asserts that conventional internet search engines, which rely on "word-match" technology, are poorly suited for finding specific commercial information, often yielding a large number of irrelevant results. This makes it difficult for website publishers to be found by their intended audiences and for users ("surfers") to find desired information efficiently (’807 Patent, col. 1:41-56, col. 2:1-7).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a specialized "Host Website" where subscribers can categorize their own websites by answering a series of questions. The answers are converted into a "plurality of digital labels" that represent qualitative characteristics (e.g., price range, location, specific services). These structured, unambiguous labels are stored in a database, allowing for more precise, multi-parameter searches that are superior to simple keyword matching (’807 Patent, col. 3:1-29; Abstract). For example, a search could identify "males who are not college graduates" by searching for one digital label (male = ‘0’) and the absence of another (college graduate = null entry) (’807 Patent, col. 4:63 - col. 5:3).
• Technical Importance: The claimed approach sought to create order within the internet by establishing discrete, searchable databases for specific subjects, analogous to organizing a library by category rather than relying on speed-reading every book (’807 Patent, col. 2:50-68).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint does not identify specific claims asserted in the underlying litigation (Compl. ¶13). The independent claims of the ’807 Patent are:
• Claim 1 (Apparatus): A host website apparatus comprising:
  • a computer system,
  • said computer system includes a digital label database for providing to a listing subscriber digital labels representing different specific qualities and a subscriber database for storing a listing of subscribers' digital labels;
  • said computer system being configured to respond to a subscriber's request for listing and guiding the subscriber via the Host Website display to enter information pertaining to the subscriber and converting the information to digital labels... and storing the subscriber's digital labels...; and
  • said computer system further configured to enable users to search said subscriber database for subscriber digital labels identifying subscriber qualities.
• Claim 3 (Method): A method for listing websites on the Internet comprising the steps of:
  • configuring a computer system to compile a digital label database... and to compile a subscriber database...;
  • configuring said computer system to respond to a subscriber's request for listing; guiding the subscriber via a website display to enter information...; and
  • converting the information to digital labels by accessing said digital label database and storing subscriber digital labels in Host Website databases.

U.S. Patent No. 7,647,339 - "Method for Digitally Labeling Websites"

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: Similar to the ’807 patent, the ’339 patent describes the problem of internet search engines providing imprecise results due to their reliance on matching keywords, which gives "clues as to a site's nature, not unambiguous information." This creates difficulties for both publishers trying to reach an audience and users trying to find specific information (’339 Patent, col. 1:50-62).
• The Patented Solution: The patent discloses a method for labeling internet websites by creating and encoding data about the "searchable content of a website by a creator of said website." This process produces a "plurality of labels" for each website according to a "universally-agreed convention," which are then stored on a search engine's computer to facilitate more precise, label-based searches by the public (’339 Patent, col. 19:1-20:12). The solution relies on creating a structured, symbolic representation of a website's content rather than relying on the ambiguous text of the site itself.
• Technical Importance: The invention proposed a standardized convention for website creators to self-label their content, aiming to create a more structured and reliably searchable internet.

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint does not identify specific claims asserted in the underlying litigation (Compl. ¶13). The independent claim of the ’339 Patent is:
• Claim 1 (Method): A method for labeling of Internet websites comprising:
  • creating and encoding data about the searchable content of a website by a creator of said website... according to a universally-agreed convention, so as to produce a plurality of labels for each website...;
  • incorporating these labels in a file resident on the website;
  • copying and storing the labels on a search engine's own computer; and
  • providing public access to the search engine's computer through the Internet for purposes of facilitating searches based on the labels...

U.S. Patent No. 7,873,665 - "Method for Digitally Labelling Websites"

• Technology Synopsis: This patent is a continuation of the same family and describes the same core technology of "multi-parameter digital labelling." It discloses gathering unambiguous qualitative data about a website, producing a plurality of digital labels from that data, and domiciling those labels on a computer network to enable precise, parameter-based searching by the public (’665 Patent, col. 23:28-56).
• Asserted Claims: The complaint does not specify which claims were asserted (Compl. ¶13).
• Accused Features: The underlying complaint accused New Life's website of infringing the Gonzalez Patents (Compl. ¶13).

U.S. Patent No. 8,065,333 - "Method for Digitally Labelling Websites"

• Technology Synopsis: This patent also belongs to the same family and covers the method of creating and using digital labels to categorize websites. The technology aims to solve the imprecision of keyword-based internet searches by creating a structured, searchable database of website characteristics defined by the labels (’333 Patent, Abstract; col. 1:13-24).
• Asserted Claims: The complaint does not specify which claims were asserted (Compl. ¶13).
• Accused Features: The underlying complaint accused New Life's website of infringing the Gonzalez Patents (Compl. ¶13).

U.S. Patent No. 8,296,325 - "Method for Digitally Labelling Websites"

• Technology Synopsis: As another member of the Gonzalez patent family, this patent discloses a system for digital labeling where personal preference labels are encoded on a website to denote its content. The system includes means for scanning and reading these labels to allow for filtering and more precise search results, aiming to improve upon conventional keyword-based search methods (’325 Patent, col. 24:1-13; Abstract).
• Asserted Claims: The complaint does not specify which claims were asserted (Compl. ¶13).
• Accused Features: The underlying complaint accused New Life's website of infringing the Gonzalez Patents (Compl. ¶13).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The instrumentality accused in the underlying litigation was the website operated by New Life Ventures, Inc. (Compl. ¶32).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint for malicious prosecution does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of the technical functionality of New Life's website. It states only that New Life "operated a website from a server in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida" (Compl. ¶32).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint does not contain new infringement allegations or a claim chart. Instead, it alleges that the infringement claims in the prior litigation were baseless. The narrative theory for why the Gonzalez Patents were not valid and/or not infringed is as follows:

The complaint alleges that the core inventive concept of all the Gonzalez Patents, "multi-parameter digital labeling," is "identical to prior art inventions dating back to as early as 1946 in the field of computer databases" (Compl. ¶21). It further alleges this concept was publicly used by eBay "at least as early as April 29, 1999," which predates the patents' earliest priority date (Compl. ¶22). The complaint asserts that Defendants were aware of this invalidating prior art and were also "aware that New Life did not infringe the Gonzalez Patents" before filing the underlying complaint (Compl. ¶¶26, 27). The allegations of malice and lack of probable cause are supported by quoting the deposition testimony of the inventor, Emmanuel Gonzalez, who allegedly admitted that a system like eBay's, which uses parameters such as price, location, and brand for a product, would constitute "multi-parameter digital labeling" (Compl. ¶38).

Identified Points of Contention

• The core dispute in the underlying case, as framed by the current complaint, raises several questions:
  • Scope Questions: What is the proper scope of "multi-parameter digital labeling"? Does the term, as claimed in the patents, read on established database indexing and search functionality widely used in the prior art?
  • Technical Questions: Does the evidence show that the functionality described by the inventor as meeting the definition of his invention was, in fact, disclosed in the prior art or in public use before the critical date? The complaint suggests the answer is yes, based on the existence of eBay and the inventor's deposition testimony (Compl. ¶¶22, 38).

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "multi-parameter digital labeling"
• Context and Importance: This term appears to define the central concept of all five Gonzalez Patents (Compl. ¶19). The viability of the malicious prosecution claim depends heavily on whether this concept was so clearly anticipated by prior art that filing an infringement suit based on it constituted bad faith. Practitioners may focus on this term because the complaint alleges it describes a concept that "dates back to the earliest databases" (Compl. ¶21).
• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The '807 Patent specification provides a simple example: "In computer field 'A', place a '0' or a '1' to indicate if a person is male or female... In field 'B', place a 0 to indicate a college graduate... Should one want to identify males who are not college graduates, the computer would search Field A for 0s, and Field B for null entries" (’807 Patent, col. 4:63 - col. 5:2). This language could support a broad interpretation covering any database system that allows searching across multiple distinct fields or attributes.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification repeatedly describes the invention in the context of a "special-purpose Host Website" with a "subject- or area-specific scope" that uses "low-level artificial intelligence" to understand synonyms and guide searches (’807 Patent, col. 3:1-4, col. 3:62-65). This could support a narrower construction requiring a more specialized and intelligent system than a generic multi-field database search.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: This section is not applicable, as the complaint is for malicious prosecution, not infringement.
• Willful Infringement: The core allegations of the complaint are analogous to a claim of bad-faith litigation. The complaint alleges that the underlying infringement lawsuit was filed "with malice and/or without probable cause" (Compl. ¶28). This is based on Defendants' alleged pre-suit knowledge of invalidating prior art and New Life's non-infringement (Compl. ¶¶26, 27). The complaint further alleges that the inventor, Mr. Gonzalez, made "false and knowingly false" statements to the USPTO during prosecution to overcome prior art rejections (Compl. ¶¶30, 31). Finally, it cites the inventor's deposition testimony that he had little technical knowledge and relied entirely on his attorneys' recommendation of whom to sue (Compl. ¶37).

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

This case will not turn on traditional claim construction or infringement analysis, but on the state of mind and reasonableness of the defendant attorneys' conduct in the prior litigation. The key questions for the court will be:

• A core issue will be one of probable cause: Based on the facts known to the defendant attorneys when they filed the '907 Case, was it objectively baseless to assert that the "multi-parameter digital labeling" concept was patentable over prior art database technology and that New Life's website infringed the claims?
• A central question will be one of malice: Does the evidence, including the alleged knowledge of prior art and the inventor's deposition testimony, support a finding that the defendants pursued the prior litigation for an improper purpose, such as extracting a nuisance-value settlement, with reckless disregard for the merits of their claims?
• A key technical-legal question will be one of definitional scope: Can the patented concept of "multi-parameter digital labeling" be meaningfully distinguished from the long-standing practice of creating searchable databases with multiple indexed fields, a question that was central to the invalidity judgment in the underlying case?