DCT
2:18-cv-02118
20 20 Vision Center LLC v. DigitalOptometrics LLC
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: 20/20 Vision Center, LLC (Delaware)
- Defendant: DigitalOptometrics LLC (Delaware)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP
- Case Identification: 2:18-cv-02118, E.D.N.Y., 07/06/2018
- Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant maintains its principal place of business within the district, subjecting it to personal jurisdiction and establishing residency.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s telehealth-based eye examination system infringes a patent related to systems and methods for remotely connecting customers at diagnostic centers with eye-care practitioners.
- Technical Context: The technology domain is teleophthalmology, which leverages telecommunications to provide remote eye care, aiming to increase the accessibility and efficiency of vision examinations.
- Key Procedural History: The complaint alleges that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office conducted a thorough examination of the patent-in-suit and found its inventions to be new and non-obvious in light of prior art.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2012-11-06 | U.S. Patent No. 9,230,062 Priority Date |
| 2016-01-05 | U.S. Patent No. 9,230,062 Issued |
| In or around 2016 | Defendant DigitalOptometrics Formed |
| 2018-07-06 | Complaint Filed |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 9,230,062 - "Systems and Methods for Enabling Customers to Obtain Vision and Eye Health Examinations"
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The patent describes that many individuals fail to obtain regular, comprehensive eye examinations due to factors of time, cost, and convenience, and that prior art automated systems are often limited to basic vision screenings rather than comprehensive exams (’062 Patent, col. 3:4-30).
- The Patented Solution: The invention is a telehealth system architecture centered on a server that connects a customer at a "diagnostic center" with a remote eye-care practitioner (’062 Patent, Fig. 1). The diagnostic center contains ophthalmic equipment that can be controlled remotely, allowing the practitioner to access examination data, evaluate the customer's eye health and vision, and provide an eye health report and prescription without being physically present (’062 Patent, Abstract; col. 4:5-13).
- Technical Importance: This system architecture was designed to make comprehensive eye care more accessible by allowing a centralized pool of expert practitioners to serve multiple, geographically dispersed diagnostic locations efficiently (’062 Patent, col. 4:21-24).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent claim 13 and dependent claims 14, 15, and 17 (’062 Patent, col. 52:19-53:49; Compl. ¶75).
- The essential elements of independent claim 13, a server claim, include:
- Permitting eye-care practitioners to login to a web-based platform.
- Tracking availability data for the practitioners (e.g., who is logged in and not currently engaged in an exam).
- Receiving a request from a diagnostic center to select a practitioner.
- In response, selecting a practitioner based on the availability data.
- Administering an eye examination with both an objective portion and a subjective portion, where the subjective portion uses an audio response system and an iterative process.
- The iterative process includes selecting questions, "automatically adjusting" ophthalmic equipment based on audio responses, and determining when sufficient data is collected.
- Receiving customer examination data from the diagnostic center, transmitting it to the practitioner's device, and receiving evaluation data back from the practitioner.
- Providing an eye health report to the customer based on the practitioner's evaluation.
- The complaint reserves the right to assert additional claims (’062 Patent, col. 52:19-53:49).
III. The Accused Instrumentality
Product Identification
The "Tele-Optometry by DigitalOptometrics" system and associated services (the "Accused Products") (Compl. ¶37).
Functionality and Market Context
The Accused Products are described as a telehealth system that allows patients at an optical exam location to receive a "comprehensive eye examination" from a licensed optometrist at a remote location (Compl. ¶36). The process allegedly involves an on-site ophthalmic technician who gathers patient data using "remote operated optical equipment" and facilitates a live video conference with the remote optometrist (Compl. ¶38). The remote optometrist then reviews the data, can "further refine the corrective lens findings remotely," and issues a prescription (Compl. ¶39). The complaint highlights that this system allows a "panel of Optometrists" to serve multiple exam locations simultaneously (Compl. ¶40). A screenshot from a marketing video shows a remote technician's workstation with multiple monitors displaying patient information and a live video feed, which illustrates the alleged web-based platform used to manage the examination (Compl. p. 13).
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
’062 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 13) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| a server... configured to... permit eye-care practitioners to login to a web-based platform to administer eye examinations to customers over a network in real-time | The Accused Products use web-based platforms enabling remote technicians and optometrists to log-in and administer eye exams to customers over the internet in real-time. | ¶51 | col. 5:26-34 |
| track availability data associated with the eye-care practitioners... indicating a set of eye-care practitioners who are currently logged into the web-based platform and whether each such eye-care practitioner is currently engaged in providing a real-time eye examination | The system uses a "panel of Optometrists" to serve multiple locations simultaneously, which allegedly requires tracking the availability of logged-in practitioners to match them with customers. | ¶52 | col. 5:44-50 |
| in response to receiving the request, select the eye-care practitioner to administer the eye examination based, at least in part, on analyzing the availability data | The servers allegedly select a remote technician and optometrist to administer an exam by analyzing the availability of the "panel of Optometrists" who are logged in and not currently engaged in an exam. | ¶55 | col. 5:51-61 |
| administer one or more tests to the customer... the eye examination including an objective portion... and a subjective portion that utilizes an audio response system | The Accused Products allegedly perform tests with an objective portion (using instruments like an autorefractor) and a subjective portion where a technician performs a refraction "while conversing with you by a live remote video conference unit." | ¶56, ¶57, ¶58 | col. 6:13-26 |
| the subjective portion of the eye examination is administered using an iterative process that includes... automatically adjusting ophthalmic equipment utilized in administering the subjective portion | The subjective refraction allegedly involves an iterative process where the patient is asked questions and the phoropter is remotely adjusted by the technician based on the patient's responses. A marketing video screenshot illustrates a remote technician communicating with a patient during such an exam (Compl. p. 10). | ¶59, ¶60 | col. 6:40-49 |
| receive customer examination data generated by the ophthalmic equipment at the diagnostic center | The system enables "the gathering of patient eye data from ten (10) health and vision analysis tests," and marketing videos allegedly show this data is delivered to the remote technician and stored in "cloud" servers. | ¶62 | col. 6:53-57 |
| an eye health report based, at least in part, on the selected eye-care practitioner's review and evaluation... is provided to the customer | At the conclusion of the exam, the patient is allegedly "issued a new corrective prescription for glasses or contacts," which constitutes an eye health report. | ¶65 | col. 7:4-9 |
Identified Points of Contention
- Scope Questions: A central question may be whether the server's role in facilitating an exam conducted by a remote technician meets the claim requirement that the server is "configured to... administer" the tests. The defendant may argue that the human technician, not the server, is the entity "administering" the subjective portion of the exam.
- Technical Questions: The complaint alleges that remote operation of equipment by a technician satisfies the "automatically adjusting" limitation. A key technical and legal question will be what evidence supports that this adjustment is "automatic" based on the patient's audio response, as opposed to being a manual adjustment performed by a remote human operator who is listening to that response.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
The Term: "server... configured to... administer one or more tests"
Context and Importance: This term is critical because infringement hinges on whether the server's function of enabling and coordinating a remote technician's actions constitutes "administering" the test. Practitioners may focus on this term to dispute whether the server is merely a communication tool or an active agent in the examination process as claimed.
Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The patent's summary describes a "system" that provides the examination, where the server is the central component managing data flow and access, suggesting its role is integral to administration, not just passive transmission (’062 Patent, col. 4:5-13).
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The detailed description of an "automated refraction process" describes a series of steps performed "by a customer diagnostic center" (’062 Patent, col. 26:10-15), which could be argued to imply a higher level of direct, automated control by the system's hardware/software, rather than facilitation of a human-led process.
The Term: "automatically adjusting ophthalmic equipment"
Context and Importance: The definition of "automatically" will be dispositive for a key step of the claimed iterative process. The dispute will likely center on whether remote human control qualifies as "automatic" in the context of the patent.
Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification mentions the system can be "automated or semi-automated" (’062 Patent, col. 4:1-2), which may support an interpretation that "automatically" does not exclude all human involvement, but rather distinguishes the process from one where a practitioner is physically in the room with the patient.
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The claim language links the adjustment directly to "the responses received from the customer via the audio response system" (’062 Patent, col. 53:1-3). This phrasing could support a narrower reading that the server's software logic, not a human operator, must trigger the adjustment in direct response to the received audio data.
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of indirect infringement. While the prayer for relief seeks an injunction against indirect infringement, the body of the complaint does not contain specific factual allegations supporting knowledge or intent (Compl. p. 24).
- Willful Infringement: The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of willful infringement. The prayer for relief requests enhanced damages, but the complaint does not allege pre-suit knowledge of the patent or other facts typically used to substantiate a claim for willfulness (Compl. p. 24).
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
- A core issue will be one of functional responsibility: does the accused system's server, which facilitates a remote technician's operation of equipment, perform the specific functions of "administering" a test and "automatically adjusting" equipment as required by the claim, or is it a more passive communication platform for the human operators who perform those functions?
- A key question of claim construction will be whether the term "automatically adjusting," in the context of the patent, can encompass adjustments made by a remote human operator in response to a patient's verbal feedback, or if it requires a direct, software-driven action by the server without human intervention.