Renuart v. Koda Health Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Dr. Don Renuart and John Cachat (Ohio)
  • Defendant: Koda Health, Inc. (Texas) and Tatiana Fofanova
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Pro Se (John Cachat)
• Case Identification: 1:25-cv-01489, N.D. Ohio, 07/16/2025
• Venue Allegations: Venue is alleged to be proper because the Plaintiffs reside in the district, and Defendants are alleged to offer products for sale, transact business, and have committed or induced acts of infringement within the district.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiffs allege that Defendant’s Advance Care Planning Software infringes a patent related to a system and method for creating and managing directed medical care instructions.
• Technical Context: The technology concerns computer-based systems designed to help individuals create legally compliant advance care directives (such as living wills or DNR orders) through an educational, interactive process.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint alleges that Plaintiffs provided pre-suit notice to Defendant of the alleged infringement and offered licensing discussions, which may be relevant to any subsequent claims of willful infringement.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2006-05-12	’830 Patent Priority Date
2012-11-06	U.S. Patent No. 8,306,830 Issues
2025-07-16	Complaint Filed

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

• Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 8,306,830, "DIRECTED MEDICAL CARE SYSTEM AND METHOD," issued November 6, 2012 (’830 Patent).

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent’s background section describes existing advance directives like living wills and Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) orders as "fragmented, non-uniform," and often vague due to undefined terms like "extraordinary measure" (’830 Patent, col. 1:31-62). It further notes that these documents often lack transportability and are not immediately available to medical personnel in an emergency, rendering them "useless" (’830 Patent, col. 2:4-10).
• The Patented Solution: The invention is a computer-implemented system that guides an individual through an interactive and educational process to create specific medical care instructions (’830 Patent, Abstract). The system is designed to educate the user on complex medical and legal terms, capture their decisions, generate a legally compliant document, and store it in a central, electronically accessible database for immediate retrieval by medical personnel in an emergency (’830 Patent, col. 4:11-19; Fig. 1). The system also includes a mechanism for monitoring changes in laws and reminding the user to update their directives (’830 Patent, col. 9:36-54).
• Technical Importance: The invention aims to replace static, often inaccessible paper-based living wills with a dynamic, web-based system that ensures a patient's specific, educated, and legally current end-of-life wishes are available to healthcare providers when needed (’830 Patent, col. 4:56-62).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts infringement of "one or more claims" without specifying which ones (Compl. ¶17). The following analysis focuses on independent claim 1 as a representative claim.
• Independent Claim 1 (Method):
  • Providing health and medical education in "non-professional terminology."
  • Selecting requirements for addressing pre-selected medical emergencies and situations.
  • Inputting and electronically capturing and processing personal information.
  • Providing customized individualized data in response to a request.
  • Recording the individual's decisions as electronic instructions for medical care.
  • Placing the medical care decisions into compliance with relevant state and Federal laws.
  • Electronically integrating all related data and information.
  • Creating medical care instructions based on the processed data.
  • Providing the generated instructions to the individual for immediate review and revision.
  • Storing, retrieving, and processing the instructions for real-time accessibility by medical personnel.
  • Updating and maintaining the instructions, including generating reminders for the individual and automatically updating for changes in law.
• The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims.

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• Defendant’s "Advance Care Planning Software" (Compl. ¶17).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint alleges the accused instrumentality is a "system and method of preparing medical care instructions for an individual in an emergency situation" (Compl. ¶6). The alleged functionality includes obtaining patient information, educating the individual on medical and legal terms, creating medical care instructions based on legal and medical standards, storing them in a central computerized database, and providing immediate and secure access to medical personnel (Compl. ¶6). The complaint alleges Defendants design, manufacture, and sell these products and services within the United States (Compl. ¶6).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint does not contain a claim chart or provide a detailed mapping of accused product features to the elements of any specific patent claim. It makes a general allegation that the "Advance Care Planning Software incorporates systems and methods covered by the claims of the ’830 patent, as evidenced by Defendant’s public terms, marketing materials, and product descriptions" (Compl. ¶18). Without more specific allegations, a detailed infringement analysis is not possible based on the complaint alone.

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

• Identified Points of Contention:
  • Evidentiary Questions: A primary question will be what evidence Plaintiffs can produce to demonstrate that the accused software performs each of the specific steps recited in the asserted claims. The complaint's reliance on high-level marketing materials raises the question of whether the underlying technical operation of the software matches the claimed method steps.
  • Scope Questions: The analysis may focus on whether the accused software’s functionality meets specific claim limitations. For instance, does the software merely provide general information about laws, or does it perform the affirmative step of "placing... medical care decisions... into compliance with relevant state and Federal laws" as required by claim 1?

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "non-professional terminology" (from claim 1)

• Context and Importance: This term is central to the "education" aspect of the claimed invention. The infringement analysis will depend on the degree of simplification required to meet this limitation. Practitioners may focus on this term because its definition will determine whether standard medical explanations or a more simplified, layman-focused language is required.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification contrasts the invention with the confusion caused by undefined legal and medical terms in prior art documents, suggesting "non-professional" means simply avoiding technical jargon (’830 Patent, col. 1:53-62).
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent describes providing information in "easy-to-understand simple terms (i.e., non-medical terms)" when explaining complex procedures, which could support a narrower construction requiring a significant degree of simplification away from standard medical language (’830 Patent, col. 8:12-19).

• The Term: "placing... the particular medical care decisions... into compliance with relevant state and Federal laws" (from claim 1)

• Context and Importance: This limitation requires an active, functional step of ensuring legal compliance. The dispute may turn on whether the accused software performs this specific function. Practitioners may focus on this term because it appears to require more than just providing legally-sound templates; it suggests an automated process of conforming a user's specific choices to a legal framework.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The patent’s general description of creating "legally compliant management of advance care planning" could be argued to support a broader meaning where providing compliant forms or options suffices (Compl. ¶16).
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification describes a "monitoring apparatus" for tracking "international legal changes, federal legal changes, state legal changes" and automatically "updat[ing] and adjust[ing]" the documents to maintain compliance, suggesting an active, ongoing, and automated legal-checking function (’830 Patent, col. 8:48-54; Fig. 2).

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges active inducement and contributory infringement under 35 U.S.C. §§ 271(b) and (c) but does not plead specific facts to support the requisite elements of knowledge or intent (Compl. ¶19).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint alleges that "Plaintiffs have provided notice of Defendant's infringing activities and have attempted to resolve this matter amicably" (Compl. ¶20). This allegation appears to form the basis for the willfulness claim, suggesting infringement continued after Defendant allegedly gained knowledge of the patent from Plaintiffs (Compl. ¶22(c)).

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

• Evidentiary Sufficiency: A threshold issue will be whether the facts developed in discovery can substantiate the complaint's conclusory allegations. The case will depend on Plaintiffs' ability to present evidence demonstrating that the accused software's actual operation maps to each specific limitation of the asserted patent claims.
• Scope of Functional Claims: The case will likely turn on the construction of key functional claim terms. A central question will be one of functional performance: does the accused "Advance Care Planning Software" merely act as a sophisticated document generator with educational features, or does it perform the specific, automated functions required by the claims, such as actively "placing" a user's decisions "into compliance with relevant... laws"?