BillSure LLC v. Latro Services Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: BillSure LLC (New Mexico)
  • Defendant: LATRO Services, Inc. (Pennsylvania)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Golomb Legal, P.C.; Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 5:25-cv-07031, E.D. Pa., 12/15/2025
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania because Defendant is incorporated in Pennsylvania, maintains an established place of business in the district, has committed acts of alleged infringement in the district, and Plaintiff has suffered harm there.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s unnamed products and services infringe a patent related to a method and system for verifying network resource usage records to prevent billing fraud.
• Technical Context: The technology addresses the problem of accurately billing for network usage (e.g., at a public Wi-Fi hotspot) when the network operator is a third party separate from the user's primary billing provider, creating a potential for fraudulent usage reporting.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint does not reference any prior litigation, licensing history, or post-grant proceedings involving the patent-in-suit.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2005-09-02	’457 Patent Priority Date
2011-08-23	’457 Patent Issued
2025-12-15	Complaint Filed

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

U.S. Patent No. 8,005,457 - “Method and system for verifying network resource usage records”

• Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 8,005,457 (“Method and system for verifying network resource usage records”), issued August 23, 2011.

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: In network environments like public Wi-Fi hotspots, the entity providing network access (the "Access Gateway Operator") is often different from the entity that bills the end-user (the "Billing Service Provider"). This creates an opportunity for the gateway operator to fraudulently inflate usage statistics (e.g., data transferred, time connected) sent to the billing provider, resulting in overpayment (’457 Patent, col. 2:10-21). Prior art methods focused on securing data during transmission but did not address the accuracy of the usage data at its source (’457 Patent, col. 3:10-25).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a system where the user's own device periodically generates its own record of network usage ("Billing Data") and sends it to the access gateway during an active session (’457 Patent, Abstract). The access gateway compares this user-provided data with its own independently-tracked usage statistics. If the two data sets "correlate," the session continues; if not, the gateway has the ability to terminate the connection to prevent further potentially fraudulent billing (’457 Patent, col. 6:1-32, Fig. 3). The user-generated billing data is encoded, preventing the gateway operator from modifying it before it is ultimately forwarded to the billing provider for settlement (’457 Patent, col. 6:32-41).
• Technical Importance: This system introduces a real-time, trust-based verification mechanism, using the end-user's device as an independent auditor to validate the usage data generated by a potentially untrusted third-party network operator (’457 Patent, col. 4:51-62).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts "one or more claims" of the ’457 Patent without specifying them, instead referencing an external exhibit not attached to the publicly filed complaint (Compl. ¶11). Independent claim 1 is representative of the system claimed:
  • An access gateway device for coupling to a network user device and a billing service provider's system;
  • wherein the network user device generates billing data based on its actual network resource usage;
  • the access gateway device is configured to compare received billing data from the network user device with corresponding billing data generated by the access gateway device itself; and
  • if the received billing data "correlates" to the gateway-generated data, the access gateway device stores predetermined portions of the received billing data.
• The complaint notes that infringement is alleged for "at least the exemplary claims" identified in its charts, suggesting the right to assert additional claims is reserved (Compl. ¶11).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The complaint does not name any specific accused products, referring to them only as the "Exemplary Defendant Products" (Compl. ¶11).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint alleges that these unidentified products practice the technology claimed by the ’457 Patent (Compl. ¶16). It does not provide any specific details about the functionality, operation, or market context of the accused products beyond the general allegation of infringement. The complaint incorporates by reference claim charts from an unprovided Exhibit 2, which purportedly contain these details (Compl. ¶17).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint does not contain narrative infringement allegations or claim charts mapping elements of the asserted claims to the accused products. It states that such charts are provided in Exhibit 2, which was not filed with the complaint (Compl. ¶¶16-17). The core infringement theory, based on the complaint's general allegations, is that the "Exemplary Defendant Products" constitute or are part of a system that verifies network resource usage by comparing billing data received from an end-user's device with billing data generated by an access gateway (Compl. ¶11; ’457 Patent, cl. 1). No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

Identified Points of Contention

• The lack of specificity in the pleadings raises several threshold questions.
  • Evidentiary Questions: A primary issue will be whether Plaintiff can produce evidence that Defendant's systems perform the central claimed function: receiving billing data from a user device during a session and comparing it against the gateway's own data for verification.
  • Scope Questions: The analysis will likely focus on whether Defendant's products, once identified, constitute an "access gateway device" as defined by the patent and whether any data they process qualifies as "billing data" under the claim construction.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

The Term: "correlates" (Claim 1)

• Context and Importance: This term is central to the infringement analysis, as it defines the required relationship between the user-generated billing data and the gateway-generated data. The outcome of its construction will determine how closely the two data sets must match for infringement to be found.
• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification suggests a degree of tolerance, stating the gateway may "take into account the latency involved in generating and transmitting the billing data" and determine if a received parameter is "within the specific range of values that would be expected" (’457 Patent, col. 6:17-22). This could support a construction that allows for minor discrepancies.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent also provides an example where "the expected range of values would only be a single value," implying a more exact match may be required in some circumstances (’457 Patent, col. 6:26-28). A defendant may argue this language limits "correlates" to a strict or near-exact correspondence.

The Term: "billing data" (Claim 1)

• Context and Importance: The definition of this term is critical because the claims require that this specific type of data be generated by the user device, received by the gateway, and compared. If the data exchanged in Defendant's system does not meet the definition of "billing data," there may be no infringement.
• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The patent provides a broad definition: "any data, however encoded, that could be used as the basis for invoicing or otherwise charging a User" and may include usage statistics or monetary data (’457 Patent, col. 1:31-36). This language supports a wide scope.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The detailed description also discusses specific examples, such as a "(digitally signed) 'payment' or 'authorization' acknowledgement" for a specific amount of time or money (’457 Patent, col. 7:14-25). A party could argue the term should be limited to data that has a direct and explicit financial or authorization component, rather than raw usage logs.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement, asserting that Defendant distributes "product literature and website materials" that instruct end users on how to use its products in a manner that infringes the ’457 Patent (Compl. ¶14).
• Willful Infringement: Plaintiff alleges willful infringement based on Defendant's alleged continuation of infringing activities after gaining "actual knowledge" of the ’457 Patent upon service of the complaint and its accompanying claim charts (Compl. ¶¶13-14).

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

This dispute, as pleaded, appears to hinge on fundamental questions of evidence and claim scope that must be resolved before a detailed technical analysis is possible.

• A primary issue will be one of evidentiary sufficiency: Can the Plaintiff substantiate its claims by identifying the accused products and demonstrating that they perform the core inventive concept—a real-time comparison between billing data generated by a user's device and corresponding data generated by the network gateway?
• A central legal question will be one of definitional scope: How broadly will the court construe the term "correlates"? Whether it means an approximate match within an expected range or a more precise, value-for-value comparison will be critical to determining infringement.
• A key technical question will be one of system architecture: Does the accused instrumentality actually receive "billing data" from the end-user device for the purpose of verification, as required by the claims, or does it use a different architecture for fraud detection that falls outside the patent's scope?