GeoSymm Ventures LLC v. IBM Corp

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: GeoSymm Ventures LLC (Texas)
  • Defendant: IBM Corporation (New York)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 2:23-cv-00325, E.D. Tex., 07/13/2023
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant maintains an established place of business in the Eastern District of Texas and has committed the alleged acts of infringement within the district.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that certain unidentified products of the Defendant infringe a patent related to assistive agent technology that interprets user requests and interacts with web services.
• Technical Context: The technology at issue falls within the domain of digital virtual assistants, which process natural language queries to perform tasks and retrieve information from various online sources.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that Plaintiff is the assignee of the patent-in-suit. No other procedural events, such as prior litigation or administrative proceedings involving the patent, are mentioned.

Case Timeline

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

U.S. Patent No. 9,130,900 - “Assistive agent,” issued September 8, 2015

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent describes a deficiency in existing Personal Information Managers (PIMs) and early virtual assistants, which, despite having access to a user's personal data (contacts, calendar, etc.), fail to "take full advantage of the information" to provide intelligent, context-aware assistance ('900 Patent, col. 1:21-31).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a system and method where an "assistive agent" receives a user's request, determines the "semantics" of that request by identifying a domain, task, and parameters, and then accesses multiple "semantic web services" via an Application Program Interface (API) to formulate a response ('900 Patent, Abstract; Fig. 2). This solution aims to create a more powerful assistant by acting as an intelligent intermediary between a user's natural language request and the structured, programmatic interfaces of various backend services ('900 Patent, col. 3:4-9).
• Technical Importance: The technology represents an approach to making virtual assistants more capable by integrating semantic analysis of a user's intent with the ability to programmatically call and synthesize data from disparate third-party web services ('900 Patent, col. 1:46-53).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint does not identify specific claims, instead referring to "Exemplary '900 Patent Claims" allegedly detailed in an exhibit not attached to the publicly filed complaint (Compl. ¶11). Independent claim 1 is representative of the patent's core method.
• Independent Claim 1 recites a method with the following essential elements:
  • Receiving a user request from a mobile device.
  • Determining the semantics (domain, task, parameter) of the request by parsing it "along with location and user personal information captured by the mobile device including telephone, texting, and user activity."
  • Accessing one or more "semantic web services" via an API to retrieve matching data.
  • Providing personalized recommendations.
  • Presenting possible responses by interacting with the web services and "confirming user responses by accessing a text messaging API or a phonebook API."
  • Determining a responsive answer and responding to the user.
• The complaint alleges infringement of "one or more claims," suggesting that dependent claims may also be at issue (Compl. ¶11).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The complaint does not name any specific accused products, methods, or services from the Defendant (Compl. ¶11). It refers to "Exemplary Defendant Products" that are purportedly identified in an "Exhibit 2," which was not included with the filed complaint (Compl. ¶16).

Functionality and Market Context

The complaint does not provide any description of the relevant features, technical functionality, or market positioning of the accused instrumentalities.

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint references claim charts in an unprovided "Exhibit 2" to support its infringement allegations (Compl. ¶16). Without this exhibit, a detailed element-by-element analysis is not possible. The narrative infringement theory alleges that the "Exemplary Defendant Products" practice the technology claimed in the ’900 Patent, satisfying all elements of the asserted claims by receiving user requests and interacting with backend services to provide responses (Compl. ¶16).

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

Identified Points of Contention

• Technical Questions: A central factual question will be what evidence exists to show that the accused products perform the specific analysis required by the claims. For instance, what evidence demonstrates that an accused product determines the semantics of a user request by parsing it along with captured data from a user's "telephone, texting, and user activity," as explicitly required by claim 1 ('900 Patent, col. 27:60-65)?
• Scope Questions: The infringement analysis may turn on the scope of the term "semantic web services" ('900 Patent, col. 28:1). A key question is whether the back-end services accessed by the accused IBM products qualify as "semantic" under the patent's definition, or if they are conventional web services that fall outside the claim scope.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

The complaint does not offer a basis for claim construction disputes. However, based on the patent's language, the following terms may become central to the case.

"semantic web services"

• Context and Importance: This term is fundamental to the patent's architecture, defining the types of external services the "assistive agent" interacts with. The construction of this term will likely determine whether the services and APIs used by Defendant's products are within the scope of the claims.
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification provides examples of third-party sources such as "Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and the like" ('900 Patent, col. 4:33-35). This could support an argument that the term encompasses a wide range of commercially available, API-driven services, regardless of their underlying technology.
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification also references "web ontology language" and "Resource Description Framework (RDF)" ('900 Patent, col. 13:21-23). Additionally, claim 19 recites an "ontology associated with the semantic web services." This language may support a narrower construction requiring the use of formal ontologies or specific semantic web technologies, rather than any generic web service.

"confirming user responses by accessing a text messaging API or a phonebook API"

• Context and Importance: This limitation in claim 1 describes a specific method for confirming a user's choice or action. Infringement will depend on whether Defendant's products perform this confirmation step using the specific APIs recited.
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: Parties may argue this language covers any process where a user's selection triggers a communication (like sending a text) or a contact lookup, viewing the API access as an inherent part of that functionality.
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The language requires "confirming user responses by accessing" these specific APIs. This may support a narrower reading where the system must directly call a text messaging or phonebook API as the means of confirmation, as illustrated in the patent's discussion of sending a text message to a contact like "Siri Tunes" ('900 Patent, col. 11:25-39; Fig. 4A).

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement, stating that Defendant distributes "product literature and website materials" that instruct and encourage end users to use the accused products in a manner that allegedly infringes the ’900 Patent (Compl. ¶14-15).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint does not contain an explicit allegation of willful infringement. It alleges that Defendant has had "Actual Knowledge of Infringement" at least since the date the complaint was served, which could form the basis for a claim of post-suit willfulness (Compl. ¶13). No allegations of pre-suit knowledge are made.

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

Given the limited detail in the initial pleading, the case appears to hinge on two fundamental sets of questions that will need to be resolved through discovery and claim construction.

1. A primary issue will be one of evidence and specificity: As the complaint fails to identify the accused products or provide any technical details of their operation, a threshold question is what specific IBM products are at issue, and what factual evidence can Plaintiff produce to show that they practice each limitation of the asserted claims, particularly the detailed data-capture and parsing steps recited in claim 1?

2. The case will also involve a core question of definitional scope: How will the court construe the term "semantic web services"? The resolution of this issue—whether it is interpreted broadly to cover modern cloud APIs or narrowly to require formal ontologies—may be dispositive for the infringement analysis, as it will define the technological boundaries of the patent's claims.