GeoSymm Ventures LLC v. Walmart Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: GeoSymm Ventures LLC (Texas)
  • Defendant: Walmart Inc. (Delaware)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 2:24-cv-00342, E.D. Tex., 05/08/2024
• Venue Allegations: Venue is alleged to be proper because Defendant maintains an established place of business in the Eastern District of Texas.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s unspecified products infringe a patent related to virtual assistant technology that interprets user requests and interacts with various web services.
• Technical Context: The technology at issue involves systems, often called virtual personal assistants, that process natural language user requests to control or query a wide range of disparate software applications and data services through a unified interface.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint states 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’s background section notes that early personal information managers (PIMs) and even emerging virtual personal assistants (VPAs) failed to fully integrate and leverage the disparate sources of information available on a user's device and on the web, limiting their utility ('900 Patent, col. 1:21-30).
• The Patented Solution: The invention describes a system and method where an "assistive agent" acts as an intelligent intermediary. It receives a user's request, determines the user's intent by analyzing its "semantics" (e.g., the domain, task, and parameters of the request), and then accesses one or more "semantic web services" through an Application Programming Interface (API) to formulate a response ('900 Patent, Abstract; Fig. 2). This architecture allows the agent to perform complex actions, such as parsing a voice command to set a calendar appointment by interacting with a calendar API on the user's device ('900 Patent, col. 12:9-14; Fig. 4B).
• Technical Importance: This approach provides a unified method for a single assistant to interact with a multitude of otherwise disconnected applications, services, and data sources, aiming to create a more powerful and context-aware user experience ('900 Patent, col. 3:1-9).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint does not identify specific claims, instead referring to "Exemplary '900 Patent Claims" contained in a separate exhibit (Compl. ¶11). Claim 1 is the first independent method claim.
• The essential elements of independent claim 1 include:
  • Receiving a user request for assistance from a mobile device;
  • Determining the semantics of the request by parsing it to identify meaning, doing so "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 data matching the determined semantics;
  • Identifying, generating, or providing personalized recommendations;
  • Presenting possible responses to the user by interacting with the web services and confirming user responses by accessing a text messaging or phonebook API;
  • Determining a responsive answer; and
  • Responding to the user request.
• The complaint alleges infringement of "one or more claims," suggesting the right to assert dependent claims is reserved (Compl. ¶11).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The complaint does not identify any accused products or services by name in the main body of the document. It refers generally to "Exemplary Defendant Products" that are purportedly identified in claim charts attached as Exhibit 2, which was not included with the filed complaint (Compl. ¶11, ¶16).

Functionality and Market Context

The complaint does not provide any specific details regarding the technical functionality, operation, or market context of the accused products. All such information is incorporated by reference from the missing Exhibit 2 (Compl. ¶17).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint alleges that the "Exemplary Defendant Products" infringe the '900 Patent by practicing the claimed technology and satisfying all elements of the asserted claims (Compl. ¶16). The detailed basis for this allegation is contained entirely within claim charts in Exhibit 2, which were incorporated by reference but not filed with the complaint (Compl. ¶17). The complaint also puts forward a theory of direct infringement based on internal testing and use of the accused products by Defendant’s employees (Compl. ¶12). Without access to the specific product features and their mapping to claim elements in Exhibit 2, a detailed infringement analysis is not possible from the complaint alone.

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

• Identified Points of Contention:
  • Scope Questions: A central dispute may concern the scope of the term "semantic web services." The patent describes these services as including third-party sources like "Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and the like" ('900 Patent, col. 4:32-35), but also references specific technologies like "Resource Description Framework (RDF)" ('900 Patent, col. 13:18-19). This raises the question of whether the backend systems and APIs used by the accused products, whether proprietary or third-party, fall within the patent’s definition of a "semantic web service."
  • Technical Questions: Claim 1 requires that the system determine the request's semantics using not only the request itself but also "location and user personal information captured by the mobile device including telephone, texting, and user activity" ('900 Patent, col. 27:61-65). A key evidentiary question will be what proof exists that the accused products capture and utilize this specific combination of user data (telephony, messaging, and general activity) in their semantic analysis, as opposed to using a more limited set of inputs like GPS data and the direct voice command.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "semantic web services"

• Context and Importance: This term appears in the core "accessing" step of the independent claims and defines the universe of external systems the invention is designed to interact with. The outcome of the infringement analysis will depend heavily on whether the services accessed by the accused products meet this definition. Practitioners may focus on this term because its definition could either broadly cover any modern API-based service or be narrowly restricted to services using specific ontology protocols.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification provides a non-limiting, illustrative list of sources, stating they "may include for example, but not limited to, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and the like sources," which suggests the term is meant to be interpreted broadly to cover a variety of online data and service providers ('900 Patent, col. 4:32-35).
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification also states that the services "may include Resource Description Framework (RDF)" and "web ontology language" ('900 Patent, col. 13:18-22). A party could argue these references limit the term to its technical meaning in computer science, requiring a formal ontological structure, rather than applying to any generic web API.

• The Term: "parsing the user request ... along with location and user personal information captured by the mobile device including telephone, texting, and user activity"

• Context and Importance: This limitation from claim 1 defines the specific data inputs required for the system's "intelligent" analysis of a user's intent. Infringement will depend on whether the accused system is shown to capture and integrate this precise set of data sources in its parsing process.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification describes using "dynamic data about the user such as for example, but not limited to, user location, time, profile, recent activities, and the like" ('900 Patent, col. 17:12-15). This could support an argument that the claim encompasses any system that uses a combination of the user's immediate request and other contextual data.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The explicit recitation of "telephone, texting, and user activity" could be interpreted to require that the system specifically access and analyze data from the device's phone and messaging applications. A system that only uses GPS location and the content of the voice command itself may not meet the full scope of this limitation as written.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement, stating that Defendant provides "product literature and website materials" that instruct and encourage end users to use the accused products in a manner that infringes the '900 Patent (Compl. ¶14).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint alleges that the service of the complaint constitutes "actual knowledge of infringement" and that Defendant's continued activities thereafter are performed despite this knowledge (Compl. ¶13-14). While not explicitly pleading "willfulness," this allegation forms a basis for a claim of post-filing willful infringement and supports the request for a finding that the case is "exceptional" under 35 U.S.C. § 285 (Compl. p.5, Prayer E.i).

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

• A central issue will be one of evidentiary sufficiency: Given the complaint's skeletal nature and reliance on an external, unfiled exhibit, a primary question for litigation will be whether Plaintiff can produce sufficient factual evidence to show that the unspecified accused products perform each and every step of the asserted claims, particularly the complex data-integration and parsing requirements.
• The case will also turn on definitional scope: Can the term "semantic web service," which the patent describes with both broad commercial examples and specific technical protocols, be construed to cover the particular backend architecture and APIs utilized by Defendant’s products?
• Finally, a key point of contention will likely be one of functional operation: Does the accused system's process for interpreting user intent rely on the specific combination of data inputs recited in the claim—including "telephone, texting, and user activity"—or is there a fundamental mismatch in the way the accused technology operates?