HyperQuery LLC v. Nemetschek Group

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: HyperQuery LLC (Delaware)
  • Defendant: Pipedrive OU (Estonia)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 2:25-cv-00043, E.D. Tex., 08/04/2025
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant has an established place of business in the district and has committed acts of patent infringement there.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant infringes a patent related to systems and methods for searching and downloading software applications based on user search intent.
• Technical Context: The technology concerns semantic search within application repositories, aiming to improve result relevancy by first determining a user's underlying "topic of interest" before selecting applications.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint is a "First Amended Complaint" and references an "Original Complaint filed 1/17/2025," which Plaintiff alleges established Defendant's actual knowledge of the patent-in-suit for the purposes of willful infringement.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2011-03-28	Earliest Priority Date for ’918 Patent
2013-12-11	Application Date for ’918 Patent
2016-12-27	Issue Date for ’918 Patent
2025-01-17	Original Complaint Filing Date
2025-08-04	First Amended Complaint Filing Date

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

U.S. Patent No. 9,529,918 - “System and methods thereof for downloading applications via a communication network”

• Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 9,529,918, “System and methods thereof for downloading applications via a communication network,” issued December 27, 2016.

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent’s background section describes prior art application search systems as inefficient and frustrating (’918 Patent, col. 1:56-2:9). These systems relied on simplistic keyword matching, which returned extensive lists of irrelevant applications, forcing users to engage in a "very time consuming" process of navigating "tens or hundreds of applications" to find a relevant one (Compl. ¶11; ’918 Patent, col. 2:5-7). For example, a search for "ticket" would return all applications containing that keyword, regardless of whether the user wanted movie, sport, or concert tickets (’918 Patent, col. 1:58-65).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a multi-step process that first determines the user's "search intent"—the underlying "topic of interest"—based on the query, and only then selects an application from a repository that matches that determined intent (’918 Patent, Abstract). The detailed description explains that this intent can be determined "implicitly" using environmental variables (e.g., location, time of day) or "explicitly" by analyzing the query itself using a "plurality of engines" that process tokenized portions of the query and compute "certainty scores" to identify relevant entities (’918 Patent, col. 4:8-29, col. 7:52-58; FIG. 3). This moves beyond simple keyword matching to a more semantic understanding of the user's goal.
• Technical Importance: The claimed approach represented a potential improvement in computer functionality by reducing wasted computational resources and network bandwidth associated with serving irrelevant search results and enabling a more efficient application discovery process (Compl. ¶¶16-18).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts infringement of one or more claims, highlighting concepts from independent claim 1 and dependent claims 3 and 7 (Compl. ¶14).
• Independent Claim 1 of the ’918 Patent recites a method with the following essential elements:
  • receiving an input search query from a user device;
  • determining the search intent based on the input search query;
  • selecting, based on the search intent, at least one application from at least one applications central repository;
  • causing an icon corresponding to the at least one selected application to be displayed;
  • receiving an input from the user device indicating a particular one of the selected applications;
  • causing establishment of a direct communication link to a location hosting the application; and
  • causing initiation of a download of the application.
• The complaint reserves the right to assert additional claims (Compl. ¶22).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The complaint identifies "Exemplary Defendant Products" but does not name specific products or services in the body of the complaint (Compl. ¶22). The infringement allegations are directed at products made, used, sold, or imported by Defendant Pipedrive OU (Compl. ¶22).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of the specific functionality of the accused products. It alleges in general terms that the accused products "practice the technology claimed by the '918 Patent" and incorporates by reference claim charts in an "Exhibit 2" which was not provided with the complaint document (Compl. ¶¶27-28).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint references claim charts in an external "Exhibit 2" that was not provided; therefore, the narrative infringement theory is summarized below in prose (Compl. ¶28).

The complaint alleges that Defendant's products infringe the ’918 Patent by performing a method that mirrors the steps of the asserted claims (Compl. ¶22). The core of the infringement theory appears to rest on the allegation that Defendant’s systems go beyond simple keyword matching and instead perform a two-step process (Compl. ¶17). First, the systems allegedly practice the "determining" step by analyzing an input query to understand the user's underlying "topic of interest," which the complaint equates to the claimed "search intent" (Compl. ¶¶17-18). Second, the systems allegedly perform the "selecting" step by using this determined intent to identify and present relevant applications to the user (Compl. ¶17). The complaint further alleges that the claimed invention’s use of multiple specialized engines and "certainty scores" to derive user intent is practiced by the accused products (Compl. ¶19). No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

Identified Points of Contention

• Scope Questions: A central dispute may concern the definition of "determining the search intent." The question will be whether the accused products' search logic performs a distinct step of ascertaining a "topic of interest" separate from and prior to ranking keyword-matched results, as required by the claim, or if its process is more akin to conventional semantic keyword searching.
• Technical Questions: What evidence does the complaint provide that the accused products' search architecture utilizes a "plurality of engines" that compute "certainty scores" to map queries to entities, as recited in dependent claims? The complaint makes this assertion but provides no specific technical details about the accused products' operation (Compl. ¶19).

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

"search intent"

• Context and Importance: This term is the central inventive concept recited in independent claim 1 and is critical to distinguishing the invention from the prior art of simple keyword matching. The patent's patentability and the infringement analysis will likely depend on how broadly or narrowly this term is construed. Practitioners may focus on this term because the complaint’s theory hinges on the accused products determining a "topic of interest" rather than just matching words (Compl. ¶17).
• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification states that "the search intent indicates a topic of interest of a user of the user device" (’918 Patent, Abstract; col. 2:24-26). This language could support a construction that covers any search method that attempts to discern the user's subject-matter interest.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification provides detailed examples of how intent is determined, including through "implicit intent" derived from environmental variables and "explicit intent" derived from processing a query through a "plurality of engines" that compute "certainty scores" (’918 Patent, col. 4:8-41; col. 7:52-8:16). A defendant might argue that "search intent" should be limited to intent determined through these specific, disclosed mechanisms.

"plurality of engines"

• Context and Importance: This term appears in dependent claim 5 and is highlighted in the complaint as a key technical advance for handling complex queries (Compl. ¶¶14-15, 19). Infringement of this claim will require Plaintiff to show that the accused system has a corresponding multi-engine architecture.
• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The claim language itself does not specify the structure of the engines, only that they process a "tokenized query" and compute a "certainty score" (’918 Patent, col. 10:32-41). This could be read to cover various software modules performing these functions.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification describes engines that are each configured to handle different "topics of interest," such as locations, people's names, or URLs (’918 Patent, col. 7:5-26; col. 9:64-10:1). This could support a narrower construction requiring distinct, specialized modules for different types of semantic analysis, rather than a single monolithic search algorithm.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges inducement, asserting that Defendant distributes "product literature and website materials" that instruct end users on how to use the accused products in an infringing manner (Compl. ¶25).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint alleges willful infringement based on Defendant's alleged continued infringement after receiving "actual knowledge" of the ’918 Patent upon service of the Original Complaint on January 17, 2025 (Compl. ¶¶24-25).

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

1. A core issue will be one of definitional scope: Will the term "determining the search intent" be construed broadly to cover modern semantic search technologies, or will it be limited to the specific multi-step, intent-first architecture detailed in the patent's specification? The outcome of this question will likely control the infringement analysis for the primary independent claim.
2. A key evidentiary question will be one of architectural mapping: Can Plaintiff produce evidence demonstrating that the accused products contain a "plurality of engines" that compute "certainty scores" in a manner that maps onto the limitations of the dependent claims, or will Defendant show its system uses a fundamentally different technical approach to query analysis?
3. A third question relates to the adequacy of the pleadings: Given the complaint's lack of specific detail about the accused products' functionality, a potential early dispute may arise over whether the allegations meet the plausibility standard for patent infringement set forth by the Supreme Court in Iqbal and Twombly.