Patent Armory Inc v. Emera Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Patent Armory Inc. (Canada)
  • Defendant: Tampa Electric Company and Peoples Gas System, Inc. (Florida)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 2:25-cv-00971, E.D. Tex., 11/03/2025
• Venue Allegations: Venue is based on allegations that Defendants maintain an established place of business in the district and have committed acts of patent infringement within the district.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that unspecified products and services used by Defendants infringe two patents related to intelligent call routing and auction-based entity matching.
• Technical Context: The technology at issue addresses automated systems for intelligently matching entities, such as routing a customer call to the optimal call-center agent, which is a key function in modern telecommunications and customer service management.
• Key Procedural History: This First Amended Complaint follows an original complaint filed on September 23, 2025, an event Plaintiff cites as establishing Defendants' actual knowledge of the patents-in-suit for its willfulness allegations.

Case Timeline

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

U.S. Patent No. 7,023,979 - "Telephony control system with intelligent call routing," issued April 4, 2006

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent describes the inefficiency of traditional call center Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) systems that route calls based on simple rules like first-in, first-out or longest-idle agent (’979 Patent, col. 3:5-13). Such static approaches are suboptimal when agents possess varying skills, leading to problems such as routing a call to an "under-skilled agent" who cannot handle the transaction or an "over-skilled agent" whose expertise is wasted on a simple query (’979 Patent, col. 4:29-56).
• The Patented Solution: The invention claims a communications management system that performs intelligent, skill-based routing within a single, low-level architectural environment (’979 Patent, Abstract). The system receives a "communications classification" for an incoming call, compares it against a database of agent skills and skill weights, and uses a processor to compute an "optimum agent selection" based on a "cost-utility function" that can balance short-term efficiency with long-term goals like agent training (’979 Patent, Abstract; Fig. 1). This calculation and the subsequent call routing are controlled within a "common operating environment" (’979 Patent, col. 60:25-34).
• Technical Importance: The claimed approach represented a move toward dynamic, data-driven optimization of call center resources to improve both customer service quality and operational efficiency (’979 Patent, col. 2:18-29).

Key Claims at a Glance

The complaint refers to "Exemplary '979 Patent Claims" in an exhibit that was not provided with the complaint (Compl. ¶15). As a proxy for analysis, representative independent claim 1 includes the following essential elements:

• A communications control system for handling real time communications, comprising:
  • an input for receiving a call classification vector;
  • a data structure representing agent characteristic vectors;
  • a processor for determining an optimum agent based on a multivariate cost function comparing at least three agents, and for controlling the call routing;
  • wherein the determining and routing functions are performed within a common operating environment.
• The complaint reserves the right to assert additional claims (Compl. ¶13).

U.S. Patent No. 9,456,086 - "Method and system for matching entities in an auction," issued September 27, 2016

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent addresses the general technical challenge of efficiently matching a "first entity" (e.g., a service requestor) with the best "second entity" (e.g., a service provider) from a pool of available options, extending beyond the specific call-center context (’086 Patent, col. 1:24-30).
• The Patented Solution: The invention describes a method for matching entities using an auction-based model that runs on an automated processor (’086 Patent, Abstract). The system defines profiles for both sets of entities using "multivalued scalar data" and performs an optimization based not only on the quality of the match but also on economic factors, including the "economic surplus" of a potential match and the "opportunity cost" of making one entity unavailable for other potential matches (’086 Patent, Abstract). This allows the system to conduct a dynamic auction to determine the optimal pairing.
• Technical Importance: The patented method generalizes skill-based routing into a broader economic framework for dynamic resource allocation, applicable to various automated matching scenarios beyond telephony (’086 Patent, col. 37:45-52).

Key Claims at a Glance

The complaint refers to "Exemplary '086 Patent Claims" in an exhibit that was not provided with the complaint (Compl. ¶19). As a proxy for analysis, representative independent claim 1 includes the following essential elements:

• A method for matching a first subset of entities with a second subset of entities, comprising:
  • storing data in memory representing "inferential targeting parameters" for the first subset and "characteristic parameters" for the second subset;
  • performing, via an automated processor, an "optimization" with respect to an "economic surplus" of a match and the "opportunity cost" of the unavailability of the second subset for an alternate match;
  • outputting a signal dependent on the optimization.
• The complaint reserves the right to assert additional claims (Compl. ¶19).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

• Product Identification: The complaint does not identify any specific accused products, methods, or services by name (Compl. ¶¶13, 19). It refers generally to "Exemplary Defendant Products" that are purportedly identified in Exhibits 3 and 4, which were not filed with the complaint (Compl. ¶¶15, 24).
• Functionality and Market Context: The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of the functionality or market context of the accused instrumentalities. It alleges only that they "practice the technology claimed" by the patents-in-suit (Compl. ¶¶15, 24).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint alleges that infringement is detailed in claim charts included as Exhibits 3 and 4 (Compl. ¶¶15, 24). As these exhibits were not provided, the narrative infringement theory is summarized below in prose. No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

For both the ’979 and ’086 Patents, the complaint alleges that the "Exemplary Defendant Products" satisfy all elements of the asserted claims (Compl. ¶¶15, 24). It states that Defendants directly infringe by "making, using, offering to sell, selling and/or importing" these products, and also by having employees "internally test and use" them (Compl. ¶¶13-14, 19-20). The infringement allegations are conclusory and lack specific factual detail mapping accused functionality to claim elements.

• Identified Points of Contention:
  • Evidentiary Questions: A primary question will be what evidence the Plaintiff can obtain and present to show that the accused systems perform the specific optimization and routing functions as claimed. The complaint's lack of detail suggests this will be a central focus of discovery.
  • ’979 Patent - Technical Scope: A potential dispute concerns whether the accused system's logic rises to the level of a "multivariate cost function" for determining an "optimum agent," as required by the claim, or if it employs a simpler, non-infringing rules-based system.
  • ’086 Patent - Economic Modeling: A key technical question will be whether the accused system’s matching process performs an "optimization with respect to at least an economic surplus... and an opportunity cost." The analysis may turn on whether the accused system conducts a true economic trade-off analysis or merely executes a more straightforward best-fit matching algorithm.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "multivariate cost function" (’979 Patent, Claim 1)

  • Context and Importance: This term is central to the inventive concept of "intelligent" routing in the ’979 Patent. The scope of this term will likely determine whether the accused system's decision-making algorithm infringes. Practitioners may focus on this term because it distinguishes the claimed invention from simpler, prior art routing methods.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
    • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification describes the cost function as potentially including a wide variety of "disparate factors" normalized into a common "cost" metric, such as agent salary, training value, anticipated call outcome, and opportunity cost, suggesting a broad and flexible interpretation (’979 Patent, col. 65:1-24).
    • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification provides a specific formula: An=Max({[Acn1∑(rs1ans1)+Acn2]+Bcn}+Ccn)+Dcn. A party could argue that this formula, or at least its multi-component structure, defines the required "multivariate cost function" (’979 Patent, col. 65:50-65).

• The Term: "common operating environment" (’979 Patent, Claim 1)

  • Context and Importance: This architectural limitation requires a degree of integration between the system's analytical ("determining") and switching ("routing") functions. Infringement will depend on the physical and logical architecture of the accused system.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
    • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification describes the architecture as a host computer with main processors and voice channel processors running under a "modern, non-deterministic operating system," which could support an interpretation that different processes on the same server satisfy the limitation (’979 Patent, col. 59:62-col. 60:9).
    • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification gives an example of "operating under the same instance of the operating system, for example sharing the same message queue," which could support a narrower construction requiring a tight, process-level integration (’979 Patent, col. 60:25-29).

• The Term: "optimization with respect to at least an economic surplus... and an opportunity cost" (’086 Patent, Claim 1)

  • Context and Importance: This phrase defines the core auction mechanism of the ’086 Patent. The dispute will likely center on whether the accused matching system performs this specific type of economic calculation.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
    • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The abstract describes the method as performing an "automated optimization with respect to an economic surplus... and an opportunity cost," framing these as the high-level goals of the optimization process, which may support a broader functional interpretation (’086 Patent, Abstract).
    • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: A party may argue that the claim requires explicit, independent calculation of both "economic surplus" (the net value created by a match) and "opportunity cost" (the value foregone by not making an alternative match), and that an algorithm that does not distinctly calculate both factors would not infringe.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement of the ’086 Patent, asserting that since being served the complaint, Defendants have knowingly and intentionally induced infringement by selling products to customers and providing "product literature and website materials" that instruct on infringing use (Compl. ¶¶22-23).
• Willful Infringement: Willfulness is alleged for the ’086 Patent based on continued infringement after receiving "actual knowledge" of the patent via service of the original complaint on September 23, 2025 (Compl. ¶¶21-22). The prayer for relief also requests that the case be declared exceptional (Compl. p. 6, ¶H.i).

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

1. Sufficiency of Allegations and the Role of Discovery: A threshold issue is the conclusory nature of the complaint, which relies on un-filed exhibits to provide the substance of its infringement allegations. A key question will be whether Plaintiff can develop, through discovery, specific evidence of the internal architecture and algorithmic logic of Defendants' systems to support its claims that they perform the complex optimizations required by the patents.
2. Claim Construction of "Optimization": The case for both patents will likely turn on the construction of claim terms defining the required optimization process. A core issue will be one of definitional scope: can terms like "multivariate cost function" and "optimization with respect to... economic surplus and... opportunity cost" be construed broadly to cover general-purpose matching systems, or will they be limited to the specific, multi-factor economic calculations detailed in the patent specifications?
3. Architectural Congruence: For the ’979 Patent, a dispositive issue may be one of technical structure: does the accused system's architecture, which separates decision-making from call switching, meet the "common operating environment" limitation, or does it reflect a more conventional, distributed architecture that falls outside the claim's scope?