Encelion LLC v. Ce Brands Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Encelion LLC (New Mexico)
  • Defendant: CE Brands Inc. (Canada)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 2:25-cv-01104, E.D. Tex., 11/06/2025
• Venue Allegations: Venue is alleged to be proper because the Defendant is a foreign corporation.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant infringes a patent related to wearable pulse sensors that monitor a user's hydration level by analyzing the shape of their arterial pulse wave.
• Technical Context: The technology relates to non-invasive physiological monitoring, a significant area in the consumer health and wellness device market, particularly for athletic performance and general health tracking.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint identifies the Plaintiff as the assignee of the patent-in-suit. No other relevant procedural history, such as prior litigation or administrative proceedings involving the patent, is mentioned.

Case Timeline

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

U.S. Patent No. 11,471,072 - Pulse sensor, system, and method for using a pulse sensor

• Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 11,471,072, "Pulse sensor, system, and method for using a pulse sensor," issued October 18, 2022 (’072 Patent).

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent describes the need for a convenient, non-invasive method to monitor a person's hydration status. It notes that as a person becomes dehydrated, their blood viscosity increases, which in turn alters the shape of the pressure wave in their peripheral arteries with each heartbeat (’072 Patent, col. 1:18-48).
• The Patented Solution: The invention is a system and method, typically embodied in a wearable device, that measures the arterial pulse wave using a magnet-based sensor. An external magnet is placed over an artery, and its movement in response to the arterial pulse is detected by a magnetometer (’072 Patent, col. 6:53-61; Fig. 1). The system analyzes the resulting signal to measure not just the pulse rate, but also the "modulation" of the pulse wave—specifically, the relationship between the main systolic peak and a smaller, secondary "diastolic hump." This modulation is correlated with hydration status, and the system can prompt the user to rehydrate if it detects a change indicating dehydration (’072 Patent, col. 16:8-46; Fig. 11).
• Technical Importance: The technology provides a method for continuous hydration monitoring that does not require more invasive or cumbersome tools like blood pressure cuffs or impedance sensors, making it suitable for consumer athletic and health tracking devices (’072 Patent, col. 1:44-48).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint alleges infringement of "exemplary claims" without specifying them, but independent claim 1 is representative of the core method (’072 Patent, col. 21:18-col. 22:50).
• Essential Elements of Independent Claim 1:
  • Measuring a physical periodic motion of a peripheral artery with a pulse sensor to obtain a "modulation" and a pulse rate, where the modulation corresponds to a difference or ratio between the systolic peak and diastolic hump.
  • Receiving and saving the modulation and pulse rate data to a buffer memory using a microcontroller.
  • Determining at least one limit (for modulation, pulse rate, or blood flow) from the historical data.
  • Writing the limit(s) to a non-transitory computer readable medium.
  • Comparing newly measured instances of modulation, blood flow, and pulse rate to the stored limit(s).
  • Outputting a prompt to the user if the measured instances fall outside the established limit(s).
• The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert other claims, but broadly alleges infringement of "one or more claims" (Compl. ¶11).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The complaint identifies the accused instrumentalities as the "Exemplary Defendant Products" (Compl. ¶11).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint does not provide specific details on the functionality of the accused products. It alleges that they "practice the technology claimed by the '072 Patent" and incorporates by reference charts from an "Exhibit 2" to substantiate this claim (Compl. ¶16). However, as Exhibit 2 was not filed with the complaint, the public record lacks a specific description of the accused functionality.

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint alleges that the accused products infringe by practicing the claimed technology, satisfying all elements of the asserted claims (Compl. ¶16). It incorporates by reference claim charts in Exhibit 2, which are not publicly available, to detail these allegations (Compl. ¶17). Without access to these charts or a technical description of the accused products, a detailed element-by-element analysis is not possible.

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

Identified Points of Contention

• Based on the asserted technology, the infringement analysis may raise several technical and legal questions for the court:
  • Scope Questions: The core of the patented method involves analyzing a specific "modulation" of the pulse wave related to a "systolic peak and diastolic hump." A central question may be whether the accused products' physiological analysis, if any, falls within this definition or relies on a different, non-infringing metric (e.g., simple heart rate variability, skin temperature, or galvanic skin response).
  • Technical Questions: Claim 1 recites a multi-step process including measuring, saving historical data, determining a personalized limit, comparing new data to that limit, and prompting the user. A key question will be whether the complaint provides evidence that the accused products perform all of these steps, particularly the creation and use of a personalized, history-based limit for triggering an alert, as opposed to using a generic, pre-programmed threshold.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

The Term: "modulation... corresponds to a difference or ratio between systolic peak and diastolic hump" (from Claim 1)

Context and Importance

• This term defines the specific physiological signal that the patented method analyzes. The entire infringement theory for the hydration monitoring feature depends on whether the accused devices measure this particular characteristic of the arterial pulse wave. Practitioners may focus on this term to dispute whether the accused devices perform the same analysis as the patent describes.

Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation

• Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The Summary section describes the underlying phenomenon broadly as changes in "differential peripheral artery expansion" related to blood viscosity, which could suggest the specific "peak-to-hump" language is merely one example of measuring this effect (’072 Patent, col. 1:39-48).
• Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The detailed description, particularly the explanation of Figure 10, explicitly identifies the systolic maximum (1004) and the diastolic hump (1006) as the key features, stating that their ratio "is covariant with hydration" (’072 Patent, col. 16:36-46). This specific embodiment may be used to argue for a narrower construction limited to this precise calculation.

The Term: "determining... at least one limit... from the modulation history and the pulse rate history" (from Claim 1)

Context and Importance

• This limitation requires the system to establish a personalized baseline or threshold from the user's own past data. Infringement may turn on whether an accused device creates such a dynamic, user-specific limit or simply uses a static, pre-defined threshold for what constitutes dehydration.

Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation

• Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The claim language is functional and does not specify how the limit must be determined from the history, potentially covering any method that uses past data to set a future threshold.
• Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification provides a specific statistical method for setting the limit, such as "two standard deviations greater than a mean arterial pulsation history value" (’072 Patent, col. 18:18-22). A defendant may argue this disclosure limits the claim's scope to similar statistical or adaptive algorithms, excluding simpler methods.

VI. Other Allegations

Indirect Infringement

• The complaint alleges induced infringement, stating that the Defendant provides "product literature and website materials" that instruct and encourage end users to use the accused products in a manner that directly infringes the ’072 Patent (Compl. ¶14-15).

Willful Infringement

• The complaint does not contain a specific count for willful infringement. However, it alleges that the Defendant has "Actual Knowledge of Infringement" from the date of service of the complaint and the attached claim charts (Compl. ¶13). This allegation may form the basis for a claim of post-suit willfulness.

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

• A core issue will be one of technical correspondence: Does the accused technology for hydration monitoring, if any, rely on measuring the specific "modulation" of the arterial pulse wave (i.e., the relationship between the systolic peak and diastolic hump) as required by the patent, or does it operate on a fundamentally different physiological principle?
• A second key question will be one of definitional scope: Will the claim requirement of "determining... a limit... from the... history" be construed to require a dynamic, personalized baseline that adapts to the user, or can it be read more broadly to cover devices that use more generic or static thresholds?
• Finally, a central evidentiary question will be what proof Plaintiff can offer that the accused products perform the full, multi-step software method of Claim 1—from data collection and historical analysis to the final user prompt—given that much of this process occurs within the internal software of the device.