Akoloutheo LLC v. IBM Corp

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Akoloutheo, LLC (Texas)
  • Defendant: Int'l Business Machines Corp. (New York)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: RWBurns & Co., PLLC
• Case Identification: 4:19-cv-00551, E.D. Tex., 07/24/2019
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper in the Eastern District of Texas because Defendant maintains a regular and established place of business in the district and has committed acts of patent infringement there.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s enterprise search, content analytics, and talent acquisition software platforms infringe a patent related to a generalized framework for processing transactions between disparate information services.
• Technical Context: The technology concerns middleware systems that manage and integrate data from various independent sources, allowing a user to make a single query that is dynamically processed by selecting and combining information from multiple backend services.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that Plaintiff Akoloutheo, LLC is the owner of the patent-in-suit by assignment. No other significant procedural events are mentioned.

Case Timeline

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

U.S. Patent No. 7,426,730 - "Method and System for Generalized and Adaptive Transaction Processing Between Uniform Information Services and Applications", issued September 16, 2008

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent addresses the difficulty of integrating information from multiple, independent online sources. It notes that custom software integrations are inflexible and that simple aggregation, as seen in web portals, does not allow different information services (e.g., a mapping service and a live traffic data service) to work together dynamically to produce a combined, intelligent result (Compl. ¶10; '730 Patent, col. 1:56-col. 2:5).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a "Transaction Processing Function" (TPF) that acts as an intermediary between information "consumers" (RSCs) and "providers" (RSPs). The TPF receives a generalized "transaction definition" from a consumer, consults a "registry" of available provider services, and uses "transaction situation context" (such as user location or preferences) to dynamically select appropriate providers, execute operations, and return an integrated result ('730 Patent, Abstract; Fig. 2). This framework is designed to allow services to be coupled "at a user, or session, level without explicit reference to that information provider" ('730 Patent, col. 2:32-35).
• Technical Importance: The described architecture provides a flexible and scalable method for building complex applications from distributed, independent services without requiring that the integrations be pre-defined and hard-coded, a concept central to service-oriented architectures ('730 Patent, col. 3:4-14).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts independent claims 1, 15, and 17.
• Independent Claim 1 (a system claim) includes the following essential elements:
  • A resource transaction processing module.
  • A plurality of communicatively coupled resource providers.
  • A resource information registry for storing information about the resources.
  • Wherein the module, upon receiving a transaction request, constructs a transaction situation context, dynamically selects a resource, determines operations, obtains the resource, and processes it to generate a resultant resource.
• Independent Claim 17 (a method claim) includes the following essential elements:
  • Obtaining a transaction request.
  • Constructing a transaction situation context.
  • Analyzing the request to dynamically create a set of input resources from a plurality of providers, determine operations to perform, and obtain the selected resources.
  • Executing the operations to generate an output resource.
• The complaint makes general allegations covering claims 1, 15, and 17, and it may be inferred that Plaintiff reserves the right to assert additional claims, including dependent claims (Compl. ¶¶ 28-31).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The accused instrumentalities are "IBM's Watson Explorer, Watson Content Analytics, and Watson Talent/Kenexa Talent Acquisition software systems," referred to collectively as "IBM Systems" (Compl. ¶11). The complaint specifically highlights "IBM Kenexa BrassRing on Cloud" as an example (Compl. ¶12).

Functionality and Market Context

The complaint alleges the IBM Systems are software systems, including cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings, used for analyzing and processing networked resources (Compl. ¶11). The system is described as using "Crawlers" to extract and index content from various enterprise data sources (e.g., HTTP/HTTPS, IBM Content Manager, Microsoft SharePoint) (Compl. p. 4). Users interact with the system via a browser-based interface, issuing requests to a server-based "search runtime component" which processes queries against the "collection index" of crawled data (Compl. ¶¶13-14). The system is alleged to use "Facet Tree" and "Category Tree" widgets to allow users to refine searches based on metadata and defined rules (Compl. ¶15). A screenshot provided in the complaint describes IBM Kenexa BrassRing on Cloud as an online tool to help employers "centralize and manage the acquisition of talent" (Compl. ¶12).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

U.S. Patent No. 7,426,730 Infringement Allegations (Claim 1)

Identified Points of Contention

• Scope Questions: The infringement theory raises the question of whether the patent's concept of a "resource information registry" for classifying and registering discrete "services" can be read to cover the accused product's "collection index," which stores content parsed from various data sources. A screenshot in the complaint shows that crawlers "extract content" from data sources which is then indexed, a process that may differ from registering a service provider ('Compl. p. 4).
• Technical Questions: A central technical question is whether the accused system's process of querying a pre-compiled index constitutes the "dynamically selects" limitation. The patent's disclosure may suggest a real-time selection of a live service provider at the time of the transaction, whereas the complaint describes a system that appears to select data from a static, pre-crawled index. Further, it is a question for the court what evidence supports the allegation that displaying "Facet Tree" and "Category Tree" options (Compl. p. 5) is equivalent to the claimed step of "constructs a transaction situation context".

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

The Term: "resource information registry"

• Context and Importance: This term is critical because its definition determines whether the accused "collection index" can meet the limitation. The dispute will likely center on whether a "registry" requires a formal system for registering discrete services, as the patent specification may suggest, or if it can broadly cover any indexed compilation of data about resources.
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The term "registry" is not explicitly defined with limiting language. The patent refers to a "Uniform Specification Repository (USR)" which "provides a means to store and access information," a functional description that could be argued to apply to a data index ('730 Patent, col. 5:4-8).
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification consistently discusses the registry in the context of classifying and specifying services according to a "Uniform Specification Model (USM)" ('730 Patent, col. 5:41-54). Figure 1a depicts a "USR/TD Registry" (1a20) as a specific component for storing service and transaction definitions, which may support an interpretation that it is more than just a content index ('730 Patent, Fig. 1a).

The Term: "dynamically selects"

• Context and Importance: The "dynamic" nature of the selection process is a core aspect of the claimed invention. Practitioners may focus on this term because the infringement argument depends on whether selecting data from a pre-built index is "dynamic" in the manner claimed.
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The term "dynamically" is not explicitly defined by time. It could be argued to mean any selection that occurs at runtime in response to a user's request, which could include querying an index.
• Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent describes a system that "dynamically integrates a plurality of service providers and consumers based on transaction context data" and applies this to a "specific configuration...at the time of transaction" ('730 Patent, col. 5:14-17, 24-26). This language may support a narrower construction requiring a real-time selection of a service provider itself, rather than a selection of already-indexed data.

VI. Other Allegations

Indirect Infringement

The complaint alleges that Defendant exercises "control and/or direction" over its end users, who "must process transaction requests through IBM servers, operating according to predetermined operations and algorithms" (Compl. ¶¶32-33). These allegations appear to support a theory of direct infringement liability for the actions of users under an agency theory, and are also framed in the alternative as indirect infringement (Compl. ¶34).

Willful Infringement

The complaint seeks enhanced damages for willful infringement, alleging that Defendant's conduct will be knowing and deliberate at least from the service date of the complaint (Compl. p. 7, Prayer for Relief ¶d).

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

• A core issue will be one of definitional scope: can the patent's "resource information registry", which the specification describes in the context of classifying and registering distinct information services, be construed to cover the accused product’s "collection index", which stores content extracted from various data sources?
• A key evidentiary question will be one of functional operation: does the accused system's process of querying a pre-compiled data index in response to a user request meet the claimed step of "dynamically selects" a resource, or does the patent require a real-time selection of an independent service provider at the moment of the transaction?