Wolverine Barcode IP LLC v. Albertsons Companies Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Wolverine Barcode IP LLC (Texas)
  • Defendant: Albertsons Companies, Inc. (Delaware)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Ramey LLP
• Case Identification: 3:25-cv-01448, N.D. Tex., 06/06/2025
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant has a regular and established place of business in the district, has committed alleged acts of infringement in the district, and conducts substantial business in the forum.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s systems for conducting offline commercial transactions using barcodes for personal identification infringe a patent related to methods for such transactions.
• Technical Context: The technology relates to point-of-sale systems that use barcodes, rather than credit card swipes or NFC/RFID, to identify a customer's account for payment, particularly for micropayments.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that Plaintiff and its predecessors-in-interest have entered into prior settlement licenses with other entities. It alleges these licenses did not require marking under 35 U.S.C. § 287(a) because they were entered to terminate litigation and the licensees did not admit to producing a patented article.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2010-09-21	U.S. Patent No. 9,280,689 Priority Date
2016-03-08	U.S. Patent No. 9,280,689 Issued
2025-06-06	Complaint Filed

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

U.S. Patent No. 9,280,689 - Method and Apparatus for Doing Offline Commerce Transactions

• Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 9,280,689, “Method and Apparatus for Doing Offline Commerce Transactions,” issued March 8, 2016 (the “’689 Patent”).

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent describes conventional credit card transactions as impractical for micropayments (e.g., purchases of a few cents) due to high processing costs. It also identifies alternative methods, like cash or early NFC/RFID-enabled cell phones, as inconvenient due to the need to carry physical currency or the lack of specialized readers at most vendor locations (’689 Patent, col. 1:23-51).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a system where a user is identified at checkout by a “User ID Barcode” generated from a unique personal number, such as a cell phone or credit card number (’689 Patent, Abstract). This barcode is scanned by the same standard barcode scanners that vendors already use for products, eliminating the need for special hardware. The transaction is processed by a central “User Vendor Management Server” (UVM) that manages the user’s pre-funded or credit-based account, bypassing conventional credit card processing networks for the transaction itself (’689 Patent, col. 3:28-41; Fig. 1(b)).
• Technical Importance: The described approach sought to enable low-cost, convenient electronic micropayments by leveraging the ubiquitous barcode scanning hardware already present in retail environments worldwide, avoiding the adoption hurdles of new hardware like NFC readers (’689 Patent, col. 2:47-51).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts infringement of claims 1-3 (Compl. ¶8). Independent claim 1 is the focus.
• The essential elements of independent claim 1 include:
  • Providing a personal code to a person.
  • Converting the personal code into a “User ID Barcode” format that includes at least one “special character” to distinguish it from a product barcode.
  • Storing the personal code in both the User ID Barcode and a “User Vendor Management Server.”
  • Establishing a User Account in the User Vendor Management Server corresponding to the personal code.
  • Depositing funds or establishing a credit limit in the User Account.
  • Conducting a purchase by scanning product barcodes and the User ID Barcode at a vendor’s cash register.
  • Detecting the User ID Barcode at the vendor’s server and forwarding the barcode and purchase price to the User Vendor Management Server.
  • Comparing the purchase price with the funds/credit in the User Account and, if sufficient, sending an approval signal to the vendor server.
  • Forwarding the approval signal to the vendor cash register.
  • Repeating the purchase steps for subsequent transactions.
• The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert other dependent claims, but infringement allegations are made as to claims 1-3 (Compl. ¶8).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The complaint accuses Defendant's "systems, products, and services that conducting offline transactions that use a barcode as a method of personal identification" (Compl. ¶8). No specific Albertsons product, service, or mobile application is named.

Functionality and Market Context

The complaint alleges that Defendant "maintains, operates, and administers" systems that infringe the ’689 Patent (Compl. ¶8). It further alleges that these systems involve "conducting offline transactions that use a barcode as a method of personal identification" (Compl. ¶7). The complaint does not provide further technical details about how the accused systems operate or their specific market context.

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint references a claim chart in "Exhibit B" to support its infringement allegations (Compl. ¶9). As this exhibit was not attached to the publicly filed complaint, a detailed element-by-element analysis is not possible. The narrative infringement theory is that Defendant's systems for conducting offline transactions, which use a barcode for user identification, practice the methods claimed in the ’689 Patent (Compl. ¶¶ 7-8).

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

• Identified Points of Contention: Based on the patent and the general allegations, the infringement analysis may focus on several key questions:
  • Architectural Questions: The patent claims a system involving a vendor server and a separate "User Vendor Management Server" (UVM Server). A central question will be whether the accused Albertsons system has a back-end architecture that maps onto this claimed two-server structure, or if its functions are integrated in a way that does not correspond to the claims.
  • Technical Questions: Claim 1 requires a barcode with a "special character" used specifically to distinguish the user barcode from a product barcode. A key factual question will be whether the barcodes used in the accused system contain such a character and, if so, whether its function is for the purpose of distinction as claimed.
  • Scope Questions: The complaint lacks specificity regarding the accused instrumentality. A threshold issue will be identifying which specific Albertsons system(s) are at issue and whether their functionality, once detailed in discovery, aligns with the steps recited in the asserted claims.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "User Vendor Management Server" (UVM Server)

• Context and Importance: This term appears throughout claim 1 and is central to the claimed system architecture. The patent depicts it as a distinct entity that manages user accounts and processes transactions for multiple users and vendors (’689 Patent, Fig. 1(b), col. 3:28-33). The outcome of the case may depend on whether this term is construed to require a specific, centralized server separate from the vendor's own systems, or if it can be read more broadly to cover any back-end system that performs the recited account management and approval functions.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification does not explicitly limit the UVM server to a single physical machine, stating that the functions of the UVM server "may be performed by several computers" in high-volume situations (’689 Patent, col. 12:46-52). This could support a construction covering distributed or cloud-based architectures.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The figures and description consistently portray the UVM Server as a discrete component that communicates with, but is separate from, the "Vendor Server" (’689 Patent, Fig. 1(b), Fig. 2(b)). This distinction could support an argument that the term requires a logically and perhaps physically separate server from the primary vendor-side infrastructure.

• The Term: "special character"

• Context and Importance: Claim 1(b) requires converting a personal code into a barcode format that includes "at least one special character to distinguish the barcode as a User ID Barcode from a product barcode." Practitioners may focus on this term because it appears to be a specific technical solution to a problem identified in the patent. The infringement analysis will turn on whether the accused system's barcodes use such a character for the claimed distinguishing purpose.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The patent provides "?" as an example of a special character but does not limit the term to non-alphanumeric symbols (’689 Patent, col. 3:15-18). This could support a construction that covers any predetermined character or string used as a prefix or suffix to identify the barcode type.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification states that the special character is "required so that the system can distinguish the User ID Barcode from the product data barcode" (’689 Patent, col. 3:18-21). This functional language could support a narrower construction requiring that the character's primary purpose within the system is to enable this specific act of differentiation, rather than being a feature of a general-purpose data format.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges both induced and contributory infringement. It asserts that Defendant "actively encouraged or instructed others (e.g., its customers...)" to use its services in a way that infringes the ’689 Patent and that there are no substantial noninfringing uses for the accused products and services (Compl. ¶¶ 10-11).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint alleges knowledge of the ’689 Patent "from at least the filing date of the lawsuit" and reserves the right to amend if pre-suit knowledge is discovered (Compl. ¶¶ 10-11, footnotes 1-2). The prayer for relief requests a declaration of willful infringement based on this knowledge (Compl. ¶ VI(e)).

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

This dispute appears to hinge on the specific technical implementation of the accused, but currently unidentified, Albertsons transaction systems. The central questions for the court will likely be:

1. A core issue will be one of architectural correspondence: does the back-end system used by Albertsons possess a "User Vendor Management Server" that is functionally and structurally distinct from its "vendor server" in the manner required by the patent's claims, or are these functions integrated in a way that falls outside the claim scope?
2. A key evidentiary question will be one of barcode structure: do the barcodes used in the accused systems contain a "special character" whose designated technical purpose is to distinguish a user barcode from a product barcode, as explicitly required by claim 1?
3. A foundational issue, preceding all others, will be one of specificity: given the highly general allegations, the initial phases of the case will likely focus on compelling Plaintiff to identify with particularity which of Defendant's systems are accused and to provide a plausible, fact-based theory of how those specific systems meet each limitation of the asserted claims.