Intellectual Ventures II LLC v. Southwest Airlines Co

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Intellectual Ventures II LLC (Delaware)
  • Defendant: Southwest Airlines Co. (Texas)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Cherry Johnson Siegmund James PC; Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP
• Case Identification: 7:25-cv-00252, W.D. Tex., 05/30/2025
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant maintains regular and established places of business in the district (including terminals, operations centers, and ticket counters at multiple airports) and has committed acts of infringement there.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s backend computing infrastructure and related services infringe a patent related to hosting multiple, customized computing clusters.
• Technical Context: The technology concerns the architecture for providing tailored, isolated, and monitored computing environments, a foundational concept in cloud computing and managed hosting services.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that it is being filed as a separate action but is related to a prior case, Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al v. Southwest Airlines Co., Case No. 7:24-cv-00277. Plaintiff states its intent to move to consolidate the two actions.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2007-10-30	'841 Patent Priority Date
2010-10-26	'841 Patent Issue Date
2025-05-30	Complaint Filing Date

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

U.S. Patent No. 7,822,841 - "Method and System for Hosting Multiple, Customized Computing Clusters"

• Issued: October 26, 2010

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent addresses the technical and resource-intensive challenges for companies wanting to use specialized computing clusters (such as High Performance Computing clusters) but finding them too difficult and expensive to own, host, and manage on-site (’841 Patent, col. 1:31-53). The prior art forced users to either accept these burdens or forgo the benefits of customized cluster computing.
• The Patented Solution: The invention provides a system where a hosting provider manages a plurality of distinct computing clusters for different clients at a central facility (’841 Patent, col. 3:5-14). Each cluster can be uniquely configured for a specific client’s task, isolated from other clusters using gateways to prevent interference, and made accessible to the authorized client over a public network like the Internet (’841 Patent, Fig. 2; col. 5:27-45). The system also includes a monitoring component to detect operational problems at both the cluster and individual node level (’841 Patent, col. 7:27-42).
• Technical Importance: The described architecture provides a framework for offering "clusters-as-a-service," allowing clients to access customized, high-powered computing resources without the capital expenditure and maintenance overhead of owning the physical infrastructure (’841 Patent, col. 2:46-53).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts unspecified "example claims" of the ’841 Patent (Compl. ¶27). Independent claim 1 is the broadest system claim.
• Essential Elements of Independent Claim 1:
  • A private communications network linked to a public communications network.
  • A first cluster with a set of computing resources in a first configuration.
  • A second cluster with a set of computing resources in a second, different configuration.
  • The first configuration provides a first computing environment for a first client task, while the second provides a different environment for a second client task.
  • A monitoring system that monitors operations of both clusters, identifies problems, and issues alerts.
  • The monitoring system includes a "main monitor" for the clusters and per-node monitors to check for hardware and software problems.
• The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims but refers generally to infringement of "one or more claims" (Compl. ¶33).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The complaint identifies the accused instrumentalities as Southwest’s "products and services" that "utilize and/or support various technologies, including but not limited to Kubernetes, Kafka, Docker, Spark, Hadoop, In-Flight and Ground Connectivity, and Internet Hotspots" (Compl. ¶23).

Functionality and Market Context

• The accused technologies are alleged to be backend systems "used and managed by Southwest to enable the various products and services that Southwest offers to its customers" (Compl. ¶23). These technologies collectively form a modern, distributed computing infrastructure. For example, Kubernetes is a system for automating the deployment and management of containerized applications (like those using Docker), while Hadoop and Spark are frameworks for large-scale data processing.
• These backend systems allegedly support customer-facing services such as "In-Flight and Ground Connectivity and Internet Hotspots," which are offered to customers and employees using WiFi and cellular technologies (Compl. ¶23). The complaint supports its allegations regarding the scale of Southwest's operations by providing a route map showing its flight destinations, including several within the Western District of Texas (Compl. p. 6).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint references a claim chart in Exhibit 2 that allegedly details the infringement (Compl. ¶¶ 37-38). However, this exhibit was not filed with the complaint. The narrative infringement theory alleges that Southwest’s use of technologies like Kubernetes and Hadoop constitutes the creation and operation of customized computing clusters that fall within the scope of the ’841 Patent’s claims (Compl. ¶23, ¶29). Without the claim chart, a detailed element-by-element analysis is not possible.

• Identified Points of Contention:
  • Scope Questions: The case may turn on whether the term "computing cluster," as defined and used in the 2007-era patent, can be construed to read on a modern, software-defined, container-orchestration platform like Kubernetes. The defense may argue that the patent contemplates physically distinct or more rigidly defined hardware groupings, not the fluid, logical resource pools managed by the accused technologies.
  • Technical Questions: A key question will be whether Southwest's infrastructure monitoring tools perform the specific two-level monitoring function required by claim 1, which calls for both a "main monitor" and separate "monitors for each node ... operating to check for hardware and software problems." The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of this element. Similarly, it is unclear what specific components of Southwest's architecture are alleged to function as the claimed "gateway mechanism" that isolates communications between clusters.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "a first cluster...in a first configuration" and "a second cluster...in a second configuration...wherein the first configuration differs from the second configuration"

  • Context and Importance: This term is central to the dispute because it defines the core inventive concept of hosting multiple, customized clusters. The plaintiff will need to show that Southwest operates at least two distinct "clusters" with different "configurations." Practitioners may focus on this term because the accused technologies, like Kubernetes, can manage many different workloads within a single physical infrastructure, raising the question of what constitutes a separate "cluster" versus merely a different application running on the same shared resources.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
    • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification suggests configuration can be based on a wide variety of factors, including "processing nodes," "data storage," "private communications network," or "software modules" (’841 Patent, col. 3:19-25), potentially allowing logically separated software environments to qualify as differently configured clusters.
    • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent’s embodiments, such as Figure 2, depict clusters (250, 251, 252) as structurally separate units, each behind its own gateway (240, 241, 242). This could support an interpretation requiring a degree of hardware or network-level separation, not just software-level logical distinction.

• The Term: "a monitoring system...comprises a main monitor...and further comprises monitors for each node"

  • Context and Importance: This limitation requires a specific, two-tiered monitoring architecture. Infringement will depend on whether Southwest’s general infrastructure monitoring and observability platforms can be mapped onto this specific structure.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
    • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The claim language itself is functional. An interpretation focused on the function of identifying problems at both a cluster-wide ("main") and individual-component ("node") level might be broad enough to encompass modern observability tools.
    • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: Figure 5 details a specific process flow where a "Per-Node Monitoring System" (502) and a "Main Monitoring System" (505) are distinct functional blocks that interact to notify a central site. This detailed embodiment could be used to argue for a narrower construction requiring two distinct, interacting monitoring subsystems rather than a single, integrated platform.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges inducement by encouraging and instructing partners, vendors, and customers to use the accused services (Compl. ¶33). It also alleges contributory infringement, stating the accused technologies "are especially made or adapted for infringing the '841 Patent and have no substantial non-infringing use" (Compl. ¶36).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint pleads "Willful Blindness," alleging that Southwest "knew of the '841 Patent, or should have known of the '841 Patent, but was willfully blind to its existence" (Compl. ¶32).

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

• A core issue will be one of definitional scope: can the patent’s claims, conceived in the context of dedicated hosted hardware, be construed to cover modern, containerized, and software-defined infrastructure like Kubernetes? The outcome may depend on whether a "cluster" is defined by its logical function or its physical or network architecture.
• A second central question will be one of technical mapping: assuming a broad construction, what evidence can the plaintiff provide to demonstrate that Southwest's use of general-purpose technologies like Kafka and Hadoop implements the specific, multi-cluster, customized, and isolated architecture required by the claims of the ’841 patent? The complaint's high-level allegations will require significant factual development to substantiate this mapping.