Smart Order LLC v. Carrabba's Italian Grill LLC

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Smart Order LLC (New Mexico)
  • Defendant: Carrabba's Italian Grill, LLC (Florida)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 7:25-cv-00115, W.D. Tex., 07/09/2025
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant maintains an established place of business in the district and has committed acts of infringement there.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s restaurant operations infringe a patent related to a system and method for pre-ordering food and coordinating its preparation with customer seating to reduce wait times.
• Technical Context: The technology relates to integrating customer-facing online or kiosk-based ordering systems with a restaurant's internal kitchen and seating management systems to improve efficiency and customer turnover.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint states that an Original Complaint was filed on March 10, 2025, which allegedly provided Defendant with actual knowledge of the infringement allegations.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2007-04-27	'424 Patent Priority Date
2016-07-12	'424 Patent Issue Date
2025-03-10	Original Complaint Filed
2025-07-09	First Amended Complaint Filing Date

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

U.S. Patent No. 9,390,424 - “System and method for improving customer wait time, customer service, and marketing efficiency in the restaurant, retail, hospitality, travel, and entertainment industries”

The patent-in-suit is U.S. Patent No. 9,390,424, issued July 12, 2016 (the "’424 Patent").

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent addresses inefficiencies in the restaurant and service industries, including long customer wait times, lost customers during peak hours, and a lack of detailed data for marketing purposes ('424 Patent, col. 2:9-30). Conventional systems were seen as limited to functions like seating, scheduling, or kitchen management without integrating them with advance customer orders ('424 Patent, col. 1:57-63).
• The Patented Solution: The invention is a system that allows customers to create profiles and place orders in advance, either online or via an on-site kiosk ('424 Patent, Abstract). When the customer arrives, the system verifies their identity and retrieves the pre-order. The core of the solution is timing the submission of the food order to the kitchen by comparing the customer's position in the seating queue with the kitchen's preparation time, ensuring the meal arrives shortly after the party is seated ('424 Patent, col. 3:17-24). This process is designed to reduce wait times, increase table turnover, and capture detailed customer preference data ('424 Patent, col. 3:25-33).
• Technical Importance: The described approach seeks to bridge the gap between customer-facing pre-ordering platforms and a restaurant's back-of-house operational software (e.g., seating and kitchen management), a key step in optimizing the full customer service cycle ('424 Patent, col. 1:33-38).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint does not specify which claims are asserted, instead referring to "Exemplary '424 Patent Claims" in a referenced exhibit that was not provided (Compl. ¶11, ¶16). Claim 1 is the first independent claim of the patent.
• Essential Elements of Claim 1 (Method):
  • A computer receiving a reservation with a pre-order of products/services from a customer prior to their arrival at a venue.
  • A customer payment account for the pre-order.
  • The computer validating the reservation upon an indication that the customer has arrived.
  • Entering the customer in a preparation queue of a vendor management system.
  • The vendor management system determining when the customer's wait time in the queue is less than or equal to the preparation time for the pre-ordered items.
  • Forwarding the pre-order to a preparation system at or before the time the customer is available to receive delivery.
  • Storing a record of the customer's purchases in a customer profile.
• The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims.

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The complaint does not identify a specific accused product, service, or system by name (Compl. ¶11). It refers generally to "Exemplary Defendant Products" (Compl. ¶11).

Functionality and Market Context

The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of the functionality of the accused instrumentality. Given that the defendant is a restaurant chain, the accused instrumentality is presumably its online ordering system, mobile application, or in-restaurant technology for managing customer orders and waitlists.

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint references claim charts in an "Exhibit 2" to detail its infringement allegations but does not include the exhibit (Compl. ¶16-17). Therefore, a detailed element-by-element analysis based on the complaint is not possible.

The complaint alleges that Defendant directly infringes by making, using, selling, and offering for sale the "Exemplary Defendant Products" (Compl. ¶11). It further alleges that Defendant's employees use and test these products internally (Compl. ¶12). The narrative infringement theory, based on the patent's subject matter, is that Defendant's systems for online or advance ordering practice the patented method of receiving pre-orders and coordinating them with kitchen preparation and customer seating.

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of specific infringement disputes that would highlight claim construction issues. However, based on the language of representative Claim 1 of the ’424 Patent, the following terms may be central to the case.

• The Term: "vendor management system"

• Context and Importance: This term appears central to the claim, as it is the system that manages the "preparation queue" and performs the crucial timing determination. Its definition will determine what type of restaurant software architecture is covered by the claim. Practitioners may focus on whether this term requires a single, integrated software suite or can be met by a collection of separate systems (e.g., a host stand waitlist app and a separate kitchen display system) that communicate with each other.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification discusses the invention interfacing with "conventional seating management and/or kitchen management systems," which could suggest that the "vendor management system" is a functional concept that can be composed of one or both of these existing, potentially separate, systems ('424 Patent, col. 1:33-38).
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent repeatedly describes a process where a seating wait queue is compared to a kitchen wait queue, implying the "vendor management system" must have access to both sets of data to perform the claimed timing function ('424 Patent, col. 3:17-21). A defendant might argue this requires a system with integrated capabilities beyond what is common in the industry.

• The Term: "determining when a wait time for the customer in the queue is less than or equal to a preparation time"

• Context and Importance: This limitation describes the core logic of the invention. The case may turn on whether the accused system performs this specific comparison or uses a different, more generalized logic for timing orders (e.g., submitting the order a fixed number of minutes after check-in).

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: A plaintiff may argue this language does not require a complex real-time calculation, but simply a logic gate that triggers the order when the estimated seating time falls below a known, or estimated, food preparation time.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The claim language requires an active "determining" step based on a comparison of two variables ("wait time" and "preparation time"). A defendant may argue this requires a system that actively monitors both queues and makes a dynamic decision, as opposed to a system that operates on pre-set timers or manual triggers from employees.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement, stating that Defendant distributes "product literature and website materials inducing end users and others to use its products in the customary and intended manner that infringes the '424 Patent" (Compl. ¶14).
• Willful Infringement: Willfulness is alleged based on Defendant's continued infringement despite having "actual knowledge" of the '424 Patent since the service of the Original Complaint on March 10, 2025 (Compl. ¶13-14).

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

• A central evidentiary question will be one of technical operation: Does the accused Carrabba's system, which is not identified in the complaint, actually perform the specific comparison recited in the patent's independent claims—namely, determining when a customer's seating wait time is less than or equal to the food preparation time before forwarding the order to the kitchen?
• The case will also likely involve a question of definitional scope: How will the court construe the term "vendor management system"? The patent's viability may depend on whether this term is interpreted broadly to cover separate but communicating waitlist and kitchen systems, or narrowly to require a single, highly integrated software platform.
• A threshold procedural issue may be the sufficiency of the pleadings: Given the complaint's lack of specificity regarding the accused instrumentality and its reliance on a missing exhibit for infringement details, early motion practice may focus on whether the allegations meet the plausibility standard required to proceed to discovery.