CLIENT SUCCESS
COPPERPOD HELPS ASIAN INVENTOR MONETIZE SMARTPHONE KEYBOARD TECHNOLOGY
Challenge
To help the client monetize the patent for maximum returns over a 3-year period, Copperpod identified the market segments and the major players in the market that make, use or sell products that infringe one or more claims of the patent.
Copperpod assisted an asian software research company wanting to litigate their patent in the field of electronic digital data processing. The patent discloses a method wherein when a user selects via an input, for example, a long press or a click, a menu item from a displayed menu, the display presents a second set of menu items corresponding to the selected menu item.
KEY INSIGHT
A patent may be enforceable in industries and technology areas beyond the one towards which it was originally intended.
Solution
Our thorough analysis showed that the foreign language keyboards available in smartphones mapped perfectly onto the patent. Copperpod leveraged its geographically dispersed multi-lingual consultants for this analysis. Most of Copperpod’s consultants in fact speak and write at least 3 languages. Incidentally, several of our consultants were familiar with languages such as Telegu (the mother tongue of the inventor) and were therefore not only able to quickly understand the utility of the patented invention but also the evidence of use in popular consumer electronics.
Copperpod consultants recognized that when a character from certain foreign language soft keyboards was selected, it presented the user a set of multiple characters in conjunction with the selected character. The displayed characters were the grammatical variants of the selected character. This functionality was a part of the keyboards in majority of the smartphones supplied by manufacturers including Apple and Google – but only when certain foreign languages were chosen. Being multilingual and proficient in several Asian languages helped Copperpod provide the client an extensive list of infringing products and the particular language keyboards that infringed the claims.
Success
Copperpod then tested exemplary infringing products and articulated the infringement in descriptive infringement charts used by the client as exhibits while filing district court cases in Texas and California. Wherever applicable, Copperpod also highlighted claim limitations that were expected to be implemented in the target’s firmware and/or application software - wherein conclusive evidence would be available as part of the fact discovery process.
KEY INSIGHT
An enforcement campaign with the right mix of low priority and high value targets pays for itself right from the start.