On April 9, 2018, the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of defendants Microsoft Corporation, Ubisoft, Inc., Nintendo of America, Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., and Majesco Entertainment in a patent infringement suit brought by Australian individual Richard J. Baker.   The suit relates to Baker’s U.S. Patent No. 5,486,001, which relates to an instructional aid for movements.  The accused products included video games that incorporated an image capturing device (like a camera) connected to a gaming console or personal computer.


The ’001 Patent reads, in claim 1 and as amended during prosecution:

capturing and storing initial visual image signals representative of a particular movement at a first location,

storing preferred image signals representative of a selected preferred movement at a second location remote from said first location in a data base of a computer,

transmitting said captured and stored visual image signals from said first location to said computer at said second location,

. . .

transmitting said regenerated signals from said computer at said remote second location to said first location and stored in image presentation means which permits viewing thereof with dialogue relating to said regenerated visual secondary image signals.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding that “remote,” as used above, requires “more than physical separation at the same location.”  The Federal Circuit found that this amendment prevented infringement by any of the defendants, both literally and under the doctrine of equivalents.

Cases like these emphasize the importance of careful patent prosecution.  Per the Federal Circuit, the “first location” and “second limitation” language used above was added to traverse a reference (U.S. Patent No. 5,184,295 to Mann).  Little changes like these, which invoke the doctrine of prosecution history estoppel, can have significant ramifications during litigation, as demonstrated here.  It’s game over for Mr. Baker in this case.

On Feb. 8, 2018, Pure Data Systems, LLC (“Pure”) sued Electronic Arts, Inc. (“EA”) and Ubisoft, Inc. (“Ubisoft”) for alleged infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 5,999,947 to Zollinger et al. and 6,321,236 to Zollinger et al.  



Claim 1 of the ’947 Patent reads:

1. A method of distributing database differences corresponding to change events made to a database table located on a server computer to client copies of the database table located on one or more client computers comprising the steps of:
  creating and storing on the server computer one or more sequentially versioned updates, each update containing database differences in a generic format, the database differences corresponding to database change events made to the database table since the preceding update;
  receiving, from a client computer, a request for all the database differences needed to make the client copy of the database table current;
  determining which updates are necessary for making the client copy of the database table current;
  ascertaining a client database engine type wherein the client copy of the database table is held;
  generating and translating specific database differences, selected based on the necessary updates, into instructions based on the ascertained database engine type prior to transmission; and
  transmitting the specific database differences to the client computer so that the client computer may execute the instructions on the client database engine, thereby making the client copy of the database table current in response to the specific database differences translated into the instructions.

Pure claims that EA and Ubisoft infringe their patents via their “game library updates.”  For example, “if a user purchases a game through the [EA’s] Origin website using a browser, the user’s game library is updated on a server” such that “[w]hen the user next logs into the Origin client, those updates are transmitted to the Origin client running on the user’s computer.”

The lawsuits against EA and Ubisoft are different, likely due to venue issues, but the complaints are almost identical. Pure appears to have also filed similar complaints against Valve Corporation, the Fox News Network, Imgur, CNET, CNN, and Pinterest, among others.