Toshiba, NovelPoint End Patent Dispute

Case Filed: Dec 08, 2012

Case Closed: Sep 24, 2013

Court: Texas Eastern District Court

Judge: Rodney Gilstrap

Case Summary:

NovelPoint Security filed a complaint accusing Toshiba of infringing its US patent US6442485 entitled ‘Method and apparatus for an automatic vehicle location, collision notification, and synthetic voice’, which was legally issued on Aug 27, 2002 and expires[*] by Jun 12, 2020. The patent is currently assigned[†] to NovelPoint Security (source: MaxVal’s Assignment Database). The invention relates to a controller with a memory, a Global Positioning System and means for wireless communication connectively disposed within a vehicle.

The Court documents said, defendants have infringed the claims of patent-in-suit by making use of the products and/or methods encompassed by those claims and cite Toshiba Thrive as an example of the  infringing product. Plaintiff asked the Court to declare patent-in-suit as infringed, permanent injunction, damages, costs and expenses incurred.

Stipulated motion for dismissal was filed and the Court upon consideration, ordered claims asserted by plaintiff dismissed with prejudice and counterclaims dismissed without prejudice. No information is available on the terms of settlement. Each party will bear their own costs and expenses. In Aug, this case was consolidated to a similar case (2:12-CV-00747) filed by NovelPoint against Samsung, which is ongoing and Toshiba is terminated from that case.

See 2:12-cv-00780 for more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.

* Expected expiration date using  Patent Term Estimator, use our free tool or download our free Android app on Google Play Store. 

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[*] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.

[†] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.