Case Filed: Mar 12, 2014
Court: California Northern
District Court
Judge: Laurel Beeler
Case Summary:
SoftVault Systems, Inc. (SVS), a
Washington-based intellectual property company, filed a complaint against Boxtone
and Xerox accusing them of patent infringement over their patented technology
in the field of digital rights management (DRM) and device access control. The
patents at issue are: US6249868 and US6594765 both entitled ‘Method and system
for embedded, automated, component-level control of computer systems and other
complex systems’, duly issued by United States Patent & Trademark Office on
Jun 19, 2001 and Jul 15, 2003, respectively. The patents are scheduled to
expire[i]
by Mar 25 and Sep 29, 2018. The patents are owned and currently assigned to SoftVault.
The patents are directed, in general, to the remote disablement of hardware and
digital content.
The complaint alleged that Boxtone
infringes the patents-in-suit by manufacturing products and systems which prevent
unauthorized access through the ability to enable or disable the operation of a
device’s components through an authorization process performed by an embedded
agent in the component device and a server. The complaint cited Boxtone’s
Mobile Device Management system as the infringing product and alleged that Xerox
infringes the patents through use of the infringing product.
In its prayer for relief, SoftVault
requested Court to find judgment in its favor with damages, costs and permanent
enjoinment of the infringing products.
See 3:14-cv-01155
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[i]
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.