Re:Plus codes: addresses for everyone
by tzs on Sunday September 30, 2018 @09:25PM
(#18109392)
Both of the independent claims in that are quite specific about the conversions between locations and lists of numbers and between lists of numbers and lists of words being unique.
If not done more than a cursory reading of those claims, but I wonder if you could work around it by simply making some of the mappings non-unique?
I did not look at the dependent claims because generally if you infringe a dependent claim you necessarily also infringe the dependent claim upon which it depends. As the Federal Circuit noted [1]:
"It is axiomatic that dependent claims cannot be found infringed unless the claims from which they depend have been found to have been infringed."
However, a year later [2], that same court quoted that in another case, and then said:
"While this proposition is no doubt generally correct, it does not apply in the circumstances of this case"
The circumstances of that had something to do with the doctrine of equivalents being used to find infringement of the dependent claims, but the scope of the equivalents was wide enough to bring in prior art that would encompass the independent claim (but not the dependent claim), and so that prior art stopped infringement of the independent claim but not of the dependent claim--or something like that. I've not looked serious at patent law in a long time so this is getting into territory I'm now very fuzzy on.
My initial impression is that this would probably not apply if the alleged infringement of the what3words patent was a product that was pretty much the same as what3words except for not satisfying the uniqueness properties from that patent.
[1] Wahpeton Canvas Co., Inc. v. Frontier, Inc., 870 F.2d 1546, 1553 & n. 9, 10 USPQ2d 1201, 1208 & n. 9 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
[2] Wilson Sporting Goods Co., Plaintiff-appellee, v. David Geoffrey & Associates D/b/a Slazenger, and Dunlopslazenger Corporation Aka Dunlop Sportscorporation, Defendants-appellants, 904 F.2d 677 (Fed. Cir. 1990)
If not done more than a cursory reading of those claims, but I wonder if you could work around it by simply making some of the mappings non-unique?
I did not look at the dependent claims because generally if you infringe a dependent claim you necessarily also infringe the dependent claim upon which it depends. As the Federal Circuit noted [1]:
"It is axiomatic that dependent claims cannot be found infringed unless the claims from which they depend have been found to have been infringed."
However, a year later [2], that same court quoted that in another case, and then said:
"While this proposition is no doubt generally correct, it does not apply in the circumstances of this case"
The circumstances of that had something to do with the doctrine of equivalents being used to find infringement of the dependent claims, but the scope of the equivalents was wide enough to bring in prior art that would encompass the independent claim (but not the dependent claim), and so that prior art stopped infringement of the independent claim but not of the dependent claim--or something like that. I've not looked serious at patent law in a long time so this is getting into territory I'm now very fuzzy on.
My initial impression is that this would probably not apply if the alleged infringement of the what3words patent was a product that was pretty much the same as what3words except for not satisfying the uniqueness properties from that patent.
[1] Wahpeton Canvas Co., Inc. v. Frontier, Inc., 870 F.2d 1546, 1553 & n. 9, 10 USPQ2d 1201, 1208 & n. 9 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
[2] Wilson Sporting Goods Co., Plaintiff-appellee, v. David Geoffrey & Associates D/b/a Slazenger, and Dunlopslazenger Corporation Aka Dunlop Sportscorporation, Defendants-appellants, 904 F.2d 677 (Fed. Cir. 1990)