Johnson suing Wyze

Which is probably the way it should be, information tends to get twisted as it is passed along

You got that right, things get FUBAR’D :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Nothing new here - Big company can’t compete with smaller younger company, so they sue. It puts a drain on the smaller company so it is a win / win for the big company.
Can’t compete - then buy little gut or sue little guy.
Compete - Improve product, reduce price, reduce profits.
Consumers usually also lose in this exchange.
I’m rooting for Wyze -

4 Likes

Personally I am not too bothered. I worked many years ago for a hardware company. A week did not go by without someone suing us claiming Patent infringement. Sadly its how business is done now. I doubt anything will come of it. To be sure it could, but I believe its business as usual.

I would not expect comments about this from Wyze here. The lawyers will likely have told them not to comment on social media/forums.

7 Likes

That is understood and highly expected under such circumstances. Thanks, Loki. :slightly_smiling_face:

Delaware District Court
Judge: Colm F Connolly
Case #: 1:19-cv-01543
Nature of Suit 830 Property Rights - Patent
Cause 35:271 Patent Infringement

Case Filed: Aug 19, 2019

View complaint: https://litigationtools.maxval-ip.com/UnifiedPatentViewDocument/home/index?caseid=367776

Just read entire compliant, Johnson Controls and their lawyers are slime balls!
According to them every security camera in the world that uses WiFi & Cloud Storage infringes, What utter bullcrap - Lawyers and companies like this are what ruins new technologies, Just scum bags screwing others

12 Likes

Sounds like Johnson is patent trolling for dollars.

7 Likes

Patents are there for a reason. If an Infringement was made then they are within their rights to do this. However according to your statement it may be too late for Johnson Controls to claim anything. Patents need to be monitored regularly by the patent holder. I’m pretty sure that if it can be shown that Johnson Controls allowed other companies to use this technology in the past, then they lose the right to now start sueing companies over it. Also, just because Wyze is being sued doesn’t mean anything will come of it. People shouldn’t jump the gun and put the cart before the horse.

2 Likes

The alleged infringements are against 7 patents that are basically the same, just updated with tiny changes. The last patent was issued in Feb 2019 so Johnson Controls has not been sitting on it. They’re very much a big player in the enterprise security space and my office uses them for security cameras, doors, etc. Over the past year they’ve been consolidating and unifying their products with a big push for cloud integration.

Plenty of other companies use the exact same technology, but I suspect Johnson Controls is taking a page out of the patent troll handbook by attacking smaller successful companies first before moving on to bigger players. They are not a patent troll, but the same legal tactics work for large companies.

1 Like

If they are smart, Wyze will let their lawyers do all the talking. Otherwise it will be business as usual. If Wyze doesn’t end up on top in the lawsuit, we will probably see a price increase of a few dollars per camera.

I suspect you’re right. My prediction is that Johnson Controls has sent letters everyone making cloud based security cameras and their end game is to get a couple of buck per unit royalty when it’s all said and done.

Hopefully they have an experienced patent law attorney in their corner.

Having been on the receiving end of a very similar situation, my experience was that the companies that settled earliest got the worst deal.

I need to go read the Johnson Control’s patent, but my guess is that it wouldn’t be hard to establish that prior art existed before they filled. These sorts of cloud security systems were discussed even before we were calling it “the cloud”. There is a strong assumption that the grantee of a patent was the first inventor once they have a patent in hand, but that assumption can be overcome with good historical documentation.

Generally the companies that stave off settling in these situations do the best since the patent holder knows their position is weak and at some point they realize that something is better than nothing and they are somewhat satiated by the parties that settled early.

Incidentally, the patent system in the U.S. is pretty broken at the moment. Early in my career I routinely had patents rejected because the examiner asserted that my invention was “obvious to one skilled in the art” (and he was generally right about this). Some time in the mid to late 90’s that went away. There was no change in patent law, it was just that the quality of examiner seemed to decline and they were so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of patents being filed. Basically, it has gotten to the point where you can get a patent on anything that doesn’t already have an existing patent no matter how ridiculously trivial or obvious your invention is. Those types of patents can be defeated after they are granted, but it costs time and money when they should have never been granted in the first place.

The support is fantastic. Wyze does not need to hire attorneys. Better to just turn over this thread to the powers-that-be with all the expwert opinions. It feels great being associated with such a fine company deserving of such loyal patrons.

1 Like

Sensormatic was on the recieving end once regarding CCCTVs —Elbex Video, Ltd. v. Sensormatic Elecs. Corp. , 508 F.3d 1366, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
III. CONCLUSION
The district court erred in its construction of “receiving means” as being limited to a “monitor” based on statements made by the inventor to the PTO during prosecution of the '085 patent. We agree with the district court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement with respect to the RS-422 and SensorNet systems, but we disagree with the district court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement with respect to the Intellix IP systems. Therefore, the judgment of the district court is

*1376 COTE, District Judge, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I believe that when the prosecution history and the patent are considered together, the evidence is clear and unambiguous that Elbex’s reference to a “monitor” in its response to the PTO Office Action was a strategic choice and an unmistakable surrender of claim scope. Elbex made significant revisions to Claim 1 in what became the '085 patent in order to obtain the patent, and is now trying to recapture what it chose to abandon in the proceedings before the PTO. I would affirm.

These Patents are sometimes way too vague.

I wonder if fogcam is old enough for prior art. It was running since 1994.
I’d bet that a decent portion of it is prior art.
http://www.fogcam.org/

2 Likes

Very sad to see it go after its 25 year long run. :cry:

Is $200 really going to make you go broke?

Not sure to whom you are replying?

The good thing about our system is that the small company can counter Sue for their losses

I can see Amazon acquiring Wyze and fighting. I just hope Google and Nest stay away as they destroyed their NestCam product and turned it into crap.

1 Like