California limited liability company RICMIC LLC on Wednesday sued Vigil Health Solutions Inc. and Seacrest Village Retirement Communities in federal court for alleged patent infringement of a wireless emergency call system designed for the senior living and healthcare industries.
RICMIC LLC claims that Vigil sells a number of emergency call systems that violate patents held by RICMIC manager Michael Halverson. Seacrest, which is operated by defendant San Diego Hebrew Homes, uses the infringing products, such as the Vigil Wireless Nurse Call System, despite the fact that it was notified of the alleged patent infringement, according to the complaint.
“Defendants’ continuing infringement has caused and will continue to cause plaintiff irreparable harm for which there is no adequate legal remedy in that such continuing infringement undermines plaintiff’s ongoing efforts to sell or exclusively license the Asserted Patents and other related patents for full value or at all because without an injunction RICMIC is unable to exercise its fundamental right to exclude others from practicing the Asserted Patents,” the complaint states.
Patent numbers in question are 9,305,450 B2 and 10,380,873 B1. The emergency call system described in the patents consists of a patient safety device, such as a pendant or smoke alarm, and a caregiver communications device, such as a tablet or a smartphone, that are connected to a central coordination server. When a patient safety device generates an alarm, the caregiver device receives an alert.
“The patented invention provides substantial information delivery benefits, logging, recording and reporting functionality, and overcomes other functional and technical limitations inherent in one-way pager, two-way radio and cellular phone ‘nurse call’ and other call systems commonly used in assisted living facilities,” the complaint states.
RICMIC is seeking to enjoin Vigil from making, selling or using its emergency call systems that utilize the Vigil Mobile alert notification tool in the United States and to enjoin Seacrest from using said products. The plaintiff is also seeking damages for patent infringement.
RICMIC is represented by Mazura Law Firm, Law Office of George Moschopoulos APC and Shoffner Law Firm.
