Plaintiff Spam Blocker LLC filed a patent infringement complaint on June 10 against LG Electronics Inc. (LGE) alleging that they infringed upon a method for silencing incoming calls. This case is being held in the Western District of Texas before Judge Alan D. Albright.
The four patents-in-suit are U.S. Patent No. 9,167,088 (the ‘088 patent), U.S. Patent No. 9,338,292 (the ‘292 patent), U.S. Patent No. 9,497,321 (the ‘321 patent), and U.S. Patent No. 9,749,469 (the ’469 patent). Each is titled “Method and Apparatus for Selective Silencing of Telephone Ringing,” relating to a method for “demodulating an incoming call signal from a calling party” and “detecting at least a portion of the incoming call signal to determine an identification of the incoming call signal from the calling party.” Attached to the complaint are separate exhibits with diagrams detailing specifically how the smartphones infringe on each of the patents’ claims.
The plaintiff alleged LGE’s smartphones that support a Do Not Disturb mode directly infringe on the patents-in-suit for a variety of reasons, including their identification of incoming calls from a calling party, their ability to assign “priority on the incoming call based on a predefined scheme,” and their silencing of “notifications and calls regardless of a time of receipt of the incoming call.” The defendants are accused of “providing users instructions on how to enable and use Do Not Disturb mode on Accused Products in an infringing manner” through user guides.
As a result of the defendants’ alleged patent infringement, Spam Blocker seeks an award of damages and an order granting pre- and post-judgment royalties for any continuing infringing activity.
The plaintiff is represented by Griffin Law.
