Wikipedia parent company Wikimedia has filed a patent infringement complaint requesting a declaratory judgment against WordLogic Corporation and 602531 British Columbia Ltd., which is a subsidiary of WordLogic. The suit was filed in the California Northern District Court. Wikimedia is represented by Greenberg Traurig.
Wikimedia has requested a declaration that it has not infringed upon U.S. Patent Nos. 7,293,231 (“’231 patent”), 7,681,124 (“’124 patent”), 7,716,579 (“’579 patent”) and 8,552,984 (“’984 patent”).
WordLogic has asserted the ’124 and ’984 patents in previous lawsuits. WordLogic also asserted enforcement actions against Wikimedia. WordLogic sent a letter to Wikimedia informing about Wikipedia’s infringement of the four patents. The notice stated that “WIKIPEDIA Website infringes at least claim 19 of the ’124 patent, and likely other claims in the WordLogic patents.” The letter states how it will show Wikipedia’s infringement, adding that the “predictive text search box” on WIKIPEDIA infringes upon claim 19 of the ’124 patent.
Wikimedia claimed that the patents are invalid and that it did not infringe upon the asserted patents. The Patent Office has reviewed the ’124 patent claims in other cases for the same asserted patents “because it found that these prior art references established a reasonable likelihood that the claims of the ’124 patent were unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)”; this also invalidates the other patents.
Additionally, Wikimedia claimed that WordLogic neglected to provide specifics as to how Wikimedia has infringed. For claim 19 in the ’124 patent, WordLogic stated that Wikipedia’s search box infringes; however, Wikimedia countered that it does not “perform the required step of ‘obtaining and displaying in the search list a further modified plurality of completion candidates from among the group of completion candidates, if a completion candidate is accepted via the search list from the modified plurality of completion candidates.”
Wikimedia has sought a declaratory judgment of invalidity and non-infringement of the asserted patents, an award for costs and fees, and other relief as determined by the court.
