As reported by Reuters, Fitbit's attempt to summarily dismiss Philips’ claims in a Boston federal court regarding infringement of patents for wearable health monitoring devices has failed.
Despite early success against Philips this April at the International Trade Commission, Fitbit was unsuccessful in arguing that the relevant parts of the patents were invalid. While the judge agreed with Fitbit’s reasoning that two of the patents were related to abstract ideas, he ultimately determined that the patents may contain inventive concepts and declined to dismiss Philips’ infringement claims.
In one of the patents, Philips argued that their idea differed from the abstract concept of collecting data because it allows for processing information in real-time. Philips differentiated a second patent from the abstract concept of “secure data transfer between devices” by highlighting the patentable ability to solve problems of interoperability between wireless technology when making secure data transfers.
As the invalidity claims were only rejected at the summary dismissal stage, Fitbit is not out of the running yet.
Authors: Mark Leonard and Hannah Johnson, 2021/2022 Articling Student-at-law
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