Alarm.com Loses Patent Infringement Case Against SecureNet
A jury found SecureNet Technologies had not infringed three patents and that no damages for lost profits and reasonable royalties were due to Alarm.com.
An attorney for Alarm.com told the jury that SecureNet became aware of the patents no later than 2014 — and likely before — when Alarm.com predecessor iControl Networks filed its original patent suit against the company.
WILMINGTON, De. — Alarm.com (Nasdaq: ALRM) has lost its bid for millions of dollars in damages in a patent infringement case relating to smart home security and automation networking.
A jury found Feb. 8 that SecureNet Technologies did not infringe three of Alarm.com’s patents, awarding no damages in the five-day U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware trial.
Based in Florida, SecureNet manufacturers a B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for providers of interactive services in the security, smart home, MSO health & wellness and energy verticals.
The eight-member jury said SecureNet had not infringed U.S. Patent Nos. 8,073,931, 8,478,844 and 8,473,619 and that no damages for lost profits and reasonable royalties were due to Alarm.com.
Alarm.com had sought $20 million in damages on its claims that SecureNet had infringed patents relating to interactive gateway technology using a touchscreen and an off-site server that would allow separate home security and automation systems to be managed from a single interface, reports Law360.com.
Alarm.com argued that SecureNet’s mobile app interface and use of a back-end server infringed claims of the three patents. However, SecureNet’s attorney countered that the defendant’s product in question involved software and not the hardware devices covered by the patents.
“You didn’t see a single line of code from SecureNet’s server. You didn’t see a single line of code form SecureNet’s app. Not one. The only thing SecureNet makes is software…,” SecureNet Attorney Erik B. Milch of Cooley LLP told the jury. “We’re talking about patent claims for devices that SecureNet does not make.”
Milch also argued the ’931 patent was invalid because it was obvious to a person of reasonable skill in the industry, but the jury’s verdict disagreed, finding that the patent was valid, Law360 reports.
Alarm.com Attorney James C. Yoon of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC expressed to the jury that SecureNet became aware of the patents no later than 2014 — and likely before — when Alarm.com predecessor iControl Networks filed its original patent suit against the company, Law360 reports.
iControl dropped that suit a few months later after agreeing to work with SecureNet on a licensing agreement for the technology, Yoon said, but that deal never came to fruition and the litigation was refiled in 2015.
Alarm.com’s position was that SecureNet directly and willfully infringed the patents at issue in the case and induced third parties to infringe by using SecureNet’s infringing products in their own devices that were then sold to homeowners, Yoon said.
Alarm.com provided SSI with the following statement:
In June 2016, Alarm.com Incorporated announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to purchase two business units, Connect and Piper, from Icontrol Networks, Inc. Upon closing of that transaction in March 2017, Alarm.com acquired the assets and certain intellectual property of these businesses, with such assets including an ongoing patent infringement suit filed by Icontrol Networks against SecureNet Technologies in September 2015. The trial in that case completed February 8, 2019, and the jury found that SecureNet had not infringed certain claims of the three Icontrol patents at issue. No Alarm.com patents were involved in this case. Alarm.com continues to hold over 400 patents and patents pending. Although disappointed in the outcome at trial, Alarm.com will continue to take appropriate action to protect its intellectual property.
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[…] SecureNet has been found not guilty of infringing three smart home security patents belonging to Virginia-based Alarm.com. The U.S. […]