The wagon train of software patent lawsuits rolls on. As recently reported by Gene Quinn in his IP Watchdog blog (www.ipwatchdog.com), this time it’s IBM and HP that are in the cross-hairs, each being accused by BackWeb Technologies, Inc., of Santa Clara, California (and owned by an Israeli parent company) of infringing three US patents – U.S. 5,913,040, U.S. 6,317,789 and U.S. 6,539,429. These patents cover systems for transmitting digital information in background mode. To see an interactive claim chart of these patents claim limitations click here: BackWeb Claim Chart
The chart shows that almost all of the claims, with a couple of interesting exceptions, require monitoring or determining a line or link utilization rate, and transmitting data based on the rate. In the chart, the limitations in the left hand column are found in the respective claims (represented by the columns) if there is a blue square in the column. The “relevance” column can be set equal to 1, 2 or 3. If set to 3, then the chart assumes the target product has the corresponding limitation. If set to 1, the limitation is not found, and if set to 2, it is indeterminate or possibly found in the target product.
