Tamabo, Inc. et al v. Mass General Brigham, Inc. et al. (D. Mass. 23-cv-10079).

Tamabo and 511 Technologies, Inc. sued Mass General Brigham, Massachusetts General Hospital, Tumor Imaging Metrics Core, Precision Metrics LLC, and YUNU, Inc., accusing them of infringing patents related to tutorials and diagnostic aids.   The plaintiffs assert U.S. Patent 6,599,130 (presently expired, although the prayer for relief seeks damages for continuing and future infringement), titled “Iterative Video Teaching Aid with Recordable Commentary and Indexing.”  The complaint includes many allegations that the ‘130 patent is directed to patent-eligible subject matter, which is not surprising since the patent was prosecuted in the pre-Alice era.  Both plaintiffs are alleged to be assignees and owners of the patent, although the PTO’s assignment database shows Tamabo to be the sole owner.

According to the complaint, the inventor on the ‘130 patent met with the defendants in 2013, and that the parties agreed to work together to implement the invention.  Tamabo says that the defendants instead created their own open-source version to avoid paying a license.

Both plaintiffs are Texas corporations sharing an address in Marshall Texas, a common home for non-practicing entities.  511 Technologies appeared as a plaintiff in a pair of 2022 Massachusetts filings, asserting patents related to navigation within hierarchical menu structures.  One of those settled without an answer being filed, while the second currently has a pending motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, as well as counterclaims of inequitable conduct for improperly asserting small entity status when paying maintenance fees, misrepresenting to the PTO that this was a “good faith error without deceptive intent,” and lying to the PTO about informing courts in which the patents were being asserted about the underpayment of fees.  The ‘130 patent has been asserted once previously, in the Eastern District of Texas, with the case settling without any significant court activity.