Telehealth provider American Well has filed a lawsuit against competitor Teladoc for patent infringement for the Teladoc telehealth service offering (“the Teladoc System”).
“Teladoc has infringed American Well’s intellectual property,” said Ido Schoenberg, CEO of American Well in an official statement. “While a transparent and competitive landscape is an imperative for innovation, Teladoc has unfairly disregarded American Well’s ownership rights to advance its business. We developed and patented these innovations and we owe it to our clients, partners and shareholders to protect them.”
According to American Well, Teladoc infringed claim 10 of the ’550 patent described as computer implemented method comprising “accessing a data repository that stores information pertaining to medical service providers, including present availability of the medical service providers for participating in a consultation; receiving in a computer, indications that members of a pool of medical service providers have become presently available; receiving in the computer, a request from a consumer of services to consult with a medical service provider; identifying in the computer, an available member of the pool; and establishing a real-time communication channel between the consumer of services and the identified member of the pool.”
The lawsuit accuses Teladoc of relying on American Well’s patent telehealth platform; however, is not authorized to practice any of American Well’s patent claims. Recently, Teladoc sought to obtain a license to American Well’s patents in which American Well quickly rejected Teladoc’s request.
In March of this year, Teladoc filed a request for the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (“PTAB”) to conduct an inter partes review (IPR) of four claims within American Well’s ’550 patent. The PTAB has not decided whether to institute the inter partes review and American Well has not yet had the opportunity to respond. Teladoc’s filing of the IPR request does prove that it was fully aware of American Well’s ’550 patent before March 2015 and concerned about the ‘550 patent infringement. American Well is seeking to prevent Teladoc from operating the Teladoc System, and to recover its damages, including treble damages and an award of legal fees and costs associated with the lawsuit.
