Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 1 of 10
`
`IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
`FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
`WACO DIVISION
`
`
`Plaintiff,
`
`Civil Action No. 6:22-cv-364
`
`IMPLICIT, LLC
`
`v.
`
`SALESFORCE.COM, LLC
`
`JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
`
`Defendant.
`
`COMPLAINT FOR PATENT INFRINGEMENT
`
`Plaintiff Implicit, LLC (“Implicit” or “Plaintiff”), for its Complaint against Defendant
`
`Salesforce.com, LLC, (referred to herein as “Salesforce” or “Defendant”), alleges the following:
`
`NATURE OF THE ACTION
`
`1.
`
`This is an action for patent infringement arising under the Patent Laws of the
`
`United States, 35 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.
`
`THE PARTIES
`
`2. Plaintiff Implicit is a limited liability company organized under the laws of the State
`
`of Washington with a place of business at 101 E Park Blvd, Suite 600, Plano, TX 75074.
`
`3. Upon information and belief, Salesforce is a corporation organized under the laws of
`
`the State of Delaware with a place of business at 600 Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78701 in this
`
`District. Upon information and belief, Salesforce sells, offers to sell, and/or uses products and
`
`services throughout the United States, including in this judicial district, and introduces infringing
`
`products and services into the stream of commerce knowing that they would be sold and/or used
`
`in this judicial district and elsewhere in the United States.
`
`
`
`Page 1 of 10
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`
`
`IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
`FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
`WACO DIVISION
`
`
`Plaintiff,
`
`Civil Action No. 6:22-cv-364
`
`IMPLICIT, LLC
`
`v.
`
`SALESFORCE.COM, LLC
`
`JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
`
`Defendant.
`
`COMPLAINT FOR PATENT INFRINGEMENT
`
`Plaintiff Implicit, LLC (“Implicit” or “Plaintiff”), for its Complaint against Defendant
`
`Salesforce.com, LLC, (referred to herein as “Salesforce” or “Defendant”), alleges the following:
`
`NATURE OF THE ACTION
`
`1.
`
`This is an action for patent infringement arising under the Patent Laws of the
`
`United States, 35 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.
`
`THE PARTIES
`
`2. Plaintiff Implicit is a limited liability company organized under the laws of the State
`
`of Washington with a place of business at 101 E Park Blvd, Suite 600, Plano, TX 75074.
`
`3. Upon information and belief, Salesforce is a corporation organized under the laws of
`
`the State of Delaware with a place of business at 600 Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78701 in this
`
`District. Upon information and belief, Salesforce sells, offers to sell, and/or uses products and
`
`services throughout the United States, including in this judicial district, and introduces infringing
`
`products and services into the stream of commerce knowing that they would be sold and/or used
`
`in this judicial district and elsewhere in the United States.
`
`
`
`Page 1 of 10
`
`
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 2 of 10
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`JURISDICTION AND VENUE
`
`4.
`
`This is an action for patent infringement arising under the Patent Laws of the
`
`United States, Title 35 of the United States Code.
`
`5.
`
`6.
`
`7.
`
`This Court has subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1338(a).
`
`Venue is proper in this judicial district under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b).
`
`This Court has personal jurisdiction over the Defendant under the laws of the
`
`State of Texas, due at least to their substantial business in Texas and in this judicial district,
`
`directly or through intermediaries, including: (i) at least a portion of the infringements alleged
`
`herein; and (ii) regularly doing or soliciting business, engaging in other persistent courses of
`
`conduct and/or deriving substantial revenue from goods and services provided to individuals in
`
`the State of Texas. Venue is also proper in this district because Salesforce has a regular and
`
`established place of business in this district. Salesforce has business operations for Sales Cloud,
`
`Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Pardot, Salesforce CPQ, Commerce Cloud (B2B and B2C),
`
`DMP, and its product portfolio, pricing information, implementation and adoption planning, in
`
`this judicial district. For example, Salesforce has an Office located at 600 Congress Avenue,
`
`Austin, TX 78701. (See, e.g., https://www.salesforce.com/company/locations/.)
`
`BACKGROUND
`
`The Invention
`
`8.
`
`Edward Balassanian is the inventor of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,774,740 (“the ’740
`
`patent”), 8,056,075 (“the ’075 patent”), and 6,976,248 (“the ’248 patent”) (collectively, “the
`
`patents”). True and correct copies of the ’740 patent, ’075 patent, and the ’248 patent are
`
`attached as Exhibits A, B, and C, respectively.
`
`9.
`
`The patent resulted from the pioneering efforts of Mr. Edward Balassanian
`
`(hereinafter “the Inventor”) in the area of server architecture. These efforts resulted in the
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 3 of 10
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`development of a method and apparatus for a server architecture that allows client computers to
`
`request and execute applets in 1998. At the time of these pioneering efforts, the most widely
`
`implemented technology used to address the demand for more secure and efficient computer
`
`systems was to depend upon improvements in hardware performance to make up for the
`
`performance penalty that was typically incurred when a computer system was made more secure
`
`and stable. In that type of system, one of the solutions to the problem of a variety of computers
`
`interconnected via the Internet and corporate networks was the development of portable
`
`architecture neutral programming languages. The Inventor conceived of the inventions claimed
`
`in the patents as a way to provide a scalable distributed system architecture that provides a
`
`mechanism for client computers to request and execute applets in a safe manner without
`
`requiring the client machines to have local resources compile or verify the code that improved
`
`upon traditional implementations of architecture neutral languages that required every client
`
`perform its own verification and interpretation of intermediate code.
`
`10.
`
`For example, as recited in claim 11 of the ’740 patent the Inventor developed a
`
`method operating on a computer system, having a client computer and a server computer, for
`
`managing requests to the server computer, the method comprising:
`
`at the server computer, receiving a request from the client
`computer,
`
`the request identifying an application and identifying a form of the
`application; and in response to receiving the request:
`
`compiling the application into a compiled form;
`
`transforming the compiled application into a transformed form of
`the compiled form of the application,
`
`wherein transforming comprises execution and compression of the
`compiled form; and
`
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 4 of 10
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`sending the transformed form of the application to the client
`computer.
`
`For example, as recited in claim 1 of the ’075 patent, the Inventor developed a
`
`
`11.
`
`method for delivering one or more applets to one or more client computers, comprising, in no
`
`particular order, the steps of:
`
`configuring an applet server manager at a server computer to
`manage at least one request from the one or more client computers
`for the one or more applets, the applet server manager having
`access to one or more networks;
`
`receiving the at least one request at the applet server manager;
`
`
`processing the one or more applets at the applet server manager,
`wherein processing the one or more applets includes at least one of
`the following steps:
`
`compressing the one or more applets before sending the one or
`more applets to the one or more client computers,
`
`
`optimizing the one or more applets before sending the one or more
`applets to the one or more client computers, and
`
`
`verifying the one or more applets before sending the one or more
`applets to one or more client computers; and
`
`
`sending the one or more applets from the applet server manager to
`the one or more client computers.
`
`For example, as recited in claim 1 of the ’248 patent, the Inventor developed a
`
`12.
`
`method operating on a computer system for managing requests to a server computer for applets
`
`in a client server environment wherein each request for an applet specifies one form of the applet
`
`out of a plurality forms of the applet, comprising:
`
`a) receiving on said server computer a request from a client computer
`for an applet in a form selected from a plurality forms;
`
`b) compiling said applet into said selected form from a local resource
`comprising at least one source module and one compiler which
`acts on said source module to produce said selected form; and
`
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 5 of 10
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`c) transmitting said applet in said selected form to said client
`computer.
`
`Advantage Over the Prior Art
`
`
`
`13.
`
`The patented invention disclosed in the patents, provides many advantages over
`
`the prior art, and in particular improved the operations of an applet server which accepts requests
`
`for applets from client computers. (See ’740 patent at Abstract.) One advantage of the patented
`
`invention is a scalable distributed system architecture that provides a mechanism for client
`
`computers to request and execute applets in a safe manner without requiring the client machines
`
`to have local resources to compile or verify the code. (See ’740 patent at 2:6–10.)
`
`14.
`
`Another advantage of the patented invention is that compilation and byte-code
`
`verification are server based and thereby provide more efficient use of resources and a flexible
`
`mechanism for instituting enterprise-wide security policies. (See ’740 patent at 2:20–24.)
`
`15.
`
`Another advantage of the patented invention is that the server architecture also
`
`provides a cache for applets, allowing clients to receive applet code without having to access
`
`nodes outside the local network. (See ’740 patent at 2:24–27.)
`
`16.
`
`Yet another advantage of the patented invention is that it allows a single version
`
`of the source to be stored for many target platforms instead of having a different binary for each
`
`potential target computer. (See ’740 patent at 2:38–41.)
`
`17.
`
`Because of these significant advantages that can be achieved through the use of
`
`the patented invention, Implicit believes that the patents presents significant commercial value
`
`for companies like Salesforce. Indeed, Defendant’s website ranked 153rd of all websites
`
`globally in Alexa’s “90 Day Trend” for global internet engagement as reported on Alexa.com,
`
`
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 6 of 10
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`visited shortly before the filing of this complaint. (See
`
`https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/salesforce.com (last visited Apr. 6, 2022).)
`
`Technological Innovation
`
`18.
`
`The patented invention disclosed in the patents resolves technical problems
`
`related to server architecture, particularly problems related to the interoperability of enterprise
`
`level systems on the Internet with architecture neutral programming languages that allowed
`
`programs downloaded from a server computer to a client computer to be interpreted and
`
`executed locally. As the patents explains, one of the limitations of the prior art as regards
`
`traditional implementations of architecture neutral languages is that while they provided
`
`tremendous cross platform support, these implementations of architecture neutral languages
`
`require that every client perform its own verification and interpretation of the intermediate code,
`
`resulting in high computation and memory requirements of the verifier. (See ’740 patent at
`
`1:51–59.)
`
`19.
`
`The claims of the patents do not merely recite the performance of some well-
`
`known business practice from the pre-Internet world along with the requirement to perform it on
`
`the Internet. Instead, the claims of the patents recite inventive concepts that are deeply rooted in
`
`engineering technology, and overcome problems specifically arising out of how to provide a
`
`scalable distributed system architecture that provides a mechanism for client computers to
`
`request and execute applets in a safe manner without requiring the client machines to have local
`
`resources to compile or verify the code.
`
`20.
`
`In addition, the claims of the patents recite inventive concepts that improve the
`
`functioning of corporate networks and interoperability amongst a variety of computers.
`
`
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 7 of 10
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`21. Moreover, the claims of the patents recite inventive concepts that are not merely
`
`routine or conventional use of computers. Instead, the patented invention disclosed in the patents
`
`provides a new and novel solution to specific problems related to improving system architecture
`
`in which applets may be cached in either intermediate architecture neutral from or machine
`
`specific form in order to increase overall system performance and efficiency.
`
`22.
`
`And finally, the patented invention disclosed in the patents does not preempt all
`
`the ways that system architecture may be used to improve the applet servers that accept requests
`
`for applets from client computers, nor does the patents preempt any other well-known or prior art
`
`technology.
`
`23.
`
`Accordingly, the claims in the patents recite a combination of elements sufficient
`
`to ensure that the claim in substance and in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent-
`
`ineligible abstract idea.
`
`COUNT I – INFRINGEMENT OF U.S. PATENT NO. 7,774,740
`
`24.
`
`The allegations set forth in the foregoing paragraphs 1 through 23 are
`
`incorporated into this First Claim for Relief.
`
`25.
`
`On August 10, 2010, the ’740 patent was duly and legally issued by the United
`
`States Patent and Trademark Office under the title “Application Server.”
`
`26.
`
`Implicit LLC is the assignee and owner of the right, title and interest in and to the
`
`’740 patent, including the right to assert all causes of action arising under said patent and the
`
`right to any remedies for infringement of it.
`
`27.
`
`Upon information and belief, Salesforce has and continues to directly infringe one
`
`or more claims of the ’740 patent by selling, offering to sell, making, using, and/or providing and
`
`causing to be used products, specifically its Salesforce products implementing Node.js, which by
`
`
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 8 of 10
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`way of example include the Salesforce.com platform:
`
`https://www.salesforce.com/products/#products-scroll-tab (the “Accused Instrumentalities”).
`
`28.
`
`Upon information and belief, the Accused Instrumentalities perform a method for
`
`operating on a computer system, having a client computer and a server computer, for managing
`
`requests to the server computer. Exemplary infringement analysis showing infringement of
`
`claim 11 of the ’740 patent is set forth in Exhibit D.
`
`29.
`
`Implicit has been harmed by Salesforce’s infringing activities.
`
`COUNT II – INFRINGEMENT OF U.S. PATENT NO. 8,056,075
`
`30. The allegations set forth in the foregoing paragraphs 1 through 29 are incorporated
`
`into this Second Claim for Relief.
`
`31.
`
`On November 8, 2011, the ’075 patent was duly and legally issued by the United
`
`States Patent and Trademark Office under the title “Server Request Management”
`
`32.
`
`Implicit is the assignee and owner of the right, title and interest in and to the ’075
`
`patent, including the right to assert all causes of action arising under said patent and the right to
`
`any remedies for infringement of it.
`
`33.
`
`Upon information and belief, Salesforce has and continues to directly infringe one
`
`or more claims of the ’075 patent by selling, offering to sell, making, using, and/or providing and
`
`causing to be used products, specifically its Salesforce products implementing Node.js, which by
`
`way of example include the Salesforce.com platform:
`
`https://www.salesforce.com/products/#products-scroll-tab (the “Accused Instrumentalities”).
`
`34.
`
`Upon information and belief, the Accused Instrumentalities perform a method for
`
`delivering one or more applets to one or more client computers. Exemplary infringement
`
`analysis showing infringement of claim 1 of the ’075 patent is set forth in Exhibit E.
`
`35.
`
`Implicit has been harmed by Salesforce’s infringing activities.
`
`
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 9 of 10
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`COUNT III – INFRINGEMENT OF U.S. PATENT NO. 6,976,248
`
`36. The allegations set forth in the foregoing paragraphs 1 through 35 are incorporated
`
`into this Third Claim for Relief.
`
`37.
`
`On December 13, 2005, the ’248 patent was duly and legally issued by the United
`
`States Patent and Trademark Office under the title “Application Server Facilitating with Client’s
`
`Computer for Applets Along with Various Formats”.
`
`38.
`
`Implicit is the assignee and owner of the right, title and interest in and to the ’248
`
`patent, including the right to assert all causes of action arising under said patent and the right to
`
`any remedies for infringement of it.
`
`39.
`
`Upon information and belief, Salesforce has and continues to directly infringe one
`
`or more claims of the ’248 patent by selling, offering to sell, making, using, and/or providing and
`
`causing to be used products, specifically its Salesforce products implementing Node.js, which by
`
`way of example include the Salesforce.com platform:
`
`https://www.salesforce.com/products/#products-scroll-tab (the “Accused Instrumentalities”).
`
`40.
`
`Upon information and belief, the Accused Instrumentalities perform a method
`
`operating on a computer system for managing requests to a server computer for applets in a
`
`client server environment wherein each request for an applet specifies one form of the applet out
`
`of a plurality forms of the applet. Exemplary infringement analysis showing infringement of
`
`claim 1 of the ’248 patent is set forth in Exhibit F.
`
`41.
`
`Implicit has been harmed by Salesforce’s infringing activities.
`
`JURY DEMAND
`
`Pursuant to Rule 38 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Implicit demands a trial by
`
`jury on all issues triable as such.
`
`
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`Page 9 of 10
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`Case 6:22-cv-00364-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/11/22 Page 10 of 10
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`PRAYER FOR RELIEF
`
`WHEREFORE, Plaintiff Implicit demands judgment for itself and against Salesforce as
`
`follows:
`
`A.
`
`An adjudication that Salesforce has infringed the ’740 patent, the ’075 patent, and
`
`the ’248 patent;
`
`B.
`
`An award of damages to be paid by Salesforce adequate to compensate Implicit
`
`for Salesforce’s past infringement of the ’740 patent, the ’075 patent, and the ’248 patent.
`
`C.
`
`A declaration that this case is exceptional under 35 U.S.C. § 285, and an award of
`
`Implicit’s reasonable attorneys’ fees; and
`
`D.
`
`An award to Implicit of such further relief at law or in equity as the Court deems
`
`just and proper.
`
`Dated: April 11, 2022
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`DEVLIN LAW FIRM LLC
`
`
`
`/s/ James M. Lennon
`James M. Lennon
`jlennon@devlinlawfirm.com
`Timothy Devlin
`tdevlin@devlinlawfirm.com
`1526 Gilpin Avenue
`Wilmington, Delaware 19806
`Telephone: (302) 449-9010
`Facsimile: (302) 353-4251
`
`Attorneys for Plaintiff Implicit, LLC
`
`Page 10 of 10
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