Patent Law

The following is excerpted from a July 16, 2009 Alcohol Monitoring Systems, Inc. press release found at PR Newswire:

Denver-based Alcohol Monitoring Systems (AMS) has recently lost a long-standing patent infringement case against Tampa, Florida-based Actsoft. But company officials are calling the loss a win for its proprietary SCRAM System.

AMS manufactures SCRAM, the Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor. On the market since 2003, the system has monitored more than 102,000 alcohol offenders in 47 states. The lawsuit, filed by AMS in 2007 in Colorado's Federal District Court, challenged that Actsoft violated AMS' intellectual property with their product, "HAS," or House Arrest Solution, which Actsoft says combines GPS location monitoring with an embedded "continuous alcohol monitoring" component.

In what AMS CEO Mike Iiams calls a "surprise" ruling by the court, in April, the presiding judge in the case ruled that Actsoft did not violate AMS patents - because the product does not actually calculate Blood Alcohol Content (BAC), the de facto measurement used worldwide to determine whether an individual has consumed alcohol and the level of intoxication. "While it was a technical loss, the ruling confirmed what Actsoft testified to in court - that the continuous alcohol monitoring component of their bracelet didn't in any way meet any of the criteria for being a reliable indicator of alcohol consumption," says Iiams. According to court documents, Actsoft executives and lawyers testified and stated repeatedly throughout the case that their product does not monitor BAC, is not calibrated, cannot distinguish between consumed and environmental exposure to alcohol and requires a secondary breath or blood test to determine actual intoxication.

According to Iiams, despite their view of the ruling as a win, the company is appealing the case. "The integrity of the technology and the trust that the courts place in us requires that we continue to vigorously defend any infringement on our intellectual property," says Iiams. "Just because a company does a poor job of violating our patents does not mean it isn't a violation," he says.

AMS plans to launch the next generation of their product in 2009. The new system will incorporate house arrest technology with their established alcohol monitoring system, opening up what the company says is a substantial market for higher risk offenders who courts want to monitor and limit their location. According to Iiams, the system will be the first one in the U.S. to combine location and curfew monitoring functions with continuous alcohol monitoring.

See the full press release here.