Following a request from Mobotix to review the validity of U.S. Patent No. 6,975,220, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled that the main claims of the patent are invalid and will be canceled. Back in 2013, the digital video surveillance patent had been asserted in lawsuits filed by Texas-based Com Cam International. against Mobotix and several other companies.

Documentation on the manufacturer’s camera model M1 published at the Cebit  trade fair in Hanover, Germany, in 2000 as well as third-party documents found through an extensive prior art search show that patent claims an invention that was already publicly known well before the filing of the application for the patent. On this basis, the Company challenged the validity of the patent claims by petitioning the USPTO to do an “inter partes review” of Com Cam’s patent. On April 28, 2016, the USPTO issued a 47-page written decision finding that virtually all of the claims are unpatentable. The Company has successfully pursued several “inter partes reviews,” which is a procedure available only since 2012. In those proceedings, five patents were challenged resulting in two patents killed and three largely cancelled. In total, Mobotix has achieved cancellation of 171 patent claims.