A legal battle between two of the largest telehealth providers in the country could boil down to who practiced telehealth first - and whether what they're doing can be protected by a patent.
Following American Well's June 8 filing of a patent infringement suit against Teladoc, Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic fired back by saying they've been practicing telehealth "long before American Well was even formed as a company." He also charged that some of American Well's patents "are impermissibly broad and cover matters that are too obvious to be patented."
"We will continue to pursue our petition to have American Well’s patents invalidated," Gorevic concluded in a statement. "As for today’s action by American Well, Teladoc will vigorously defend itself as it would in any other non-meritorious, ordinary-course litigation.”
In its suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, Boston-based American Well has charged Teladoc, based in Dallas, with operating on a telehealth platform very similar to American Well's, and in doing so violating "intellectual property rights."
The 46-page suit centers on American Well's so-called '550 patent.
Titled "Connecting consumers with service providers," the patent in question describes "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 provider; identifying in the computer, an available member of the pool; and establishing a real-time communication channel between the consumer of the services and the identified member of the pool."
In its lawsuit, American Well draws on Teladoc's recent filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of common stock. Using information in that filing, American Well argues that Teladoc's "enterprise data store" is identical to American Well's data repository, and that Teladoc also monitors "providers' capacity" and uses a system that "manag(es) custom visit queues that automatically and instantly route available visits to appropriate providers based upon proprietary algorithms." The lawsuit also states that Teladoc's system "dynamically and efficiently match(es) consumer demand and physician availability in real time" and that it allows a consumer and provider to "conduct a visit (via video or phone.)"
Both parties point to Teladoc's motion on March 24 to seek an "inner partes review" (IPR) with the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeals Board of American Well's '550 patent (the company has secured 26 patents, and has another 25 pending). The board has yet to rule on Teladoc's request.
"Teladoc’s infringement is willful and deliberate," the suit reads. "Teladoc has known of the ’550 patent since at least early 2015, and likely much earlier. The application for the ’550 patent was filed on June 15, 2007 and was published on March 13, 2008. The patent issued on September 15, 2009. Despite this knowledge, Teladoc has chosen to practice illicitly the claims in the ’550 patent."
Gorevic said Teladoc's action is to refute the validity of certain American Well's patents, while American Well officials say the IPR request proves that Teladoc officials were worried that they were violating American Well's property rights.
“Teladoc has infringed American Well’s intellectual property,” Ido Schoenberg, American Well's co-founder and CEO, said in a press release. “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 information in the IPO, Teladoc was incorporated on June 13, 2002. American Well was launched in 2006.
See also:
Apple injects new features into HealthKit, Watch
Microsoft's big telemedicine move
Buyers' guide to mobile ICD-10 apps
