Once Again, VGo prevails in Court...
I wrote a blog back in Feb 2012 just after the Super Bowl on how competition causes businesses to try new ways to attract customers by lowering prices, improving quality and developing new products and services. (Click to read The 2012 Super Bowl and a Market Story of Robots Invading Telemedicine). Rather than competing on price, quality and features, InTouch Health used the patent system as its sword. Armed with very broad patents, they laid claim to a sweeping ownership of a market by birth right with a patent suit against VGo. In Dec 2012, a California federal jury found that VGo Communications Inc. didn't infringe InTouch’s three patents. My blog “Competing Using Lawsuits – Everyone’s a Loser” summed up the fact that despite the favorable ruling – nobody benefited except the lawyers.
Not wanting to accept the jury’s decision, InTouch appealed the verdict to the Federal Appeals court in Washington, DC. - once again requiring everyone to spend money that could have been better spent on serving customers and product developments.
On May 9, 2014 a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit agreed with the trial court that there was substantial evidence to support the jury's determination that VGo didn't infringe InTouch's U.S. The legal counsels comments can be found here: http://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.aspx?NewsPubID=17179872363
When there is a challenge to find the dollars to improve care coupled with the fact that we as a nation are spending 20% of our GDP on healthcare, everyone needs to be finding ways to reduce overall costs and delivering valuable solutions – not adding to it all with senseless lawsuits.