WirelessWerx IP LLC v. Kontaktio Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: WirelessWerx IP LLC (Texas)
  • Defendant: Kontakt.io Inc. (Delaware)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: David J. Hoffman
• Case Identification: 1:26-cv-00842, S.D.N.Y., 01/30/2026
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper in the Southern District of New York because Defendant has regular and established places of business in the district and has committed acts of infringement there.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s products and services for tracking and controlling entities infringe a patent related to methods for monitoring and controlling movable entities within defined geographical zones.
• Technical Context: The technology at issue relates to asset tracking and geofencing, a commercially significant field used in logistics, fleet management, and real-time location systems (RTLS) to monitor and manage assets based on their physical location.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that Plaintiff and its predecessors-in-interest have entered into settlement licenses with other entities, but asserts these licenses did not involve admissions of infringement or obligations to mark patented articles.

Case Timeline

II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis

U.S. Patent No. 8,009,037 - Method and System to Control Movable Entities

• Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 8,009,037, “Method and System to Control Movable Entities,” issued August 30, 2011.

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent describes a need to move beyond existing GPS tracking systems, which were often limited to relaying location information to a central server for passive monitoring on a map, in order to maximize benefits like productivity and safety (’037 Patent, col. 1:46-50).
• The Patented Solution: The invention discloses a method where a “transponder” attached to a movable entity is loaded with data defining a geographical zone, such as waypoints with a radius or a boundary mapped onto a pixilated image ’037 Patent, Abstract The microprocessor within the transponder itself is programmed to determine when an event occurs relative to this zone (e.g., entering or exiting) and can then execute a pre-configured operation, such as locking a door or sending an alert, without necessarily waiting for instructions from a central server ’037 Patent, col. 2:51-col. 3:4; col. 6:28-30 This architecture places intelligent, autonomous decision-making on the remote device.
• Technical Importance: This approach enables on-device geofencing logic, which can reduce communication costs and latency by allowing the remote asset to react to location-based rules autonomously ’037 Patent, col. 6:49-56

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts "at least claim 1" of the ’037 Patent Compl. ¶14
• Independent Claim 1 recites essential elements for a method to wirelessly manage an entity, including:
  • loading a plurality of coordinates from a computing device to a transponder's memory
  • programming a microprocessor in the transponder to define a geographical zone by creating an area on a pixilated image using the coordinates
  • sending a command to the transponder to execute a configurable operation upon receiving a command from a control center, where the command is associated with the entity's status relative to the zone
• The complaint reserves the right to assert infringement of claims 1-65 Compl. ¶14

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The complaint does not identify specific accused products by name, referring generally to "Defendant's Accused Products and Services" Compl. ¶14

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint alleges that Defendant "develops, designs, manufactures, distributes, markets, offers to sell and/or sells infringing products and services" Compl. ¶3 It points to Defendant's website, https://kontakt.io/, as evidence of its business and offerings Compl. ¶¶8, 19 The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for a technical analysis of the accused instrumentality's specific features or operation.

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint references a claim chart attached as Exhibit B that purportedly details infringement of claim 1 Compl. ¶17 However, this exhibit was not provided. The narrative infringement theory alleges that Defendant’s systems and services practice the claimed methods for controlling movable entities within defined geographical zones ’037 Patent, Abstract; Compl. ¶11 No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

• Identified Points of Contention: Based on the patent’s language and the general nature of the allegations, the infringement analysis may raise several questions for the court.
  • Scope Questions: The patent’s specification heavily emphasizes vehicle tracking using GPS, cellular, and satellite technology ’037 Patent, Fig. 1A; col. 8:3-14 A central question may be whether the term "transponder," as described in the patent, can be construed to read on the architecture of Defendant’s system, which may use different hardware (e.g., Bluetooth Low Energy beacons and gateways) and network configurations.
  • Technical Questions: A key technical question will be where the processing logic for geofencing resides in the accused system. The claims require "programming a microprocessor in the transponder to define a geographical zone" ’037 Patent, cl. 1 The analysis may focus on whether Defendant’s system performs this zone definition and event determination on the remote tag/device itself, as described in the patent, or primarily at a central server or gateway.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "transponder"

• Context and Importance: This term is central to the dispute, as the claims require specific actions to be performed by the "microprocessor in the transponder." The patent's disclosure describes the transponder as an intelligent, integrated hardware unit containing a CPU, GPS receiver, memory, and cellular/satellite modems ’037 Patent, Fig. 2; col. 9:1-10 Practitioners may focus on this term because the accused system might distribute these functions across multiple components (e.g., a simple tag, a network gateway, and a cloud server). The question for construction will be whether a disaggregated system collectively performs the role of the claimed "transponder."

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The claims do not explicitly limit the transponder to a single housing or require all components to be co-located, which may support an interpretation that covers a system of distributed components functioning together.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification consistently describes the transponder as a self-contained device, providing detailed descriptions of its internal board, housing, and integrated components like the GPS receiver and cellular modem ’037 Patent, Fig. 2; col. 6:28-32; col. 9:1-24 This may support a narrower construction limited to a single, integrated physical device.

• The Term: "define a geographical zone by creating an area on a pixilated image"

• Context and Importance: Claim 1 requires this specific method for defining a zone. The infringement analysis will depend on whether Defendant's system uses a technically equivalent process. The manner in which virtual zones are defined in modern RTLS systems may differ significantly from the patent's description.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The term "pixilated image" could be argued to broadly cover any digital map representation where an area can be defined.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification provides a specific algorithm for this process: drawing a square around the zone, dividing it into an 80x80 pixel map, mapping coordinates to pixels, and activating pixels to form a boundary ’037 Patent, col. 15:30-40 This detailed embodiment may be used to argue for a narrower construction limited to this or a very similar method.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges both induced and contributory infringement. Inducement is based on allegations that Defendant encourages and instructs customers on how to use its products in an infringing manner through its website and instruction manuals Compl. ¶¶18-19 Contributory infringement is alleged on the basis that the products are not staple articles of commerce and their only reasonable use is infringing Compl. ¶19
• Willful Infringement: The complaint alleges that Defendant has had knowledge of the ’037 Patent from "at least the filing date of the lawsuit" Compl. ¶¶18, 19 While the prayer for relief seeks damages for both pre- and post-suit willfulness Compl. Prayer ¶e, f, the factual allegations in the body of the complaint currently only support post-suit willfulness, with Plaintiff reserving the right to amend if pre-suit knowledge is discovered Compl. ¶18, fn. 1

VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case

The resolution of this case will likely depend on the court’s determination of several key open questions:

• A core issue will be one of definitional scope: Can the term "transponder," as detailed in the context of a self-contained, GPS-enabled vehicle tracking unit in the ’037 Patent, be construed to cover the potentially disaggregated architecture of Defendant’s modern location-tracking system?
• A key evidentiary question will be one of locus of processing: Can Plaintiff provide evidence that Defendant's system performs the critical claim step of "programming a microprocessor in the transponder to define a geographical zone," or does the primary processing for zone definition and event triggering occur at a network gateway or in the cloud, creating a potential mismatch with the claim language?
• A third question will relate to infringement specificity: Given the absence of a detailed claim chart in the initial pleading, a threshold issue will be whether the general allegations are sufficient and how Plaintiff will ultimately map the specific technical operations of the accused system to the limitations of the asserted claims.