Oura Targets Ultrahuman’s Redesigned Smart Ring Following Import Ban

Finnish wearable technology company Oura has filed a new patent infringement lawsuit against rival Ultrahuman, alleging that its redesigned Ring Pro continues to infringe Oura’s intellectual property following an earlier U.S. import ban involving Ultrahuman’s Ring Air. The new suit asserts two different patents, including one issued just two days before the complaint was filed, and comes after U.S. Customs cleared the redesigned Ring Pro with respect to the patent at issue in the earlier proceeding.

Finnegan partner Matthew Berntsen told World Intellectual Property Review that in the US, “there's a proud tradition in patent prosecution when it's being done in tandem with litigation of crafting the later claims. Particularly, we see this in ‘continuations of continuations’ where the patent family is kept alive and the claims are crafted on what the company's competitors are doing.”

Given Oura’s sophisticated prosecution and litigation strategy, Matthew believes that this was “very much a coordinated strategy that had been in the works for some time.

“Almost never does one write a complaint for a patent infringement suit in [two] days.”

Related to Oura’s previous settlement and license deals, such as with Circular, RingConn, Omate and Zepp Health, Matthew sees it as likely that Oura is in ongoing licensing discussions with Ultrahuman.

“As much fun as litigation can be, it's rarely an operating company’s goal to be embroiled in litigation endlessly,” he said.

“This is where involving patent attorneys, doing freedom-to-operate studies and understanding what the IP landscape looks like before you enter a new region can be incredibly important.”

When deciding whether to pursue a redesign or design-around, companies weigh several factors, including cost, implementation time, and the potential impact on the product and customer perception.

“If there is a license offer on the table, all of these are competing concerns in the calculus that the companies on both sides are taking into account,” said Matthew.

Read “Oura Targets Ultrahuman’s Redesigned Smart Ring Following Import Ban”