22 Miles Responds; Calls Four Winds Patent Lawsuit Meritless

April 12, 2016 by Dave Haynes

The wayfinding-centric signage software firm 22 Miles, Inc., based in Silicon Valley, has issued a statement responding to the lawsuit last month by Four Winds Interactive, of Denver.

The statement issued April 8th says the lawsuit, alleging patent infringement and related activities, is meritless and that the company will vigorously defend itself in court. The statement was provided to me by Tomer Mann, SVP, Global Sales & Operations at 22 Miles.

The company says it has been active in digital wayfinding since at least 2009, pointing to a Microsoft-sponsored award won that year for the wayfinding application. The company says it has been doing “non-stop development” on the product since then.

Among Four Winds claims against 22 Miles are suggestions the company only became aggressively active in the digital signage business in the last 18 months, and while it had a “rudimentary software product,” was an HR staffing company. 22 Miles is countering that it just received its five-year exhibitor plaque from Digital Signage Expo, essentially meaning it has been at the show since at least 2012.

The Four Winds suit, filed in Colorado, also alleges 22 Miles has used FWI’s platform as the base for its own signage platform. However, asserts 22 Miles, the “competitor’s own patent lists 22 Miles software as a reference on the face of the patent.”

Note: Looked that up – they are non-patent citations for “Customizable Interactive Software for Touchscreen and Mobile.”

22 Miles says it runs a very active developer team and owns more than 500,000 lines of proprietary and active source code, “which is the result of years of its own development.”

It also suggests its success in the marketplace owes to being “repeatedly approached by clients and integration partners to take over projects that failed to deliver, by other vendors, because of insufficiency in technology.”

“With a strong platform, continuous adaptability in their working relationships, and productive workflow, 22 Miles has been able to continually gain new customers and grow its existing business. These are the reasons why 22 Miles has been so successful for so long. Anything that its competitor says to the contrary in its lawsuit will be vigorously challenged by 22 Miles in court.”