San Diego · California
Several of San Diego's best-known device companies sell hardware that works together with software, apps, or cloud services. Protecting that kind of product takes claims written for the whole system, not just the device in hand.
San Diego's device community includes companies whose products span the body, the phone, and the cloud. Dexcom, headquartered in San Diego, makes continuous glucose monitoring systems and has offered smartphone apps that let users share glucose data with others. Tandem Diabetes Care, also based in San Diego, develops insulin pumps and introduced its touchscreen t:slim pump in 2012. ResMed, which maintains its global headquarters in San Diego, describes much of its business as cloud-connectable devices for sleep apnea, COPD, and other respiratory conditions.
Research and startup support are close at hand. UC San Diego's Office of Innovation and Commercialization handles disclosure, patenting, and licensing for campus inventions and reports that the campus generates more patents than any other UC campus. The university's Institute for the Global Entrepreneur runs a MedTech Accelerator for early device ventures. EvoNexus, a nonprofit, pro bono technology incubator launched in 2008, operates in San Diego and Irvine. Biocom, the life science association founded in San Diego in 1995, counts medical device companies among its members.
Connected products raise patent questions that a purely mechanical device does not. When a sensor, a patient's phone, and a remote server each perform part of a method, a claim written as a single sequence of steps may not be infringed by any one party; drafting parallel claims to the device, the software, and the system as each is sold or operated helps address that. Claims to algorithms that interpret physiological data should be tied to a concrete technical operation to withstand subject-matter eligibility scrutiny. In diabetes technology and respiratory care, where established companies have filed for years, freedom-to-operate review is a sensible step before committing to a sensor architecture or communication design. And for technology licensed from UC San Diego, the license terms, field of use, and treatment of improvements should be reconciled with the company's own filings before a financing.
Software updates also affect patent planning. Features released after launch may be patentable in their own right, so invention capture should continue after the first product ships.
Patent Strategy Considerations
Draft separate claims to the sensor or device, the app or software, and the overall system so that a single commercial actor practices each claim.
Claims that interpret physiological data should recite specific technical steps or device control, which reduces the risk of abstract-idea rejections.
Post-launch software features and cloud functions can be new inventions. A routine disclosure process keeps them from being released before an application is filed.
How Engagements Work
Knechtel Law Group is based in Carefree, Arizona. Patent prosecution and counseling before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is federal practice, and engagements with San Diego-area companies are handled directly by senior counsel by video and in person as needed. Matters that turn on state law may call for local counsel.
Request a Confidential ConsultationCommon Questions
No. Practice before the USPTO is governed by federal rules, and a registered patent attorney may represent applicants anywhere in the United States. Knechtel Law Group is based in Carefree, Arizona. California-law matters or litigation in a California court may call for counsel admitted in California.
Often, if the claims describe a specific technical implementation, such as how sensor signals are processed to control the device or improve accuracy, rather than a general idea of analyzing health data. How the claims are drafted matters considerably.
Releasing a feature to users generally makes it public. If the feature may be patentable, file an application before release, keeping in mind that many countries require filing before any public disclosure.
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