Patent No Longer Pending: An Inside Look at MWAi’s New Technology Patent In late March, MWA Intelligence was awarded a patent by the U.S. Patent Office for ‘the automation of service call creation and dispatch from a field output asset.’ For anyone keeping score, that’s U.S. patent number 7,769,619. This patent covers a process for automating management of a service contract for a business machine such as a copier, printer, scanner, fax, or MFP associated with a user. A key component of the patent is its ability to capture data via device near the machine itself. To get a better understanding of the patent and what it means to MWAi and the dealer community, we spoke with MWAi President and CEO Mike Stramaglio.   What does this patent mean to MWAi? Stramaglio: It’s a pretty phenomenal patent. The original filing was in 1999 and more formally in 2000, so the patent went through some serious scrutiny for 10 ½ years before it was approved and awarded. It’s a very important process patent. What the patent does is, it isolates as part of the process essentially any service contract type of activity that’s tied to the billable event. Where you have a machine and a service contract in place and the service contract is billable based upon the exchange of information between the two, that’s the process we own. That’s a very powerful process and a critically important filing. How will it specifically affect your products? Stramaglio: When you look at most of the functionality between the service contract, the servicing of a particular end user, or device related Web-enabled communication, we own that patent. So theoretically we pretty much put a footprint on anything where data is communicated via the Web and between a service contract or service personnel and a device. What exactly will this patent do? Stramaglio: We asked our attorney and this is probably the best way to communicate it: “ This patent covers systems and methods for managing a service contract for a business machine, such as a printer or copier. A data capture device monitors the business machine. When certain events occur at the business machine, such as a usage count, error, or lapsed time period, the data capture device (which is located near the machine) logs the event and provides notification. The event is then reported to the user automatically and electronically. The events that trigger reporting are set or modified by the user via a Web interface.” Basically that’s MPS. I understand the patent was first submitted by Imaging Portals, a company MWAi acquired in 2007. How relevant is it in today’s market? Stramaglio: This was born out of the Imaging Portals relationship and of course we bought all of the assets when we purchased them in 2007. Have you had to tweak it to make it relevant to today? Stramaglio: We didn’t have to tweak it, the market tweaked itself. Ironically enough, the patent when it was originally filed, was highly conceptual. It was so far ahead of where we knew the market would be, so we had a very fortunate vision. Are these capabilities in this patent something you’ve been offering all along without it being patented? Stramaglio: This is something that MWAi has been offering and other companies have been offering, but there was no patent awarded until now. We’re feeling secure in the fact that we have the patent and of course we’ll use it as protection for our business and for encouraging others to look at what we’re doing and be careful with what they’re doing. Now that you’ve made this announcement do you think there are going to be any noticeable changes in the marketplace? Stramaglio: What we’d like to think is we have a licensable event. If somebody is doing something we’re doing and is in compliance with this patent, we’ll be able to speak to those folks and say, ‘Hey we’d like you to study this.’ I’m not really thrilled with the idea of using this as a litigious type of thing. I’m more interested in emphasizing the importance of protecting our business. You’re quoted in your press release that ‘this patent in conjunction with our other technologies allows MWAi to pursue new opportunities with vigor.’ What new opportunities might you be pursuing now or do you mean this just gives you a stronger product portfolio as you take your products to market? Stramaglio: What I meant was the patent is an effective tool to encourage other partners you work with to feel more comfortable with what they’re doing with you. If you can imagine RIM, EFI, or Intel, the more patents we file the more confidence they have working with us. How might this patent affect MWAi’s products going forward? Stramaglio: The patent itself will allow us to move more quickly down certain paths where we may have been a little reluctant, where we didn’t feel totally confident that the process belonged to us. [In that case] you exercise a little more caution with where you invest. Now we can feel a lot more comfortable with the areas we know we need to expand upon and we’re going to do it. Things like the products we have in development or with proof of concept with Intel, it just makes everything go more quickly. And you’ve got more patents pending? Stramaglio: We have a couple of related patents in the MeSH and wireless areas but those are more technology patents. This is the first one we have that is more business process patent, which in effect has a pretty serious contribution to our ability to go forward. This basically incorporates many technologies under the process umbrella.