Grecia v. True Value Co., No. 18 C 1886, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Aug. 9, 2018) (Kocoras, J.).

Judge Kocoras granted defendant True Value’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss and dismissed plaintiff Grecia’s patent complaint in this patent dispute involving point of sale terminals. While the Court was “skeptical” that Grecia’ could “resurrect” his claims by re-pleading, the Court gave Grecia the opportunity to re-plead before dismissing his claims with prejudice.

The Court held that Grecia’s complaint failed for “circular reasoning” which “obfuscated” the pleadings and briefing “destroying” his claims. Required to point to a single element of True Value’s accused system that satisfied the claims’ “communications console” requirement, Grecia pointed to both a customer’s mobile device or chip card and the bank or credit card company’s EMV Token Service Provider. In addition to claiming that two separate items are the communications console, neither identified item was a part of True Value’s point of service device. In light of that and Grecia’s other arguments, the communications console was responsible for four logical paradoxes:

  1. Receiving a request from itself;
  2. Establishing a connection with itself;
  3. Requesting information from itself; and
  4. Receiving the requested information from itself.

Grecia’s reasoning was “flawed” and “circular.” Grecia’s complaint “disprove[d] his infringement claim by identifying the communications console as something outside of the True Value device.”