By Jay Landers 

In a bid to reverse its previous defeat at the hands of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), Clancy Systems Inc. is asking the office to rule yet again on the validity of various patents held by Municipal Parking Services Inc. (MPS). The move represents the latest twist in the ongoing legal disputes regarding the patentability of automated parking monitoring and enforcement technology. 

Round two 

On September 30, attorneys for Clancy, which provides automated parking enforcement technology and services, submitted documentation to the PTO requesting that it reassess the validity of five patents held by MPS, the maker of the SafetyStick and other automated parking detection and violation enforcement equipment. Of the five patents, one pertains to a parking lot monitoring system while the other four concern parking meter systems. 

The request by Clancy is the second time in a little more than a year that the company has asked the PTO to reconsider the validity of MPS patents as part of the process known as ex parte reexamination. In August 2024, Clancy asked the PTO to reexamine three MPS patents that were the subject of a then-ongoing patent infringement lawsuit brought by MPS against Clancy. (The two companies agreed to dismiss the case this past June.) 

In its original suit filed in June 2024, MPS alleged that Clancy infringed various claims of its following three patents:  

• U.S. Patent No. 10,121,172, “Parking Lot Monitoring System” (November 6, 2018)  

• U.S. Patent No. 11,257,302, “Parking Meter System” (February 22, 2022)  

• U.S. Patent No. 11,688,205, “Parking Meter System” (June 27, 2023)  

MPS’s Patent ‘172 “relates to lot and ramp payment management systems and payment methods, more particularly, to parking structures monitored by vehicle identification devices interacting with a payment monitoring and acceptance system,” according to the patent. Patents ‘302 and ‘205 relate “to parking meters, and more particularly, to automated parking meter systems,” according to the patents. 

In its 2024 request to the PTO for ex parte reexamination, Clancy maintained that the MPS patents were invalid because of prior art. Prior art refers to the existence of publicly available information regarding a similar invention that was available before the filing date of a subsequent patent. However, the PTO, earlier this year, ruled in favor of MPS, confirming that the three patents in question are in fact patentable. 

Two more patents 

In its most recent filing with the PTO, Clancy requests a reexamination of the same three MPS patents as well as two additional patents that the company had yet to receive at the time it filed suit against Clancy: 

• U.S. Patent No. 12,142,085, “Parking Meter System” (November 12, 2024)  

• U.S. Patent No. 12,249,187, “Parking Meter System” (March 11, 2025) 

Like two of the three patents that were subject to the litigation involving Clancy, MPS’s Patent ‘085 and Patent ‘187 also relate “to parking meters and, more particularly, to automated parking systems,” according to the patents.  

Notably, the five MPS patents included as part of Clancy’s latest request for ex parte reexamination are at the center of an ongoing lawsuit by MPS against the parking compliance company Parking Revenue Recovery Services Inc. (PRRS) and parking operator LAZ Parking. 

Filed this past June in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, that suit by MPS contends that PRRS and LAZ are infringing its patents. Along with seeking an injunction by the court to prevent further infringement, MPS aims to receive damages, attorney fees, and costs associated with the alleged patent infringement. For its part, PRRS has denied the allegations of patent infringement by MPS while also seeking to have the case dismissed as well as transferred to a different venue. 

Four previous patents 

Clancy opted to try again with the PTO because its attorneys succeeded in locating heretofore unknown examples of prior art, said Liz Wolfson, the secretary treasurer of Clancy, in an interview with Parking Today. “They just hadn’t found these [examples] at the time they filed” the previous request for ex parte reexamination, Wolfson said. 

In particular, Clancy cites the following four references: 

• U.S. Patent Publication Number 2010/0030628, “Monitoring Vehicle Use,” Renshaw-Smith et al., (February 4, 2010) 

• U.S. Patent Publication Number 2014/0036077, “Method for Controlling Vehicle Use of Parking Spaces by Use of Cameras,” Nerayoff et al., (February 6, 2014) 

• U.K. Patent Application GB 2 441 383 A, “Automated car park system,” Ranger Services Limited, (March 5, 2008) 

• European Patent Specification 1 331 620 B1, “Automated car-park management system,” Extel S.r.l., (April 13, 2005) 

The “prior art raises substantial new questions of patentability” of certain claims made by MPS in its patents, according to the documents filed with the PTO on September 30. 

“There’s substantial prior art,” Wolfson said. At the same time, MPS’s automated monitoring and enforcement technology includes no new approaches that justify their patented status, she maintained. MPS’s patents “shouldn’t have been granted because there’s nothing novel about” the company’s technology, she said. 

“It is MPS practice to not comment on our patents or any active litigation,” said Joe Caldwell, the CEO for MPS, in a statement provided to Parking Today.  “Our patents and our litigation speak for themselves,” Caldwell said. 

Jay Landers is the editor-in-chief of Parking Today. He can be reached at [email protected].