Virtual Care Provider Sues Rivals, Alleging Data Theft, Patent Violations

MDsave, a direct-to-consumer virtual marketplace for healthcare services, has filed a lawsuit against three of its competitors alleging they stole and exploited MDSave's protected data and intellectual property.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants, Sesame, Green Imaging, and Tripment, of misappropriating MDSave's protected data, falsely advertising their services, directly interfering with MDSave's relationships with its patients, doctors, and hospitals, and committing patent and trademark infringement. MHealthIntelligence reached out to the defendants, and while Sesame and Green Imaging did not respond, Tripment sent the following statement via email*:

"Tripment Health has not been served a complaint by any third party and is not currently involved in any litigation with any third party. If and when we are served, we will review the complaint internally and with our counsel. As such, we have no comment at this time."

The defendants provide similar services as MDSave, with Sesame and Tripment connecting self-pay and high-deductible plan patients with healthcare providers and services, and Green Imaging providing patients access to a network of more than 1,400 imaging facilities.

Per the lawsuit, MDSave discovered in November that Sesame and Tripment had stolen data from its website and falsely represented that they had direct contracts with MDSave's providers. Sesame and Tripment's websites allegedly list many of the same procedures from the same list of providers as those available on MDSave's website.

"On information and belief, Defendants, collectively or individually, stole for their misuse MDSave's data through illegal 'web scraping,'" the lawsuit states. "To do so, they improperly accessed MDSave's website and utilized computer-implemented tools to comprehensively 'scrape' and download MDSave's proprietary and protected data."

Sesame and Tripment are also using the proprietary pricing data generated by MDSave through business development and market research, the lawsuit claims.

Further, Green Imaging recently asked to purchase large volumes of MDSave's bundled healthcare services to be used exclusively with Green Imaging's own contracted self-insured employer customers. But MDSave later discovered that Green Imaging was "illegally reselling" and misrepresenting MDSave's services as its own, including to Sesame and Tripment, the lawsuit claims.

"Indeed, not only have Sesame and Tripment purchased MDSave vouchers for specific bundled services from Green Imaging, which has illegally resold them, Sesame and Tripment are then illegally reselling once again these bundled healthcare services and passing those vouchers off to consumers as their own," the suit states.

In addition, MDSave claims that the defendants committed widespread intellectual property infringement. MDsave's patent portfolio includes a combination of over 25 patents and patents pending, including ones for software and methods related to bundled healthcare services, healthcare virtual payment systems, and transparency pricing methods. The company has accused the defendants of infringing upon several of its patents and trademarks.

"In sum, Defendants' actions have caused extraordinary harm to MDSave," the lawsuit claims, "Defendants' actions have caused MDSave to suffer lost sales, customers, and market share; have caused extensive and damaging confusion among MDSave's customers and healthcare partners, and deprived MDSave of significant growth opportunities, including, upon information and belief, by misrepresenting MDSave's data and goodwill as their own to investors and the healthcare industry."

MDSave, which filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas, is seeking damages "in an amount up to the maximum provided by law," as well as a court order that prohibits the defendants from accessing, copying, and distributing MDSave's protectable "intellectual property, data, technology, goodwill, and services."

The plaintiff is also demanding a jury trial.

*Update 12/30/21: The article has been updated with a statement from Tripment.