Contraction Tracker USA is the result of patent infringement

As some of you may know, my husband and I build iPhone apps. Our first app in the iTunes store was the Contraction Tracker. Its one year anniversary in iTunes is actually coming up :) Recently, we released a version of the Contraction Tracker for the USA that is exactly the same as the original version, minus one feature. What I'm about to talk about is actually a common problem. If you are an iPhone Developer or any software Developer, you may benefit from hearing about our experience.

In the Fall of last year, we were contacted by someone who owned a patent for an alert system to be used in timing labor contractions. We have been discussing his patent and how it relates to our Contraction Tracker for something like 7 months. When he was finally clear at what exactly our application was infringing on, we decided to remove it so that we could both move on. This is the first time we have ever been in this position. We had no idea we would run into patent issues building something so simple such as a contraction timing application.

A guy that I contract for is recently applying for a US patent so I have been talking with him about some of these matters. Apparently, lawyers tell companies never to do patent searches. The reason is if you find a patent that you cannot avoid with technical workarounds, then you are stuck. You can't go ahead because that would then be willful infringement, which carries even more damages. You also can't license the patent for a reasonable price, because the other party knows they have you over a barrel. The very fact that you bothered to ask for a license gives away the fact that you do not have a technical workaround for the patent. If you never do a patent search, then by definition any infringement is not willful, so you are not liable to treble damages. These were his words and I am still very new at all this. The problem seems to be the patent system.

We removed the alert feature from our original Contraction Tracker and released the app as a separate new app just for the US store. We did this because there was no simple way of updating the app for one country. By releasing a new app, everyone who had already purchased the app in the US would not be affected. We also get to continue selling the original app everywhere else in the world. The alert feature is a minor feature but a nice one to have. It is actually disabled by default and from what I hear, a lot of people may not even know about it. It definitely does not define our app and removing this feature from all future sales in the US store should not affect things so much. Or will it?



Contraction Tracker USA has been out for a week and sales have dropped dramatically. The main reason we think is because we lost all of our previous ratings and reviews. We have a note saying that this is not a new app and if users click through to our website, they will be able to see a screenshot of the ratings and reviews before we submitted the US version. Again, this is the same app, minus a minor feature. What do we do now? Well, we just have to wait until more people purchase our app and submit new ratings and reviews.

Twitter CEO's wife Sara used the Contraction Tracker

Today, we are excited to find out that Sara, Twitter CEO Evan's wife, used our iPhone app to time and track her labor contractions. She went into labor yesterday and tweeted "The Contraction Tracker was fun until the contractions got painful." It's not the first time someone has tweeted during their labor but these guys are the founders of Twitter so the entire Twitterverse was listening. I store a search on "contraction tracker," in case we get feedback from users on Twitter and it was loaded with updates this morning. Wow! I also noticed news articles popping up talking about it too. Very cool.

If you ever want visibility for your app, have someone of importance use it and then tweet or blog about it. So lucky to have it happen for us. She chose us over the dozen or so contraction apps in the App Store. We must be doing something right :)

Hope Sara is doing well. I feel for her. Her water broke first, just like mine did. I hear that contractions come harder and is more painful when that happens. I had horrible contractions every 3-5 minutes from the start and it lasted nearly 12 hours. So glad I'm not there anymore!

Thank god for Jean-Louis

The first few days at the hospital was bad for me. I was not in the state to take care of Tristan since I couldn't even take care of myself. I had pulled a muscle in my upper leg during my 8th month of pregnancy and thought it was just another pregnancy pain. I limped around and had to climb into bed a certain way so it wouldn't hurt. After the labour the pain only got worst and I had to walk with my one good leg and drag the other around. I couldn't lift the other leg more than ankle height. I needed help getting in and out of bed. This was just one of the many pains that I had but it was the most crippling one for me. I barely held Tristan because I was afraid I would drop him.

Jean-Louis was a saint. We didn't initially plan for him to stay with me at the hospital, especially since I had a vaginal delivery, and he would have for sure slept better at home. He slept in the room with Tristan and I the entire time we were at the hospital. He was basically the sole caretaker of Tristan for the first few days. He had to learn how to hold a newborn, diaper and swaddle for the first time. At night he had to soothe Tristan every time he cried. On top of this, he had to assist me in and out of bed and bring me new ice pads for my swelling. When I wanted to shower, he assisted me in the shower and one of the nurses offered to feed Tristan. He did all this without much sleep, just like me and he was sick too. He caught a cold on the day I went into labour and was sneezing and coughing around us. I was worried Tristan would get sick from him since they were in such close contact but there was nothing we could do about that. All I was able to do was focus on the breastfeeding since I knew that antibodies would be passed on to Tristan to protect him. Tristan did develop a bit of a stuffy nose but apparently it's normal and he's not sick. Thank goodness.

It doesn't end there. Now that we are home, Jean-Louis has taken 2 weeks off of work. He is continually helping out where he can. Without the presence of nurses however, we have our hands full taking care of Tristan and doing house chores. Luckily, I am feeling stronger and stronger each day so I'm able to help out more. Still it's a challenge since we're both still sleep deprived and it seems all we do in the day is feed, feed, and feed. Either we feed Tristan or we have to cook and feed ourselves.

Patient care at Burnaby Hospital's Maternity Unit

We were at the hospital for 3 and a half days.  I don't have much experience being at hospitals but I was overall very impressed with the patient care at Burnaby General.  The staff were very knowledgeable and friendly and I don't know if we could have made the transition home without their help.

Several doctors, including my Obstetrician served me, while the nurses and pediatrician served baby Tristan.  In and out they came checking to make sure I was on my way to recovery and checking that Tristan was healthy.  Giving birth to Tristan was rough on my uterus and I bled a lot.  The first 24 hours I had major blood clots and they had to put me back on IV therapy to control the bleeding.  I also couldn't pee because of all the swelling so I had the urine catheter tube in me for 48 hours after delivery.

The nursing staff at Burnaby General helped us with breastfeeding, showed us how to bathe Tristan, answered all our questions and concerns, and gave us access to all sorts of supplies including diapers, towels, pads, clean linens, pillows, breast pump, baby formula, pain-killers etc.  Jean-Louis and I always joked about how we are finally taking advantage of the MSP that we pay every month.  We're typically healthy and probably only visit the doctors at the clinic once every year or two.  This pregnancy and having Tristan has totally made us use the MSP services :)

We would like to thank Johanna, our assigned nurse in the birthing suite, and Brooke, Nadia, Noreen, and Jill from the Maternity Ward.  These girls are awesome caretakers!

Last but not least, we are thankful for our assigned visiting nurse, Donna.  Within 24 hours of being discharged from the hospital, we were contacted by Donna from the Fraser Health Department. She contacted us first by phone to see how things were going with the baby and myself. She was very concerned and it was very helpful and reassuring to talk to her. She then visited us at home soon after and gave us a truck load of reading material about taking care of the baby. There is so much to know! Donna weighed Tristan and we went through breastfeeding again. We were so tired and she could tell. She also complimented us on all our efforts, which was nice to hear.  She then followed up during the week with more phone calls and then again the next week.

Revisiting the labour experience

The worst time to go into labour is probably when you just crawl into bed at night. This is what happened to us. To make things worst, I went to bed hungry that night. I only had fruit and yogurt for dinner and my stomach was growling. That was the start of a very long night...

My water broke and we arrived at the hospital just before 1 AM. Contractions started soon after so we were moved to the birthing suite for the night. Because of my Strep B, I had antibiotics given to me right away through an IV tube. It was very early labour for me since I was only 1 cm dilated. At this time, Jean-Louis was feeling a bit light headed and thought he was going to vomit. Contractions were coming around every 5 minutes and were pretty strong. The pain was like a bad stomach ache like you are about to have diarrhea but can't. Each contraction also came with intense lower back pain and more and more blood spewing out. The brand new slippers I brought to the hospital was covered in blood, as well as everything else I wore. Am I allowed to be this graphical on a blog? Anyway, I would totally recommend only wearing hospital gowns and perhaps an underwear you can throw away afterwards. Jean-Louis was massaging me the whole time until he realized it was too tiring and then he resorted to only massaging me during each contraction. I am now healing from bruises on my back and I'm sure his hands and arms were sore for days.

Labour lasted for around 10 hours and then I had to push for around 2 hours. It was absolutely brutal. I had no energy and no sleep and I barely drank water since my full bladder was interfering with the labour. In fact, I couldn't feel my bladder and couldn't pee so they had to insert a urine catheter to collect my urine at one point. Relaxing so that strong contractions would come was very difficult. I had to breathe long and slow with each contraction but my impulse was to hyperventilate instead. It was bad. Jean-Louis and I practiced massages at home but we didn't do any relaxation exercises. We played our rainforest nature sounds CD and I tried to close my eyes but it was so hard to focus and not think about the pain. When the nurse was around, she would talk to me and her voice would soothe me but Jean-Louis was more of a silent support partner. I can totally see why people hire doulas to accompany them during labour. I would totally recommend hiring a doula for your first labour experience, especially if your support partner is quiet like mine. Jean-Louis and I thought we were well prepared but we could have been better prepared for sure. It was a good thing we packed a lot of stuff in our hospital bag because we ended up using most of what was in it.

I was obviously in pain when I approached the transition phase of labour. I couldn't really tell the difference between the active and transition phase. The nurse kept asking me if I wanted to take something for the pain and I responded no each time, although I was ready to give up. Finally, I did try the laughing gas for a few contractions. It's suppose to relax you and I need to calm down so that harder contractions would come and dilate my cervix. I'm not sure if it helped much but it did make me aware of my breathing. When I got a bit dizzy, I stopped using it. At this point, it so hard not to push because with each wave of contraction, my body would automatically push down. Positioning did not help me with this, although I read it would.

Pushing seemed like it lasted forever. At this point, I hardly had any strength. I was sucking on ice chips and sweating like nuts. My obstetrician suggested I have an episiotomy and I agreed. I felt no pain from it. Then it was decided that we would use a vacuum too :( These were all still better alternatives to having surgery, which was what I feared of most. The vacuum, along with my pushing finally did it and baby Tristan, all 8 pounds 2.6 ounces of him, emerged all at once right onto my chest. What a relief! And boy did he feel heavy. He cried instantly. I didn't know what to think.