Understanding claims and scope of one patent

Question

I have been reading regarding claims and scope of patents for over a day now. I have seen that the claims are everything when it comes to proving infringement. Also, I have read that the claims are regarded as a whole and cannot be divided. 
 
I have posted before that I am trying to find the legality of creating a massager app that takes input from the touch screen to record a pattern and play that pattern to massage the user. I have found this patent: 
 
https://www.google.com/patents/US9383820 
 
From what I understood from the claims they are making a method to record patterns with the users touching the screen and storing those patterns and assigning them to notifications. The claims have the statement: 
 
assigning the stored custom vibration pattern to a notification event; and 
upon detection of the notification event ... 
 
Interpreting what I have read regarded claims it means their scope is limited to notifications/alerts. 
 
Did I understand right? 
 
Thanks.

Peter D. Mlynek · Answer

I wish that there would be a better way of a non-lawyer determining if a device or process that is very similar to a claimed device or process infringes or not.  Unfortunately, sometimes you really do need a lawyer to give you a legal opinion on these things.  It is also unfortunate that such opinions are not cheap.   
 
I, like anyone else here, is not going to answer your question directly, unless I spend a lot of time looking at your device and the patent.  But here is what you can do yourself: in all 3 independent claims of the cited patent, you have 5 paragraphs that define the steps of the claims process (or product).  If your process clearly omits one of those steps, then it is likely that there is no infringement.  (Note that for some patents, it is possible that the steps may be taken concurrently or in any order.) 
 
However, if it is not really clear, then there is the danger that (1) you are infringing even if you do not think so, or (2) you are not infringing even if you think that you are infringing.  Both situations are bad for your business.  If that is the case, you need to seek a patent counsel.

Q: Understanding claims and scope of one patent