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WirelessWERX IP Campaign Provides a Double Dose of Panama
New Patent Litigation
It looks as if April 2024 will end with three additional defendants having been sued in the sole litigation campaign of WirelessWERX IP LLC, a DynaIP and Pueblo Nuevo LLC plaintiff. Those defendants are Trimble (1:24-cv-01035), MapleBear (d/b/a Instacart) (6:24-cv-00208), and AT&T (2:24-cv-00282), accused, in April complaints filed in that order in three separate district courts, of infringing patents from a family generally related to communicating with a device inside a “pre-defined geographical zones”. AT&T’s and Trimble’s accused products are their TruckMate and Fleet Management platforms, respectively, while Instacart is targeted over the provision of its “products and technology platform for connecting consumers with restaurants and other merchants”, including the Instacart website.
April 27, 2024
Another Ramey-Repped Plaintiff . . . Misses the Call
In Case You Missed It
Litigation between MISSED CALL, LLC, a Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP) and Pueblo Nuevo LLC plaintiff, and Twilio has made headlines for several reasons in the past, but now it can be added to the list of matters involving a party represented by Ramey LLP that has missed an important deadline, here to respond to a motion a dismiss. Northern District of California Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler posted an order last Friday noting that MISSED CALL’s opposition (or statement of nonopposition) to Twilio’s motion to dismiss was due on April 8, 2024, but “[n]othing was filed”—ordering the plaintiff to make such a filing, or otherwise request more time, by April 22 at 2 p.m. Among its reasons for issuing the order is “to give notice to the plaintiff of the consequences of not participating in the litigation, including monetary sanctions and dismissal of the case for failure to prosecute it”. The latter consequence has now fallen upon the plaintiff: After MISSED CALL missed this latest deadline as well, Judge Beeler ordered the plaintiff to dismiss the case with prejudice.
April 26, 2024
You Can’t Get Blood from a Stone
Patent Litigation Feature
In February 2023, Northern District of Texas Judge Brantley Starr shifted attorney fees in favor of defendant VMware, ordering ZT IP, LLC to pay VMware $92,130.35 within 30 days of that order. The court deemed the case exceptional, in part, because the accused product was released in 2002, a full year before the application that led to the patent asserted in the case; per Judge Starr, “VMware provided all the information for ZT to quickly realize that it had no claim and that it should have dropped the suit before any of the parties spent unnecessary fees”. Not “a single dime” received from ZT IP by August of last year, VMware propounded post-judgment discovery and filed motions to amend the judgment and to join additional parties, including Dynamic IP Deals LLC (d/b/a DynaIP) and its principal Carlos O. Gorrichategui, Entente IP, LLC and its principal David Ghorbanpoor, Pueblo Nuevo LLC (but not its principal Hernan Arturo Perez Torrijos), and litigation counsel Ramey LLP and its principal William P. Ramey III. By December 2023, though, having expended tens of thousands more dollars trying to collect the fees owed from ZT IP, which VMware characterizes as a “judgment-proof shell company”, VMware withdrew its motions, and just this month, Judge Starr granted Ramey LLP’s motion to withdraw from the suit.
April 19, 2024
Ramey-Repped Plaintiff Files Another Complaint, Misses Deadline to Respond to a Motion to Dismiss
New Patent Litigation
In its newest complaint, filed by Ramey LLP in the Western District of Texas, CLOUD SYSTEMS HOLDCO IP LLC (CSHIP) states, “The Accused Instrumentality is Google Smart Home”. That assertion appears to contradict the identity of the defendant, Comcast (7:24-cv-00072), as well as the claim chart attached to the complaint, which instead identifies a variety of Comcast’s own smart home security products sold under its Xfinity brand, including the Xfinity Home app, its “The Panel” control device, as used to control a home security system, including security cameras, sensors, video doorbells, and door locks. In an earlier, separate action, Google has asked the court to dismiss the case with prejudice because CSHIP missed its deadline to respond to a motion to dismiss.
March 9, 2024
Second Autonomous IP Complaint Raises Questions
New Patent Litigation
After suing Tesla last month, Autonomous IP LLC has filed a second Western District of Texas complaint, this time against Lyft (7:24-cv-00051). The new pleading, filed by William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP, raises questions in that it states in its body that the “Accused Instrumentality is Tesla Autopilot” but purports, through an attached claim chart, to target provision of the Level 5 initiative, described as a “self-driving system for ridesharing”, a division apparently sold to Toyota subsidiary Woven Planet in October 2021.
February 22, 2024
Motion for Clarification and “Scheduled Procedures” Push Off Additional Delaware Scrutiny
In Case You Missed It
Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly has recently returned attention to certain plaintiffs that had filed cases before him, cases that became tied up in concerns about compliance with his April 2022 standing orders late that year but had been sliding under the radar. In mid-January, the court questioned two attorneys about representation of an additional pair of plaintiffs tied to Texas monetization firm IP Edge LLC, subsequently ordering one of those plaintiffs to produce to the court a set of documents designed to determine whether ethical violations occurred in the conduct of the suits before him. Separately, the court set a status conference in a case filed by MISSED CALL, LLC, requiring counsel to appear in person, after that plaintiff began suing the same defendants elsewhere. Now, events have stalled both inquiries.
February 18, 2024
Judge Connolly Turns to MISSED CALL, Orders Attorneys to Attend Conference in Person
In Case You Missed It
Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly has ordered Jimmy Chong of the Chong Law Firm P.A. and William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP to attend—in person—a status conference to be held on February 16, 2024. The conference has been set in connection with a case that Ramey (as lead counsel) and Chong (as local counsel) filed on behalf of MISSED CALL, LLC against Twilio back in June 2022. That suit was stayed to await the outcome (now clear) of certain mandamus petitions filed in connection with a set of IP Edge LLC-tied lawsuits before Judge Connolly. After MISSED CALL filed an October 2023 suit against Twilio, substantively identical to the prior Delaware case, counsel for Twilio and Chong submitted separate letters to Judge Connolly, the first seeking a lift of the existing stay and the second to inject some distance from the new filing.
February 4, 2024
Panamanian-Owned Texas Plaintiff Sources Patents from Australia, Sues Tesla
New Patent Litigation
Texas plaintiff Autonomous IP LLC has filed its first litigation, suing Tesla (7:24-cv-00025) in the Western District of Texas over the provision of the Tesla Autopilot system. A single patent broadly directed to rerouting the navigation of a “substantially autonomous vehicle” in response to an “interruption signal” or an “emission that corresponds to an emergency vehicle” is now in suit. Autonomous IP is the latest entity to file suit for a monetization team with other plaintiffs stuck in limbo before Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly.
January 24, 2024
MISSED CALL Adds Northern District of California Cases Amid Existing Delaware-West Texas Tangle
New Patent Litigation
MISSED CALL, LLC has sued 8x8 (3:23-cv-06723) and RingCentral (3:23-cv-06728) in the Northern District of California, asserting the same “missed call” patent at issue throughout this campaign. Three Delaware cases filed by the plaintiff in May 2022 were assigned to Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly, compliance with whose April 2022 standing orders on heightened transparency has more sensationally embroiled Texas monetization firm IP Edge LLC over the past year and a half. However, MISSED CALL’s separate suits against Freshworks, Talkdesk, and Twilio have been stayed in Delaware for over a year, ostensibly to await the outcome of certain mandamus proceedings in the IP Edge cases (although those proceedings have long since ended). A second pair of suits, one against each of Freshworks and Twilio filed last October in the Western District of Texas, prompted counsel to submit letters to Judge Connolly to seek the lift of a prior stay and to distance itself from the West Texas cases, respectively.
January 10, 2024
WirelessWERX IP Files New Round of Complaints in Location Tracking and Mapping Campaign
New Patent Litigation
DoorDash (6:23-cv-00863), GrubHub (6:23-cv-00865), HEB (Neighborfavor) (6:23-cv-00866), Life360 (3:23-cv-06725), and OnFleet (3:23-cv-06724) are the latest defendants to be added to the litigation campaign that WirelessWERX IP LLC initiated with separate October 2022 suits filed against Alphabet (Google), Apple, Lyft, Raytheon, and Uber. The sole asserted patent generally relates to selectively communicating with a first device within pre-defined geographical zones, with the defendants accused of infringement through the provision of delivery (DoorDash, GrubHub, Neighborfavor, and OnFleet) or family safety (Life360) software products that support certain location tracking and mapping features.
December 29, 2023