In-Depth Test LLC

As reported repeatedly by RPX over the past year, Acacia Research Corporation’s litigation efforts are picking back up following a comprehensive leadership change triggered by activist investors in 2018. While Acacia’s freshly reconstituted board is reportedly working to “advance” the company’s IP business (including through augmenting Acacia’s IP portfolio through “acquisitions and partnerships”), USPTO records suggest that the NPE already has at least one new litigation campaign in the pipeline, perhaps involving patents originating with Fairchild Semiconductor or Micron. Meanwhile, this week saw Acacia—via a newly created subsidiary, Targeted Radio LLC—kick off its first new US campaign in four years with a suit against Pandora Media. The new suit against Pandora joins a number of recently filed cases in already existing Acacia campaigns, including one initiated over ten years ago.

Acacia Research Corporation has not launched a new US litigation campaign since mid-2015, but one of its many 2014 campaigns has now come back to life. Acacia subsidiary In-Depth Test LLC has filed new lawsuits, one each against NXP Semiconductors (1:18-cv-01461) and Qorvo (1:18-cv-01462) over the single patent asserted, which is generally related to semiconductor testing. This recent activity follows multiple unsuccessful challenges to that patent through inter partes review (IPR), consideration of an Alice motion challenging the patent in existing district court cases, reopened after lengthy stays, and the approach of a claim construction hearing, in early October.

In the first half of June 2016, RPX saw six patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO. At least one of those transactions involved a patent that has already been asserted in litigation.