ALY Ventures LLC

Optima Direct, LLC has expanded its sixth litigation campaign with two new Eastern District of Texas suits, one each against Oracle (2:19-cv-00380) and Symantec (2:19-cv-00381). At issue is the same secure document transmission patent asserted in complaints filed this month against Citrix (1:19-cv-02091) in the District of Delaware and Dropbox (1:19-cv-01098) in the Western District of Texas. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of software platforms that feature secure file sharing and syncing through encryption or hashing. Oracle is targeted over the BEA Tuxedo Security system and Symantec, over the Symantec Desktop Email Encryption feature of the NortonLifeLock PGP platform.

Last week Optima Direct, LLC filed suit against Dropbox (1:19-cv-01098) in the Western District of Texas over the same secure document transmission patent asserted in its complaint against Citrix (1:19-cv-02091), filed in the District of Delaware one week before. File sharing and syncing features in the defendants’ respective products—Dropbox and Citrix Files App—are accused. This new campaign is the sixth that Optima Direct has launched in just over a year.

Hailo Technologies, LLC has recently revived two of its three litigation campaigns to date and may yet revive the third. The NPE just added a case against Safr Technologies (1:19-cv-01139) to a June case against Juno (1:19-cv-01139) and May cases against Curb Mobility (1:19-cv-00945), Flywheel Software (1:19-cv-00949), and Via Transportation (1:19-cv-00946) in a campaign over a taxi dispatch patent that emerged from a reexamination triggered by Hailo itself with all claims found patentable as amended to avoid patent-ineligibility under Alice. In the second campaign, Hailo has recently added suits against Anker Innovations (2:19-cv-00751) and Moovn Technologies (2:19-cv-00958) over a patent generally related to locating a parked vehicle. In the third campaign, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) handed down a final written decision in an inter partes review (IPR) that found no challenged claims of a different taxi dispatch patent unpatentable under the arguments presented in a petition filed by Unified Patents.

Rondevoo Technologies, LLC has added a case against HMD Global and Nokia (1:19-cv-00595) to its litigation campaign over a single patent that generally pertains to “clustering” keys on an input device, such as a telephone keypad or computer keyboard, to facilitate selection entry. The NPE has targeted the ability to enter alternate (e.g., accented) characters through the keypads of certain Android smartphones in complaints filed earlier against HTC, LG Electronics (LGE), Sony, and ZTE, calling out the Nokia 9 PureView in its latest complaint. The case against Sony was dismissed without prejudice (before an answer was filed) in January 2019, while the ZTE suit was dismissed in March, with prejudice in light of a settlement after the defendant answered. HTC has also answered, while the court granted LGE an extension of the deadline to respond Rondevoo’s complaint.

Secure Cam, LLC, an NPE formed in Wyoming last July, has filed its first lawsuit, suing Project Nursery (5:18-cv-02335), a San Francisco-based company established by two friends “who set out to help parents find the vision, tools, and products for all their baby nursery and kid-friendly decorating projects”. Project Nursery notes that its brand “now includes various licensed products such as [its] exciting new line of nursery electronics, including the Project Nursery Baby Monitor and Sight & Sound Projector (a Techlicious Best of CES Award-winning joint venture with VOXX International)”, available through various retailers. The company now accused of infringing one patent, generally related to transmitting video images over a network, through the manufacture and sale of some of those baby monitors.

Secure Cam, LLC, a recently formed Wyoming NPE, quickly followed up its first lawsuit—targeting video baby monitors—with a separate campaign asserting four patents in separate cases against Anviz Global (3:18-cv-02407) and USA Vision Systems (3:18-cv-01002). The patents in this campaign, also received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), generally relate to automatically categorizing images captured by a digital camera. The NPE accuses these defendants of infringement through the provision of face recognition readers and license plate recognition cameras, calling out more specifically, Anviz’s FacePass Pro Standalone Facial Recognition System and USA Vision Systems’s Face Recognition Reader GV-FR2020 and License Plate Recognition Camera GV-LPR1200.

USB Technologies, LLC (USB Tech) has filed suit against Kingston Technology (8:17-cv-02235), asserting the same patent, generally related to an SD memory card with built-in USB connectivity, that has been at issue since this campaign began in March 2015. USB Tech’s most recent certificates of interested parties identifies only the plaintiff and defendant, while past disclosures have identified (in July 2017) Red Dragon Innovations, LLC, an entity managed in part by California attorney Daniel C. Cotman, and (through July 2016) Q Patents, Inc., an entity formed by fellow California attorney Brian Yates. Kingston has been accused of infringement through the provision of flash drives that each contain both a USB connector and an Apple Lightning connector.

Hailo Technologies, LLC (d/b/a BRING) has opened up a second vehicle-for-hire campaign, asserting a single patent (5,973,619) against Lyft (2:17-cv-03028) and Uber (2:17-cv-03031) in the Central District of California. The ‘619 patent generally relates to a taxi dispatch and payment system, comprising a family of one, and Hailo Technologies accuses the defendants of infringement through their provision of their ride-sharing platforms. Hailo Technologies was formed in California on November 17, 2016, with Daniel Cotman of Cotman IP Law Group, PLC as its agent. In disclosures filed with the court, Hailo Technologies is identified as a subsidiary of Red Dragon Innovations, LLC, which is also affiliated with Cotman and was also formed in California in November 2016.

Nuance Communications (2:17-cv-00890) is the first defendant in a new campaign started by Eloqui Voice Systems, LLC, a California-based NPE managed by multiple entities controlled by attorney Daniel C. Cotman. The new complaint accuses Nuance of infringing four voice assistant patents apparently acquired from an Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) subsidiary through its Nina virtual assistant platform.