Anjay Venture Partners LLC

Last year, Light Guide Innovations LLC filed separate complaints against first TCL (TCT Mobile and multiple subsidiaries) and then Hisense, both in the Eastern District of Texas, targeting the provision of LED strips used for television or other display backlighting. Each defendant has yet to answer (or otherwise respond). Now, Light Guide has sued Walmart (2:25-cv-00312) in the same district, asserting 16 patents from the same former Suzhou Lekin Semiconductor Co. Ltd. (d/b/a LEKIN) portfolio. The plaintiff targets the provision of VIZIO Quantum, Quantum Pro, 4k, Full HD, HD, M-Series, V-Series, and D-Series televisions. VIZIO is not named as a defendant.

Ascale Technologies LLC, an Anjay Venture Partners LLC plaintiff, has filed its first litigation, suing Texas Instruments (TI) (2:25-cv-00243) in the Eastern District of Texas over the provision of “integrated circuits including a processor” including display controllers, DSPs, microcontrollers, PMICs, processors, and “wireless connectivity chips”. The three asserted patents are part of a larger portfolio that RPX recently reported that Ascale Technologies had received from NXP USA, a subsidiary of NXP Semiconductors, on December 28, 2024.

Recorded patent assignments recently made public reveal a new Texas entity operated by a familiar and funded monetization team picking up a semiconductor portfolio; a networking entity previously backed by Fortress Investment Group LLC moving a traffic management portfolio onto the market; an IoT provider transferring all of its US patent assets during a “controlled recapitalization”; a Texas entity tied to an now-established operation topping off a prior acquisition, here with a video communications patent and a network collaboration patent; and the continued Delaware-to-Texas flow of patents by a named inventor awaiting the lift of a Northern District of California stay, that lift increasingly likely given a long list of inter partes reviews (IPRs) and ex parte reexaminations (EPR) seeming to draw to an end.

Little has happened on the docket of the Eastern District of Texas case that Light Guide Innovations LLC filed against TCL (TCT Mobile and multiple subsidiaries) last August, other than most recently an extension of the deadline to answer that complaint to April 10, 2025. Now, the plaintiff has filed a second complaint in the same district, this time hitting Hisense (2:25-cv-00051) over 16 patents from the same former Suzhou Lekin Semiconductor Co. Ltd. (d/b/a LEKIN) portfolio. The accused products are televisions and displays that include certain LED backlight units or LED strips.

Recorded assignments recently made public by the USPTO reveal batches of US patents, one generally related to multi-display devices and another to drug delivery devices, on the move, to entities tied to experienced monetization teams—teams that have apparently secured the backing of the same prominent litigation funder. One of those entities is already in litigation, over previously received patents from the same source, while the other appears headed in that direction.

The third quarter of 2024 saw multiple funded NPEs launch new patent campaigns, with several funded plaintiffs also filing new cases in existing litigation campaigns. In addition, towards the end of the quarter, a jury in the Eastern District of Texas awarded a large verdict to a plaintiff funded by a prominent litigation finance firm.

The same day that the February 2024 case that Avant Location Technologies LLC filed against Samsung was dismissed with prejudice, after a noticed settlement, the plaintiff filed a new complaint against Apple (2:24-cv-00757), asserting the same seven patents. Per Avant, “the Accused Products are Apple products that implement Find My, which include, but are not limited to, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple Watch, Mac, AirPods, AirTag, Apple Pencil, and Apple Vision Pro”. Litigation remains active against the other two defendants in this campaign: Generac (ecobee), which has yet to respond to a July 2023 complaint; and Fibar Group, which filed an answer on August 28, 2024.

Funded plaintiff Active Wireless Technologies LLC has filed a second pair of Eastern District of Texas suits, one against each of Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) (2:24-cv-00723) and Verizon (Verizon Wireless) (2:24-cv-00724). In the ongoing litigation, in which Ericsson and Nokia have intervened, Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap denied as premature motions to stay in light of inter partes review (IPR) of the asserted patents—the PTAB has yet to return institution decisions in response to the petitions filed. All the patents here in suit were received from FG Innovation Company Ltd. (f/k/a FG IP Innovation Company Ltd.) (FGI).

Advanced Coding Technologies LLC (ACT) has filed a second suit against Apple (2:24-cv-00687), in which it asserts three patents that it added to its case against Alphabet (Google) through an early August amended complaint. Now in suit against both defendants are the same six patents, which overlap with subsets of a larger portfolio received from JVCKenwood, subsets asserted in cases against Bytedance, LG Electronics (LGE) and Samsung. Still active, the case against Samsung is closing in on trial, although Samsung has just notified Eastern District of Texas Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap that its renewed motion to stay the suit to await appeals from various inter partes reviews (IPRs) is now fully briefed.

As RPX recently noted, on June 25, 2024, Suzhou Lekin Semiconductor Co. Ltd. (d/b/a LEKIN) transferred 27 US patents to Light Guide Innovations LLC, which has now accused TCL (TCT Mobile and multiple subsidiaries) (2:24-cv-00646) of infringing 14 of its received assets, described by the plaintiff as covering “systems and methods related to LED lighting and image enhancement for televisions and displays”. Targeting the provision of displays and TVs that incorporate LED, QLED, and QD-MINI LED lighting technologies, Light Guide has backing from a prominent litigation funder.

In a new Eastern District of Texas complaint, Advanced Coding Technologies LLC (ACT) has accused Apple (2:24-cv-00572) of infringing the same three data coding patents asserted against Alphabet (Google) in a May 2024 complaint in the same district. The three patents, received as part of a larger set received from JVCKenwood in February 2022, are a subset of those asserted in the other active case in this campaign; ACT and Samsung are currently briefing dispositive and other pretrial motions before Eastern District of Texas Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap.

Three transfers of US patents recently recorded with the USPTO and made public—one from an optoelectronics company to an entity in a growing family of funded plaintiffs, one from an individual inventor who ended a litigation campaign last September, and one of former NEC assets passing through a Singaporean entity to a potential Delaware plaintiff—all bear watching over the coming months.

Advanced Coding Technologies LLC (ACT) has added a case against Alphabet (Google) (2:24-cv-00353) to the litigation campaign begun back in April 2022 over a portfolio of patents received from JVCKenwood. The plaintiff describes the three asserted patents—also in suit in the Eastern District of Texas against LG Electronics (LGE) and Samsung—as generally related to “coding and decoding data efficiently”, with infringement allegations highlighting Google Pixel smartphones “that, upon information and belief, encode and/or decode digital video using the AV1 codec using Tensor processors”. According to court documents, ACT is now finalizing a settlement with one of those two prior defendants.

Avant Location Technologies LLC launched its sole litigation campaign this past July with a suit against Generac (ecobee) in the Eastern District of Texas. Now, the plaintiff has sued Samsung (2:24-cv-00133) in the same district. The seven asserted patents, five of which are making their litigation debut, generally relate to a system for providing “presence related services” to a designated “special area” through a linked mobile station. Samsung is targeted over a wide array of devices, including earphones, smartphones, smart watches, and tablets, that support the SmartThings Find feature.

On January 31, 2024, FG Innovation Company Ltd. (f/k/a FG IP Innovation Company Ltd.) (FGI) divested a portfolio of 35 assets, including 30 issued US patents, to a Texas entity, which moved the portfolio to a second Texas LLC the next day. This FGI divestiture is the sixth to an apparent US NPE since May 2021, to date four of the prior five recipients having launched litigation over the patents received.

This past May, Active Wireless Technologies LLC sued Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) over four wireless communications patents from a portfolio received in March 2023 from FG Innovation Company Ltd. (f/k/a FG IP Innovation Company Ltd.) (FGI). Pleadings there, in the Eastern District of Texas, appear to be set, after the intervention of both Ericsson and Nokia. Now, Active Wireless—which has third-party litigation funding—has tagged Verizon (Verizon Wireless) (2:23-cv-00620) with the same four patents, again over the provision of cellular networks that implement 5G and Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT technologies), as well as related products and those that comply with various 3GPP standards.

With apparent backing by a litigation funder, Avant Location Technologies LLC has filed suit against Generac (ecobee) (2:23-cv-00354) in the Eastern District of Texas, asserting two patents generally related to a system for providing “presence related services” to a designated “special area” through a linked mobile station. The defendant is accused of infringement through the provision of smart home devices including certain cameras, sensors, and thermostats, as well as related devices. At issue are certain location-tracking tools or functionalities (e.g., Arm/Disarm, geofencing, and Home/Away detection).

An RPX review of public records indicates that the second quarter of 2023 saw at least eight new patent infringement campaigns launched with the backing of third-party litigation funding. Also in Q2, several already existing third-party financed campaigns grew larger, with the plaintiffs hitting new defendants and/or going after familiar targets for a second or even third time.

Third-party funded Active Wireless Technologies LLC has filed suit over four wireless communications patents from a portfolio received from FG Innovation Company Ltd. (f/k/a FG IP Innovation Company Ltd.) (FGI) this past March. Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) (2:23-cv-00261) is accused of infringement through the provision of cellular networks that implement Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) technologies, as well as related products, with compliance with various 3GPP standards at issue throughout. FGI has farmed out batches of patents to five NPEs, four of which have now filed litigation over the received assets in the US.

Advanced Coding Technologies LLC has filed a pair of additional Eastern District of Texas cases—one against each of LG Electronics (LGE) (2:22-cv-00501) and Samsung (2:22-cv-00499)—in the campaign that it began this past April with a suit against ByteDance. The earlier case has become bogged down as the court considers sealed motions, one to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction over the Cayman Islands defendant entity and another to transfer the litigation to the Northern District of California. Asserted across the three suits are overlapping sets of up to seven patents, for a total of nine at issue in the campaign, the patents generally related to data encoding and decoding, as well as video and audio playback.

The litigation finance space saw fireworks in Q2, with Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly of the District of Delaware posting a pair of standing orders that heighten disclosure requirements in the second most popular district for patent litigation in the US—at least for cases assigned to Judge Connolly. While patent plaintiffs litigating in that courtroom are taking varied approaches to navigating (or, in some cases, avoiding) this evolving territory, RPX data and research indicate that the rate at which new third-party funded NPE campaigns are being initiated held steady in Q2.

RPX recently covered the assignment of more than 30 issued US patents to Advanced Coding Technologies LLC. That Texas NPE has now filed its first suit, hitting ByteDance (2:22-cv-00129) in the Eastern District of Texas over the provision of the TikTok app, with three of the received assets. Per public records, Advanced Coding has begun this litigation campaign with third party litigation funding in hand.

RPX has flagged a recent assignment of dozens of operating company patents to an NPE formed in Texas earlier this year. The new patent holder shares management with a plaintiff that began litigating in late 2021, and notably, public records confirm that both NPEs have received funding from a prominent litigation finance firm.