Advanced Coding Technologies LLC

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.

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.

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.

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.