Optic153 LLC

As the Western District of Texas remains atop the venue charts, an issue of ongoing interest for patent litigants has been how District Judge Alan D. Albright has handled motions to transfer. Most of this narrative has thus far focused on his restrictive approach to convenience transfers, a posture that may be shifting in response to a series of recent reversals by the Federal Circuit. However, less attention has been paid to his treatment of motions alleging improper venue, since—unlike former NPE hotspots like the Eastern District of Texas—many companies have active operations in West Texas, and may therefore “reside” in that venue as established under the Supreme Court’s 2017 TC Heartland decision. While such a venue challenge may not be an option for some defendants, recent orders by Judge Albright suggest that improper venue challenges may succeed in his court for companies with a sufficiently minimal presence there.

AT&T (6:21-cv-00088), Charter Communications (6:21-cv-00089), Crown Castle (6:21-cv-00090), Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) (6:21-cv-00092), DISH Network (6:21-cv-00093), and Windstream (6:21-cv-00088) have been sued in the Optic153 LLC campaign, each accused of infringing six optical networking patents through the provision of optical amplification in their various networks and systems. Each complaint identifies equipment within those networks provided by Cisco, with the pleadings against AT&T and Windstream also calling out Fujitsu devices—all without naming Cisco or Fujitsu as a defendant.

Optic153 LLC, a subsidiary of Equitable IP Corporation, has sued Comcast (6:20-cv-00483) and Verizon (6:20-cv-00484) in the Western District of Texas over six optical networking patents, targeting the optical amplification in various networks and systems separately provided by either of the defendants. The NPE began this campaign in 2018 in the District of Delaware, with cases against II-VI (Finisar), FS.com, and Lumentum Operations, each subsequently dismissed with prejudice, before turning—as many plaintiffs have—to the Western District of Texas. There, cases are active in early stages against Fiberlabs, Fiber-Mart.com, and Thorlabs, the last of which has contested the propriety of venue in West Texas.

USPTO assignment records made publicly available in early March reveal additional patents moving from NXP Semiconductor to Fortress Investment Group LLC subsidiary VLSI Technology LLC, which is already litigating earlier-received assets against Intel; from Marathon Patent Group, Inc. to Fortress in satisfaction of a prior debt; from Nokia’s Alcatel-Lucent to WSOU Investments LLC as part of a December 2017 transaction; and from Level 3 Communications to Optic153 LLC, an apparent affiliate of Equitable IP Corporation.