During the first week of October 2016, Anton Innovations Inc., a subsidiary of Wi-LAN Inc. (WiLAN), filed its first patent suit, effectively taking over a campaign initiated by another NPE (MLR, LLC) that has hit more than 20 electronics makers to date. Anton sued MiTAC (Getac) (8:16-cv-01850) on October 6 over four wireless communication patents (5,854,985; 6,134,453; 6,934,558; 7,386,322), accusing the company of infringement through the provision of notebooks and tablets that contain multi-modal wireless transceivers. Also on October 6, apparent WiLAN affiliate Atlas IP, LLC added two new defendants to its smart energy grid campaign, suing Master Meter (6:16-cv-01214) and Mueller Systems (6:16-cv-01213) for alleged infringement of an expired wireless communication patent (5,371,734). These latest suits bring Atlas IP’s campaign defendant count to 13.
