Polaris Innovations Limited

Earlier this year, Northern District of California Judge Jon S. Tigar rejected an unusual argument from plaintiff Lauri Valjakka urging the court to apply Finnish common law concerning the appropriation of abandoned shipwrecks and piles of discarded leather scraps to save his case. Then, Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap held that French law, which follows “the privity rule”, applies to the contract giving rise to a FRAND obligation; and that Samsung provided insufficient evidence under French law that plaintiff G+ Communications LLC could be considered the alter ego of ZTE. For the latest brush with foreign law in domestic patent cases it is back to Judge Gilstrap, who just denied a motion to dismiss on a license defense that brushed up against a ruling under German law.

Polaris Innovations Limited has added an Eastern District of Texas suit against Broadcom (2:22-cv-00347) to its litigation over a portfolio of patents acquired from Infineon in July 2015. The plaintiff, a Quarterhill Inc. subsidiary, asserts five such patents in the new complaint, targeting the provision of various semiconductors, integrated circuits, processors, controllers, and systems-on-chip (SoCs). The case joins active Polaris Innovations litigation against AMD, filed in May 2021, and Xilinx (which AMD acquired in early 2022), filed this past February.

Polaris Innovations Limited, a subsidiary of Wi-LAN Inc., itself controlled by publicly traded Quarterhill Inc., has filed suit in the District of Delaware against Xilinx (1:22-cv-00174) over the provision of field-programmable gate arrays (FGPAs). The plaintiff asserts four patents from the large portfolio that it received from Infineon in July 2015, two of them for the first time. Over the years, Quarterhill has announced settlements with all four of the prior defendants in this campaign, which began back in 2016.

Quarterhill Inc. released its second-quarter earnings on August 6, reporting a dip well below $1M in licensing revenue as well as delays in its deal-making process due to COVID-19. While staying relatively quiet on the litigation front so far this year, Quarterhill did receive “a favorable update” during Q2 in its ongoing litigation against Apple, which brought the total final judgment in Wi-LAN Inc.’s favor to $108.98M USD.

The Federal Circuit’s October decision in Arthrex has cast doubt upon numerous invalidity proceedings through its holding that the appointment of administrative patent judges (APJs) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is unconstitutional—and a recent RPX analysis indicates that hundreds of America Invents Act (AIA) reviews may be subject to rehearing as a result. Now, the debate over the merits of the decision has taken further shape in another appeal involving the same issue, Polaris Innovations Limited v. Kingston Technology (2018-1831). On January 6, the US government and both parties each filed detailed briefs answering questions from the court about the lingering constitutional questions raised by Arthrex.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) remained at the center of a heated public debate over the issue of tribal sovereign immunity in December 2017. Motions to dismiss filed by the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in IPRs against several Allergan patents—acquired by the tribe and licensed back to their original owner to shield them through sovereign immunity—remain pending as the PTAB considers a wave of amicus briefs filed on both sides of the issue. The Board has since denied the tribe’s motion for an oral hearing on discovery related to alleged bias held by the USPTO and its leadership, and that bias’s effect on the selection of judges for the tribe’s case. Meanwhile, among the petitions for inter partes review (IPR) filed in December was one brought by Apple against MEC Resources, LLC, an entity owned by another Native American tribe, which took over an existing lawsuit asserting the challenged patent against Apple in the fall. Also in December, the Board issued institution decisions in petitions against Iridescent Networks, Inc.; Lone Star Silicon Innovations LLC; and publicly traded Quarterhill Inc.; while an IPR against Packet Intelligence LLC ended in an adverse judgment after petitioner Sandvine prevailed in a November trial.

Etron (5:17-cv-06547) is the second defendant to be added to a semiconductor campaign begun last month by Polaris Innovations Limited. The NPE (a subsidiary of Wi-LAN Inc., itself controlled by Quarterhill Inc.), filed its first case last month, suing Integrated Silicon Solution (3:17-cv-05846) for alleged infringement of two former Infineon patents. Those same two patents are at issue in the Etron suit, as well as two additional patents originating with Qimonda (a spinoff of Infineon); Etron is accused of infringement through various computer memory products, including the DDR3 SDRAM.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw the number of petitions for AIA review filed against NPEs drop by more than half in August 2017, down to 30 petitions from 68 in July. Petitions were brought in August against publicly traded Finjan Holdings, Inc., inventor Leigh M. Rothschild, and a mix of prolific private litigants, including Blackbird Tech LLC, Realtime Data LLC, and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited. Meanwhile, the Board instituted trial in August for petitions against a variety of entities, including the California Institute of Technology and publicly traded Quarterhill Inc. as well as IP Bridge, Inc.; Realtime Data; and Uniloc. The PTAB also issued final decisions throughout August in campaigns waged by publicly traded Acacia Research Corporation; Advanced Touchscreen and Gesture Technologies, LLC; Elm 3DS Innovations LLC; and Rosetta-Wireless Corporation.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) continued to see petitions for AIA review filed against prolific litigants in July, including a wave of petitions against Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited across four separate campaigns, with petitions also brought against General Patent Corporation, Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), Papst Licensing GmbH & Company Kg, and Quarterhill Inc. Meanwhile, throughout July, the Board instituted trial for inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed in semiconductor campaigns waged by Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology, with trial also instituted in campaigns related to network data compression (Realtime Data LLC), servers and data management (IV), and anti-malware technology (Finjan Holdings, Inc.). Final decisions issued by the Board in July included one that cancelled claims from a patent that has been asserted by Rothschild Connected Devices Innovations, LLC, an NPE controlled by inventor Leigh M. Rothschild, against more than 60 defendants.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw petitions for AIA review filed against a variety of prolific litigants in June 2017, including General Patent Corporation, Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), Quarterhill Inc. (f/k/a Wi-LAN Inc.), Realtime Data LLC, Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited, and Xperi Corporation (f/k/a Tessera Holding Corporation). Also in June, the PTAB instituted trial for petitions brought against patents asserted in a variety of sprawling campaigns, including some waged by Acacia Research Corporation, IV, Papst Licensing, Quarterhill, and VirnetX Inc. The Board further issued final decisions throughout June in AIA reviews against patents involved in several notable campaigns, including some waged by Document Security Systems, Inc., Elm 3DS Innovations LLC, Empire IP LLC, and Quarterhill.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw 54 petitions for AIA review brought against NPEs in May, up from 20 such petitions filed in April. May PTAB filings included a resurgence in petitions against publicly traded NPEs, including Acacia Research Corporation; Pendrell Corporation; Quest Patent Research Corporation; VoIP-Pal.com, Inc.; Xperi Corporation (f/k/a Tessera Holding Corporation); and Wi-LAN Inc. (WiLAN) (which was renamed to Quarterhill Inc. on June 1). A variety of private litigants were also hit by PTAB petitions in May, including Blackbird Tech LLC, Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd., General Patent Corporation, Realtime Data LLC, and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board saw the filing of petitions against a host of publicly traded NPEs in February, including Acacia Research Corporation, Pendrell Corporation, Wi-LAN Inc. (WiLAN), and Xperi Corporation (f/k/a Tessera Holding Corporation), with challenges also filed in campaigns waged by Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV); IP Bridge, Inc.; Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited; and Monument Patent Holdings, LLC.

Wi-LAN, Inc. (WiLAN) has launched a second litigation campaign asserting patents from the portfolio that it acquired from Infineon/Qimonda last summer. The plaintiff, wholly owned subsidiary Polaris Innovations Limited, asserted six patents (8,207,976; 8,161,344; 7,886,122; 7,405,993; 7,124,325; 6,532,505) against NVIDIA (5:16-cv-00451), further accusing Dell in the same complaint of infringing two of those patents (the ‘122 and ‘976 patents). The products at issue are NVIDIA graphics processors used in combination with GDDR (“graphics double data rate”) memory, and the Dell and NVIDIA computing devices that incorporate them.

This week, Dominion Harbor Group, LLC announced that it will acquire a portfolio of patents from Wi-LAN Inc. (WiLAN). This new partnership follows a spike in litigation campaigns initiated by NPEs managed by Dominion Harbor’s Monument Patent Holdings, LLC. As reported by RPX earlier this month, seven NPEs managed by Monument Patent Holdings filed nearly 50 patent infringement suits against operating companies in 2015—a marked increase compared to just nine cases lodged by two Monument entities (DataTech IP, LLC and Optical Tech IP) in 2014.

In the first half of December 2015, RPX saw 14 patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO. A number of those transactions involved patents that have recently been asserted in litigation against operating companies.

In the first half of October 2015, RPX saw eleven patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO.

In the second half of September 2015, RPX saw 10 patent transfers to non-practicing entities (NPEs) recorded with the USPTO. Additionally, in the past month, RPX recorded the assignment of patents from one inventor-controlled company and one university.

RPX observed a dip in the number of patent assignments to non-practicing entities (NPEs) in the second half of August, as compared to the first half of the month. In total, RPX saw five patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO.

In the first half of August 2015, RPX saw 14 patent transfers to non-practicing entities recorded with the USPTO.