Key Patent Innovations Limited

In a new Eastern District of Texas complaint, coplaintiffs Malikie Innovations Limited (as “the successor-in-interest to a substantial patent portfolio created and procured over many years by [BlackBerry]”) and Key Patent Innovations Limited (KPI, as “the beneficiary of a trust pursuant to which Malikie owns, holds, and asserts the Asserted Patents”) have accused Sophos (2:24-cv-00905) of infringing seven of those former BlackBerry patents. Five of them are new to this campaign, which has now seen complaints filed against Acer, ASUSTek, D-Link, Nintendo, and Sophos, in that order, since March of this year. All cases remain “active”, although a stay has been imposed to facilitate a resolution in the D-Link case, and ASUSTek, the Taiwanese parent company, has mounted a novel challenge to venue in the Eastern District of Texas.

Malikie Innovations Limited (as “the successor-in-interest to a substantial patent portfolio created and procured over many years by Blackberry”) and Key Patent Innovations Limited (KPI, as “the beneficiary of a trust pursuant to which Malikie owns, holds, and asserts the Asserted Patents”) have together sued Nintendo (2:24-cv-01490) in the Western District of Washington over the provision of various models of the Nintendo Switch gaming console, its dock and charger, and its parental control system. This additional case in Malikie’s campaign drops as prior defendant Acer has answered an amended complaint that added KPI as a party to that case, prior defendant ASUSTek has contested venue in the Eastern District of Texas, and a notice of settlement appears likely to end litigation against D-Link.

Pictiva Displays International Limited (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 5 Limited) has filed a new Eastern District of Texas case against Samsung (2:24-cv-00532) asserting the same two former OSRAM patents appearing in the original complaint that it filed against Samsung last October, as well as the four patents that it added through its March 2024 amended complaint in that existing case. This time, Pictiva Displays has a coplaintiff, its parent, Irish monetization firm Key Patent Innovations Limited (KPI), described in the new complaint as “the beneficiary of a trust pursuant to which Pictiva owns, holds, and asserts the Asserted Patents”. The coplaintiffs plead that they “bring this complaint in an abundance of caution because another defendant has challenged KPI’s similarly-situated subsidiary Valtrus Innovations Limited’s standing to assert patents in its own portfolio”.

Last summer, the assignment of thousands of patent assets from BlackBerry to Malikie Innovations Limited, a subsidiary of Irish patent monetization firm Key Patent Innovations Limited (KPI), reflected the May 2023 completion of the deal between the two, described as involving the sale of “substantially all of [BlackBerry’s] non-core patents and patent applications”. Now, Malikie has filed suit, accusing Acer (2:24-cv-00179) and ASUSTek (2:24-cv-00178) in separate Eastern District of Texas complaints of infringing overlapping subsets of its received assets through the provision of features such as video coding, gesture-based touch controls, and power management within various devices, including Chromebooks, docks, laptops, and tablets.

The public website of Key Patent Innovations Limited (KPI) advertises three portfolios, one held by each of Malikie Innovations Limited (former BlackBerry patents), Pictiva Displays International Limited (former OSRAM patents), and Valtrus Innovations Limited (former HP Enterprise (HPE) patents). Valtrus has been litigating its portfolio since early 2022, Malikie has yet to litigate the patents that it received earlier this year, and now, with a new Eastern District of Texas suit against Samsung (2:23-cv-00495), Pictiva has turned to US courts.

A telephonic conference held this week shed light on the status of Tech+IP Advisory’s litigation against BlackBerry, which earlier this year divested its legacy patent portfolio to Malikie Innovations Limited in a transaction for which Tech+IP claims credit—and wants payment. Meanwhile, having handed off those patents and wound down its smartphone business, BlackBerry announced earlier this month that it intends to separate—and take public—its Internet of Things (IoT) business unit.

Valtrus Innovations Limited has launched a third campaign (as a formal matter), filing separate Eastern District of Texas suits against AT&T (AT&T Mobility) (2:23-cv-00443); Deutsche Telekom (Sprint, T-Mobile) and OnePlus (2:23-cv-00444); and Verizon (Verizon Wireless) (2:23-cv-00445). The defendants are accused of infringing the same set of nine former HP Enterprise (HPE) patents (with a tenth also mentioned in each complaint) through the provision of a wide array of products, including conference call systems, networking products, smartphones, and more, including proprietary products as well as products made by others.

BlackBerry’s divestment of substantially all of its non-core patents assets to Malikie Innovations Limited may be in the rearview, the transaction having closed in May of this year, but the deal continues to spark new litigation: first from Catapult IP Innovations, Inc., which failed to complete its earlier attempt to buy the BlackBerry portfolio; and more recently, from Tech+IP Advisory, which was hired to facilitate BlackBerry’s patent sale.

In early May, BlackBerry completed the sale of “substantially all of its non-core patents and patent applications” to Malikie Innovations Limited—a subsidiary of Irish patent monetization firm Key Patent Innovations Limited—for $200M in upfront and guaranteed payments, plus a profit-sharing agreement. The transaction closed roughly 16 months after BlackBerry announced a tentative agreement to sell the same portfolio to York Eggleston’s Catapult IP Innovations Inc.—which is now seeking to compel Malikie to participate in an arbitration against BlackBerry to unwind last month’s transaction.

Early last month, Valtrus Innovations Limited (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 9 Limited), an Irish NPE controlled by Key Patent Innovations Limited, received yet another batch of former HP Enterprise (HPE) patents from an Ocean Tomo, LLC affiliate—bringing the NPE’s US patent holdings to over 1,300. Meanwhile, an Alice motion filed by Alphabet (Google) in March, challenging four of the six former HPE patents that Valtrus has asserted against it, awaits a ruling.

USPTO records reflect a new assignment of former HP Enterprise (HPE) patents to Valtrus Innovations Limited (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 9 Limited), an Irish NPE controlled by Key Patent Innovations Limited. Executed in early February, the assignment closely follows Valtrus’s inaugural US patent case, filed in January of this year against Alphabet (Google), and brings the NPE’s US patent holdings to over 1,100.

Throughout 2021, Valtrus Innovations Limited (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 9 Limited) received at least 800 former HP Enterprise (HPE) patents through four assignments, one direct and the others via Ocean Tomo, LLC (as OT Patent Escrow LLC). Valtrus has now filed its first lawsuit, accusing Alphabet (Google) (3:22-cv-00066) of infringing six of those US patents through the provision of various software products, including Google Search, Google Cloud, and Google Cloud Run. Valtrus is an Irish NPE that corporate records link to a group of individuals behind several recent large portfolio acquisitions from operating companies.