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An Update on Patent Litigation, the Patent Marketplace, and New Cases
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Monday, February 9, 2026
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Patent Litigation Feature
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Since early 2025, the USPTO has made a series of changes that have increasingly limited access to America Invents Act (AIA) reviews, including some that have expanded the use of discretionary denials at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In September, shortly after his confirmation, USPTO Director John Squires also began tightening the PTAB’s approach to rules requiring the disclosure of real parties in interest (RPIs)—removing the precedential status of a decision that took a more permissive approach to that requirement and instead elevating another that mandates the denial of petitions that fail to disclose all RPIs. Now, Squires has de-designated two formerly precedential decisions that had followed the old approach, while continuing to double down on the cited policy rationale behind this change: national security concerns stemming from the filing of inter partes review (IPR) petitions by companies owned or backed by foreign governments.
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Patent Watch
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Assignment records of US patents recently made public by the USPTO seem to confirm the scale of a previously announced large portfolio acquisition by an established monetization operation, to complete the chains of title of two portfolios set loose by failed operating companies, and to reflect movement into and out from a patent broker, the inbound transactions including multiple transfers from entities tied to Korean universities.
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New Patent Litigation
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As its prior cases, against Kingston Technology and Phison Electronics inch closer to summer trials before Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright, Vervain, LLC has filed another complaint in the same district, this one hitting SK hynix (with multiple subsidiaries) (1:26-cv-00259). The seven patents asserted are broadly directed to controlling non-volatile memory systems, with infringement allegations targeting the provision of various flash memory products, including “solid state drives (SSDs) and embedded flash products like eMMC and UFS . . . [that] are managed by a controller chip”. Per the complaint, the accused products include some controllers “made by third-party companies including Phison and Silicon Motion”, though most are SK hynix products “utiliz[ing] proprietary controllers designed by SK itself”.
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AX Wireless, LLC has filed four new district court cases, against ASUSTek (2:26-cv-00086) in the Eastern District of Texas, against D-Link (8:26-cv-00252) and JH1-Zhao (TP-Link) (8:26-cv-00251) in the Central District of California, and against Ubiquiti (1:26-cv-01174) in the Northern District of Illinois. Those defendants are also named as proposed respondents in a parallel complaint (337-TA-3882) before the International Trade Commission (ITC) over the same five wireless communications patents. AX Wireless targets the provision of a wide array of products, ranging from access points to laptops, that support Wi-Fi 6 (the IEEE 802.11ax standard).
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Oracle (7:26-cv-00031) is the latest defendant to be added to the sole litigation campaign of Mobility Workx, LLC, which has seen nearly 20 defendants sued since its start in August 2017. The three patents-in-suit, originating with the University of Florida Research Foundation, Incorporated (UFRF), are broadly directed to various aspects of networking. Oracle is accused of infringement through the provision of network handover and emulation products, including its 5G Core Network products.
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L4T Innovations LLC has expanded its sole litigation campaign, launched in April 2025 with a case against Generac Holdings (ecobee), with an Eastern District of Texas case against Garmin (2:26-cv-00091). The plaintiff asserts a single patent generally related to triggering the capture of recorded content, with Garmin accused of infringement through the provision of “video event recording and transmission dash cam hardware products and associated software products”, including Garmin-branded dash cams that support the Garmin Drive app or Garmin Vault service.
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Tau Ceti Ventures LLC, an IPValuation Partners, LLC (IPVal) plaintiff, has filed its first litigation, accusing LG Electronics (LGE) (2:26-cv-00089) of infringing nine patents through the provision of televisions, laptops, and monitors with displays that incorporate Mini-LED backlighting, display substrates of a particular design, certain light-reflective layers, various layers with certain surface textures and compositions, and/or quantum dot films and related hardware. Six seemingly interconnected plaintiffs have filed suit in this area over the past year or so.
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In an Eastern District of Texas complaint, BK Technologies, Inc.—a subsidiary of BK Technologies Corporation—has accused AT&T (AT&T Mobility) (2:26-cv-00090) of infringing two patents broadly related to “managing access to a push-to-talk-over-cellular (POC) talkgroup”. Describing itself as a direct competitor of AT&T in the relevant space, the plaintiff targets the provision of FirstNet Fusion, a mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) communication service.
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NovaCloud Licensing LLC has followed its December 2025 suit against Charter Communications (Spectrum Gulf Coast, Spectrum Management Holding) with a February one against Alphabet (Google) (7:26-cv-00035), the latter filed in the Western District of Texas. Cases against earlier defendants Meta Platforms, IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft (sued in that order since last May) remain active in various districts. Patents drawn from a former Ericsson portfolio are in suit, with infringement allegations against Google focused on a wide array of products, including the Google Cloud platform, the Titan chipset, and related products (e.g., computers, relays, servers, and smartphones).
Read More (RPX Members Only) >>
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United States CP, LLC (USCP) has filed what appears to be its first patent case, suing Samsung (2:26-cv-00083) in the Eastern District of Texas. The plaintiff asserts two patents—received from an Equitable IP Corporation entity back in October 2020—generally related to fingerprint authentication. Targeted is Samsung’s provision of Galaxy-series smartphones and tablets that incorporate capacitive fingerprint scanners for “identity authentication and confirmation”.
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In Case You Missed It
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Briefing for a petition for a writ of mandamus from Tesla, seeking to reverse discretionary denials handed down by the USPTO in response to its petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of patents held and asserted against it by Granite Vehicle Ventures LLC, has completed. Tesla decries “extra-statutory” denials, here the consideration of whether any final written decisions might issue after a currently scheduled trial. That issue is more acute here, as Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap has denied a motion to reconsider a transfer of the underlying case to the Northern District of California, upending the scheduled trial date considered in the context of the discretionary denials.
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