Adaptix, Inc. v. Apple Inc. et al DC CAFC

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw a decline in petitions for AIA review filed against NPES in April 2017. While the total number of April petitions, 120, was somewhat less than the three-year monthly average of 150, NPEs were hit by 20 petitions in April, a 68.8 percent decline from 64 the previous month. The dip in April PTAB filings comes in the midst of an overall increase in PTAB petitions over the previous year, with the total number of petitions filed so far in fiscal year 2017 nearing 1,200 as of the date of this report (compared to just over 930 petitions during the same period last year). Prolific private litigants remain a regular target for PTAB petitions, with petitions filed in April against IP Edge LLC and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited, while Acacia Research Corporation was the only publicly traded NPE named in petitions brought during that month.

Apple, AT&T, HTC, and Verizon scored double victories in Adaptix, Inc. litigations this month, only to be sued by the Acacia Research subsidiary again this week over the same patents. Since 2012, Adaptix has sued this group of companies multiple times (at least five times each) for alleged infringement of two patents related to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) data encoding (6,947,748, 7,454,212). In all the suits, the accused products are smartphones and/or tablets, with each complaint pairing a mobile device company (Apple or HTC) with a wireless carrier (AT&T or Verizon). All of the cases involve the ‘748 and ‘212 patents; some cases assert additional patents as well.