Arsus, LLC v. Tesla Motors, Inc. DC

Inventor-controlled ARSUS LLC has taken another swing against Tesla in its ongoing driver assistance campaign, shifting from the Northern District of California to the Western District of Texas in the process. The plaintiff’s second suit against the automaker accuses it of infringing a single patent—the newest to issue in the same asserted family—through the provision of vehicles with the Autopilot driver assistance system, targeting features related to preventing rollover. That complaint comes shortly after ARSUS’s first case against Tesla was hobbled by a claim construction order: in February, District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed the case after the parties jointly stipulated to noninfringement as the result of his ruling that the asserted claims lacked sufficient structure. This is not the first time that ARSUS has seen a case fail due to noninfringement.

NPE litigation in the Automotive market sector during the first four months of 2020 was up nearly threefold from the same time period last year. Most recently, 21ST CENTURY GARAGE LLC and Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group) have taken aim at companies operating in the sector, but the year so far has seen new campaigns launched by plaintiffs ranging from relatively recent entrants to patent monetization (e.g., Quartz Auto Technologies, LLC) to established players (e.g., Conversant Wireless Licensing, S.à.r.l.), as well as additional cases filed in existing campaigns waged by inventor-controlled Omega Patents, L.L.C. and frequent plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild. From wireless connectivity to more traditional automotive technologies, something about 2020 has drawn more litigation to the sector.

Inventor-controlled ARSUS, LLC has filed suit against Tesla (3:20-cv-00313), charging the automaker with infringement of two patents generally related to a vehicle steering control system that limits the steering range to prevent a rollover. The plaintiff targets provision of the Tesla S, X, and Model 3, “equipped with Tesla’s so-called Auto-pilot system”. In November 2019, the Federal Circuit affirmed District of Utah Judge Dee V. Benson’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement to a local BMW dealer, John H. Firmage, Inc. (d/b/a BMW of Murray). In that order, Judge Benson ruled that, even without the benefit of claim construction, the accused BMW system “never actually prevents the vehicle from being steered beyond a rollover threshold at any point” by a driver.