e.Digital Corporation v. SanDisk Corporation

e.Digital Corporation has filed its first lawsuits since January of this year. The publicly traded NPE’s new cases assert two patents (9,002,331; 9,178,983) against each of Netatmo (3:16-cv-05212), NETGEAR (3:16-cv-05211), and Y-Cam Solutions (3:16-cv-05215) while adding two more patents (8,311,522; 8,311,524) in the case against Netgear. The patents-in-suit generally relate to collecting information from one or more remote sensors to identify events requiring further attention, and the defendants networked cameras and remote monitoring systems are at issue in the campaign. e.Digital has both reopened stayed district court cases and filed these new ones in light of a settlement earlier this summer with Alphabet, ending prior district court cases against Dropcam and Nest Labs, as well as inter partes reviews (IPRs) brought by Google and its subsidiaries of six of the eight patents-in-campaign.

e.Digital filed three separate suits against Grundig Intermedia, Philips Electronics, SanDisk, and Smoltz Distributing, alleging that the defendants’ voice recorders, dictation devices, camcorders, and music and video players infringe two or four patents (depending on the defendant) related to flash memory.  e.Digital has filed five prior suits since March 2008 against more than 10 companies including Best Buy, Canon, Casio, Coby, LG, Nikon, Olympus, Samsung, Sanyo, and Yamaha.  e.Digital is a publicly-traded company (PINK: EDIG) that was founded in 1988 as Norris Communications by inventor Elwood “Woody” Norris.  In February 2006, e.Digital announced plans to monetize the company’s patent portfolio.  Since 2008 e.Digital has reached settlement agreements with Avid Technology, Casio, Ikegami Electronics, LG Electronics,  Nikon, Olympus, Samsung, Sanyo, and TIC Computer. In September 2012, e.Digital announced that it had retained Handal & Associates as its IP counsel to license and enforce its Flash-R portfolio.  11/5, Southern District of California, assigned to Judge John A. Houston and referred to Magistrate Judge Mitchell D. Dembin, 3:2012cv02696; assigned to Judge Irma E. Gonzalez and referred to Magistrate Judge Mitchell D. Dembin, 3:2012cv02698; assigned to Judge Roger T. Benitez and referred to Magistrate Judge Bernard G. Skomal, 3:2012cv02701.