Joao Control & Monitoring Systems LLC v. DirecTV

Broadway Bancshares (Broadway National Bank) (6:20-cv-01135), Credit Human Federal Credit Union (6:20-cv-01137), Electronic Merchant Systems (6:20-cv-01130), First Citizens Bancshares (First Citizens Bank and Trust) (6:20-cv-01132), Government Employees Credit Union (6:20-cv-01133), NCR (JetPay; NCR Payment Solutions) (6:20-cv-01138), TruWest (6:20-cv-01141), and University Federal Credit Union (6:20-cv-01134) have been sued in a new payment services campaign, launched by Caselas, LLC in the Western District of Texas. The Florida plaintiff asserts five patents, generally related to processing information related to an individual’s financial history (including “charge-backs”) prior to a transaction and transmitting it to the merchant, that name as their sole inventor a familiar figure in patent monetization over the past decade.

NavBlazer, LLC has filed separate Western District of Texas lawsuits against Apple (6:20-cv-00085), LG Electronics (LGE) (6:20-cv-00095), and Samsung (6:20-cv-00089), each complaint asserting both members of a two-patent family generally related to GPS vehicle navigation. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of mobile devices equipped with GPS and apps that account for traffic conditions when providing navigation guidance (i.e., for Apple, various iPhones and iPads together with Apple Maps; and for Samsung and LGE, various mobile device series, each together with the Google Maps app). While these suits are the first for NavBlazer, they are not the first for the inventor behind the plaintiff; Raymond Anthony Joao is no stranger to the assertion of patents in federal court.

Joao Control and Monitoring Systems filed a new round of suits asserting seven patents among ten lawsuits against Cablevision, Consolidated Edison, Cox Communication, DirecTV, Dish Network, Nissan, Slomin’s, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and Volkswagen. The patents-in-suit, at least one of which is asserted in each of the new suits, relate to remote monitoring and control systems (5,917,405, 6,542,076, 6,542,077, 6,549,130, 6,587,046, 7,277,010, 7,397,363). The complaints accuse defendants’ services that can be remotely accessed, including home security, remote thermostat control, vehicle infotainment, and DVR products, of infringing the asserted patents. The Joao Control and Monitoring campaign (launched in 2009) first targeted adult entertainment websites and has targeted numerous home security providers, automotive companies and, in 2012, the city of Yonkers over its traffic light monitoring system. 4/23, District of Delaware, 1:14cv00517, 1:14cv00518, 1:14cv00519, 1:14cv00520, 1:14cv00521, 1:14cv00522, 1:14cv00523, 1:14cv00524, 1:14cv00525, 4/24, Eastern District of New York, 2:14cv02598