Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC v. Facebook Inc. DC CAFC

In a new Western District of Texas complaint, Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has accused Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook) (6:22-cv-00265) of infringing, through the provision of www.facebook.com, two members of a six-patent family generally related, per the plaintiff, to “creating and distributing media content”. The plaintiff cites liberally from materials submitted in connection with litigation brought by Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC (a subsidiary of publicly traded Network-1 Technologies, Inc.) against Facebook, including diagrams purportedly submitted and statements allegedly made by an expert that Facebook hired in that case. Just last week, the campaign of Mirror Worlds ended, when Southern District of New York Judge John G. Koeltl granted Facebook summary judgment of noninfringement.

A Texas judge has upheld a noninfringement verdict for HP and HP Enterprise (HPE) in a Network-1 Technologies, Inc. lawsuit but overturned the jury’s finding of invalidity as to the asserted Power-over- Ethernet (PoE) patent (6:13-cv-00072). In a sealed August 29 order addressing a variety of post-trial motions, as well as issues from a May 2018 bench trial, District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III denied Network-1’s motion for a new trial on infringement yet granted judgment as a matter of law of validity, ruling that the patent is not invalid as obvious as found by the jury. Publicly traded Network-1 previously disclosed to investors that the newly revived patent-in-suit had been responsible for the majority of its licensing revenue prior to the invalidation of the claims asserted against HP and HPE.

A New York judge has dismissed Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC’s (MWT’s) suit against Facebook. On August 11, District Judge John G. Koeltl granted summary judgment for the defendant, ruling that it had not infringed three document streaming patents through certain features of the Facebook platform, including the Timeline and News Feed features. The ruling comes as the plaintiff’s parent, publicly traded NPE Network-1 Technologies, Inc., reported a net loss and a drop in revenue for Q2 2018 as the result of an adverse ruling last year in the NPE’s Power over Ethernet campaign.

Publicly traded NPE Network-1 Technologies Inc., which reported multiple large settlements and a more than 74 percent increase in revenue last year, has filed its first new litigation in nearly 18 months. On May 9, its Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC subsidiary sued Facebook (1:17-cv-03473), accusing the company of infringing three document streaming patents through provision of its Timeline and News Feed features. One of the patents-in-suit (6,006,227) has been previously asserted by Mirror Worlds in cases against Apple, Best Buy, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Samsung that led to multi-million dollar settlements. The remaining two patents at issue, which are later issuing family members of the ‘227 patent (which expired in 2016), are new to litigation.

Network-1 Technologies, Inc. has disclosed a 74.5-percent increase in revenue for 2016 due to license agreements signed throughout the fiscal year, also announcing that its net income increased by five times compared to 2015. Meanwhile, Pendrell Corporation reported its first year of operating income in 2016 as it prepares to de-list from Nasdaq, part of the NPE’s ongoing efforts to shift away from patent assertion in the wake of adverse jury verdicts in its ContentGuard DRM campaign.