Landmark Technology, LLC v. Maidenform Brands, Inc. DC

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a lawsuit against Landmark Technology A, LLC (“Landmark·A”), asserting that the NPE, which began filing litigation in early 2019, is in violation of his state’s Patent Troll Protection Act (PTPA)—a bill prohibiting bad faith assertions of patent infringement. According to the complaint—reportedly the first to seek enforcement of the act—Landmark·A has sent more than 1,800 demand letters in recent years to myriad companies, demanding $65K to license, under the threat of litigation, a patent “related to loan processing and credit reporting”. With infringement allegations primarily targeting customer log-in pages on company websites, argues Ferguson’s complaint, “any business with a web presence is a potential target” for Landmark·A. Over 130 unique defendants have been sued over the same patent by an apparently unrelated NPE from 2008 to 2018, so this is a familiar story—one that warrants the attention of current and future Landmark·A targets.