MacroSolve, Inc. v. Sears Holdings Management Corporation et al

Fall Line Patents, LLC, an NPE formed in Oklahoma this past January, has filed its first litigation, accusing American Airlines (6:17-cv-00204), Cinemark Holdings (6:17-cv-00204), and GrubHub (6:17-cv-00204) of infringing a single patent (9,454,748) generally related to managing user-provided data based on the user’s location. Mobile apps that transmit location-specific information are the focus of the NPE’s complaints. The ‘748 patent has not been asserted previously in litigation, but its earlier (and currently, its only) family member (7,822,816) has, in a somewhat storied campaign lasting from March 2011 to May 2014.

MacroSolve filed three separate suits against Bed Bath & Beyond, Sears and Starwood Hotels & Resorts alleging that the defendants’ mobile applications infringe a patent related to remote collection of survey or questionnaire form data. The complaints allege that the defendants and their customers jointly infringe the patent-in-suit. MacroSolve has filed more than 30 suits since March 2011 against over 60 defendants including American Express, AOL, AT&T, CitiGroup, Dell, Facebook, Groupon, Newegg, Priceline, Salesforce, Travelocity, Wal-Mart, and Yelp.  The patent-in-suit was issued to Macrosolve in October 2010.  12/4, Eastern District of Texas, 6:2012cv00915; 6:2012cv00916, 6:2012cv00917.