MEARS Technologies , a company whose business involves patent monetization, continues to assert its patents in litigation, suing AT&T and Verizon. The entity previously sued Finisar in May 2013, and that litigation is still active. In these suits, MEARS asserts a single patent that relates to optical switching (6,141,361); the patent was not asserted in MEARS’s previous suit. The complaints accuse liquid-crystal-on-silicon technology within optical switches in defendants’ telecommunications networks of infringing the patent-in-suit; the manufacturers of those switches, Ciena, Fujitsu, Nokia, and Tellabs, are not named defendants.