Blue Spike, LLC v. Best Buy Co., Inc.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) continued to see the filing of petitions for inter partes review (IPR) against publicly traded NPEs in March 2017, including Acacia Research Corporation; Finjan Holdings, Inc.; Pendrell Corporation; TiVo Corporation (formerly known as Rovi Corporation); and Wi-LAN Inc. (WiLAN). A variety of prolific, privately held NPEs were also targeted for IPR throughout March, including Blackbird Tech LLC, General Patent Corporation, IP Edge LLC, Realtime Data LLC, and Papst Licensing GmbH & Company Kg, along with several inventors and inventor-controlled NPEs and an assortment of other plaintiffs.

Blue Spike LLC has filed another round of lawsuits in its long-running digital watermarking campaign, accusing Element Technologies (6:17-cv-00097), Giada Technology (6:17-cv-00098), NVIDIA (6:17-cv-00096), Razer (6:17-cv-00099), Roku (6:17-cv-00100), and Skystream Technologies (6:17-cv-00101) of infringing seven patents (5,745,569; 7,159,116; 7,475,246; 8,171,561; 8,538,011; 8,739,295; 8,930,719) through the provision of various Android-based mobile devices and set-top media players. These latest cases come a week after Kyocera filed a declaratory judgment (DJ) action (3:17-cv-00262) against the NPE, which had moved to dismiss its affirmative infringement suit against the company without prejudice just one day before (6:16-cv-01142). Kyocera’s complaint seeks a judgment of non-infringement for the ‘569 and ‘719 patents, which Blue Spike had asserted against the company’s Android smartphones.

Blue Spike LLC has added new cases against LeEco (LeMall) (6:17-cv-00063), Toshiba (6:17-cv-00053), and Vizio (6:17-cv-00060) to its long-running digital watermarking campaign. After accusing Juniper Networks (6:17-cv-00016) of infringement through various enterprise networking products in a January 6 complaint, the NPE’s latest filings shift the focus of the campaign back to consumer electronics. The three defendants are alleged to infringe multiple combinations of 27 different patents through the provision of smart TVs, with Toshiba laptops and smartphones sold by LeMall also at issue. Blue Spike’s complaint against Toshiba, filed on January 26, was soon followed by a victory for the company in another campaign, when a Delaware jury issued a finding of non-infringement in a case brought by Intellectual Ventures LLC. See here for more information about that verdict and the preceding litigation.

Blue Spike LLC has added Juniper Networks (6:17-cv-00016) to its sprawling digital watermarking campaign, accusing the company of infringing 26 patents, including nine (7,095,874; 7,409,073; 7,647,502; 7,664,264; 7,779,261; 7,987,371; 7,991,188; 9,021,602; 9,104,842) litigated for the first time. At issue in the NPE’s latest complaint are various Juniper routers and switches, as well as a variety of network management software and services.

October saw Blue Spike LLC file two new cases in its digital watermarking campaign, pushing its defendant count to over 170. On October 11, the NPE sued electronics manufacturers Contixo, MTM Trading, Proexpress Distributor, TCL, and Visual Land (6:16-cv-01220), accusing the companies of infringing two patents through the provision of various mobile devices. The following week, it filed suit against several members of the Kudelski Group (2:16-cv-01191), alleging infringement of ten patents through watermarking technology used to secure video content. These latest cases straddled a loss in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the NPE (16-1054). On October 14, the Federal Circuit affirmed a 2015 district court ruling that invalidated five of Blue Spike’s patents-in-campaign under Alice.

Blue Spike LLC sued Best Buy (6:16-cv-00427), iRULU (with USA111, 6:16-cv-00428), and Toshiba (6:16-cv-00430) on May 13, bringing the total number of defendants in its digital watermarking campaign to 148. The NPE’s complaints against Best Buy and Toshiba accuse the companies’ tablets of infringing two patents (5,745,569; 8,930,719) that generally concern protection of digital information. Blue Spike’s complaint against iRULU and USA111 (an online retailer that allegedly manufactures and sells iRULU products) accuses the companies of infringing the ‘569 and ‘719 patent through mobile devices sold under the iRULU brand. These latest suits come a month after Blue Spike asserted the same two patents in similar cases against ASUSTek, BLU Products, and Lenovo; see “Blue Spike’s Digital Watermarking Campaign, Twelve Years in the Making, Grows Larger” (April 2016) for more information.