Flash3D LLC v. Microsoft Corporation DC

Browse3D, LLC, a Texas entity created in February, has filed suit over the member to issue most recently in a family familiar to litigation. The NPE has sued retailers Dick’s Sporting Goods (6:19-cv-00186) and Nordstrom (6:19-cv-00188) over their e-commerce websites’ presentation of customized information (e.g., items recommended for purchase) based on tracking links that a user previously clicked on. In prior litigation, a different plaintiff—Flash3D LLC, an affiliate of monetization firm IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal)—accused Facebook, Microsoft, and Samsung of infringing earlier-issuing members of the same family, the former through the presentation on www.facebook.com of multiple “panels” on a single browser page and the latter two through the provision of virtual reality headsets.

Microsoft (2:17-cv-00649) is the latest defendant to be added to the campaign of Flash3D LLC, an affiliate of monetization firm IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal). The new complaint asserts two patents generally related to the contemporaneous presentation of multiple webpages; both are already in suit, against Facebook and Samsung. The earlier complaints targeted the presentation on www.facebook.com of multiple sections in a single browser page and the manufacture and sale of Samsung Gear VR (virtual reality headsets), respectively. Infringement allegations in the new complaint are in line with those against Samsung, with the provision of Microsoft HoloLens having the Microsoft Edge browser (holographic computing headgear) at issue.

Flash3D LLC, an affiliate of monetization firm IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal), has added a case against Facebook (1:17-cv-01257) to the campaign that it began this past June. In the first complaint, Flash3D accused Samsung of infringing two patents, generally related to the contemporaneous presentation of multiple webpages, through the manufacture and sale of the company’s virtual reality headsets, Samsung Gear VR. In the new case, however, Flash3D asserts the same two patents, plus a related third, targeting the presentation on www.facebook.com of multiple sections or “panels”—for example, presenting the main section, often featuring the user’s news feed, together with the “ticker” on the pagelet sidebar, typically displaying brief updates on the Facebook activity of the user’s friends.

In June, RPX noted the assignment of a family of four patents (and one application) from Browse3D to Flash3D LLC, an affiliate of monetization firm IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal). Flash3D has now asserted two of those patents (7,546,538; 7,624,348) in a case against Samsung (2:17-cv-00521), targeting the company’s virtual reality headsets, Samsung Gear VR. The patents generally relate to the contemporaneous presentation of multiple webpages. IP Valuation Partners has been affiliated with seven new campaigns in 2017, as well as with the creation this year of several additional Texas entities that have not yet filed suit.