Cumberland Systems LLC v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.

Multiple Delaware NPEs under the same apparent control have each taken over the litigation of patents—earlier passed to a Texas entity for assertion—after the patents have boomeranged back. Most recently, Circuit Ventures LLC assigned a family of circuit monitoring patents to Texas entity Wireless Monitoring Systems LLC, which asserted them in litigation from November 2016 to January 2019 before assigning the family back. Circuit Ventures has sued NXP Semiconductors (6:19-cv-00275) and Pepprl + Fuchs (4:19-cv-01515) in April 2019 and Honeywell (1:19-cv-00857), Link Interactive (1:19-cv-00856), and Scout Security (1:19-cv-00858) so far in May. Likewise, Universal Cipher LLC assigned a single patent generally related to “dynamic” text generation to Cumberland Systems, LLC, which asserted it in litigation from May 2017 to May 2018 before returning the patent to Universal Cipher, which has now sued Best Buy (2:19-cv-00160), Target (2:19-cv-00163), and Wal-Mart (2:19-cv-00164) over it. These reversals, as well as other assignment activity, suggest a return to Delaware for these and other NPEs affiliated with the same patent attorney, perhaps motivated by a recent Federal Circuit opinion clarifying that targets of letter-writing campaigns can seek declaratory judgments in their home districts, rather than risk being sued elsewhere.

Cumberland Systems, LLC has followed up four Friday lawsuits, against alleged users of the Real-Time Innovations (RTI) password management system, with five cases this week targeting alleged customers of ManageEngine’s Password Manager Pro: Dell (VMware) (3:18-cv-00592), HP Enterprise (6:18-cv-00116), Honeywell (6:18-cv-00117), PPR (Gucci) (3:18-cv-00600), and THG Energy Solutions (1:18-cv-00218). The single patent-in-suit generally relates to password encryption, and this latest wave of cases follows earlier ones targeting customers of Keeper Security, LastPass, and Sookasa.

Connext DDS Secure is the latest password management system, provided by Real-Time Innovations (RTI), to draw the attention of Cumberland Systems, LLC, which has filed four new lawsuits, one each against Cisco (6:18-cv-00112), Lockheed Martin (3:18-cv-00554), Raytheon (6:18-cv-00110), and Siemens (6:18-cv-00111) over their alleged use of the system. The single patent-in-suit generally relates to password encryption, and this latest wave of cases follows earlier ones targeting customers of Keeper Security, LastPass, and Sookasa. Keeper Security recently challenged Cumberland’s asserted patent in an unsuccessful petition for covered business method (CBM) review.

Cumberland Systems, LLC has filed cases against four more customers based on their alleged use of a password management system provided by Keeper Security. The sole patent-in-suit generally relates to password encryption, and the defendants in this second round of suits in Cumberland Systems’s campaign are AT&T (AT&T Mobility) (6:17-cv-00570), Chipotle (6:17-cv-00569), JPMorgan Chase (6:17-cv-00571), and Texas Freight Services (6:17-cv-00572). The first round, filed in May, hit five other alleged customers of Keeper Security—Edmunds, Marriott, Sony, True Media, and Verizon; all nine of these companies are identified as Keeper Security customers on that provider’s website (and/or on websites that compare various software products). All five of the earlier cases were dismissed, some without prejudice, within a couple months of filing, as were cases against two alleged customers of Sookasa’s password management platform. The other three first-round defendants, all alleged LastPass users, were dismissed simultaneously on September 18.

Another NPE associated with Texas attorneys Bradley D. Liddle and Adam C. Reed has kicked off a litigation campaign. Cumberland Systems, LLC has filed 11 lawsuits, one each against CashStar, Edmunds, Enova International (NC Financial Solutions), iReverse Home Loans, Mainstream Technologies, Marriott, Rocket Science Group (d/b/a MailChimp), Sony (Sony Pictures Entertainment), Startups.co, True Media, and Verizon. The new complaints assert a single patent (8,023,647) generally related to encrypting a computer user’s password. The defendants are accused of infringement through the use of storage systems that upload an encryption key to a server: Edmunds, Marriott, Sony, True Media, and Verizon, through their use of a password management platform provided by Keeper Security; iReverse Home Loans and NC Financial Solutions, by Sookasa; and the remaining defendants, by LastPass Enterprise.