Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al v. Honda Motor Company, Ltd. et al DC

Last October, Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) expanded one of the longest-running litigation campaigns on the books, having hit camera makers, wireless carriers, networking equipment manufacturers, and mobile device makers since 2011, to also include automakers. IV (as Intellectual Ventures I LLC and Intellectual Ventures II LLC) sued GM in the Western District of Texas, as well as Honda and Toyota in the Eastern District of Texas. Honda filed a motion to dismiss for improper venue, as well as a motion to stay matters until the Federal Circuit responded to petitions for a writs of mandamus filed by Hyundai and Volkswagen in response to a Western District of Texas order hinging venue there on the presence of in-district dealerships. In March, the Federal Circuit spoke, echoes of which continue to spread.

Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) plaintiffs Intellectual Ventures I LLC and Intellectual Ventures II LLC have sued GM (6:21-cv-01088) in the Western District of Texas, as well as Honda (2:21-cv-00390) and Toyota (2:21-cv-00389) in the Eastern District of Texas, in a campaign that has been active since 2011. These are the campaign’s first automaker defendants, with prior rounds hitting camera makers, wireless carriers, networking equipment manufacturers, and mobile device makers with overlapping subsets of patents-in-campaign that number six dozen.

A jury in the Eastern District of Texas has returned a verdict of infringement in litigation brought by a subsidiary of Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) against T-Mobile and Ericsson. The jury found that the defendants both infringed at least one of the patents-in-suit, T-Mobile through its LTE network and Ericsson through related LTE telecommunications equipment, awarding damages of $34M as to the former and $9M for the latter. That verdict comes after a series of recent setbacks for IV in the same litigation campaign, including the Federal Circuit’s affirmance of a T-Mobile Alice win last month and the partial grant in September of an Alice challenge brought by T-Mobile and SoftBank (Sprint). The European leg of that campaign has also run into trouble, with a noninfringement verdict reportedly issued last year in litigation against Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and Vodafone.