Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc.

Slingshot Printing LLC has filed a fifth lawsuit against HP (6:20-cv-00048), asserting two more inkjet technology patents acquired from Japanese consumer electronics maker Funai Electric and originally developed by IBM-spinoff Lexmark International. After this case and a September 2019 suit, and after filing amended complaints in its first three lawsuits, begun in June 2019, all against HP, Slingshot Printing has brought the number of former Funai patents at issue to roughly three dozen. While most of Slingshot Printing’s portfolio was acquired in early 2019, one of the two patents asserted in this fifth complaint was just assigned from Funai on December 24, 2019, shortly after HP filed a motion in the prior cases challenging the plaintiff’s standing to bring suit alone, without Funai, based on the agreements governing the patent transfers between the two.