ParkerVision, Inc. v. Realtek Semiconductor Corp. DC

So far this month, ­­ParkerVision, Inc. has filed three new cases, one against each of MediaTek (6:22-cv-01163), Realtek Semiconductor (6:22-cv-01162), and TCL (6:22-cv-01158), all in the Western District of Texas. The suits fall within ParkerVision’s sole litigation campaign, running since 2011 over the same large family of patents generally related to electromagnetic signal conversion, most of the rest of which campaign has been awaiting the outcome of what has been the central case for years: litigation against Qualcomm before Middle District of Florida Judge Paul G. Byron. This past March, Judge Byron entered final judgment in favor of Qualcomm in a ruling that ParkerVision has since appealed. The publicly traded NPE suggests in its appellate brief that the court ruled in Qualcomm’s favor before trial was set to begin because, as ParkerVision quotes, “We all know the jury isn’t going to follow 99 percent of what you are talking about in this trial. Right? We all know that”.

Last week, Middle District of Florida Judge Paul G. Byron entered final judgment in favor of Qualcomm and against publicly traded NPE ParkerVision, Inc. The court did so after a grant of summary judgment of noninfringement of the last three patents in suit there (in an order that remains under seal). Also last week, ParkerVision updated its investors on its 2021 financials, responding to this ruling from Judge Byron—which is just the most recent setback in its now deeply leveraged litigation campaign.

ParkerVision, Inc. has filed a second suit against LG Electronics (LGE) (6:21-cv-00520), this one in the Western District of Texas targeting with ten wireless networking patents the incorporation of certain MediaTek or Realtek Wi-Fi chips in its various wireless modules and TVs. A 2017 case against LGE—targeting products containing Qualcomm chips—remains stayed in the District of New Jersey to await the outcome of the litigation at the core of this campaign: a suit filed directly against Qualcomm in the Middle District of Florida, where the presiding judge, in receipt of a flurry of motions for summary judgment and motions challenging expert opinions, has just postponed trial beyond July.