Meetrix IP, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc.

The growing use of Zoom conferencing products during the global COVID-19 pandemic appears to have caught the attention of Meetrix IP, LLC. In its first lawsuit since April 2018, the subsidiary of publicly traded Anixa Biosciences, Inc. (f/k/a ITUS Corporation) has sued Zoom Video (1:20-cv-02022) in the District of Colorado over the provision of its video conferencing platform. The four asserted patents generally relate to encrypted audio/video conferencing.

In the summer of 2015, publicly traded NPE ITUS Corporation, announced executive changes and a new focus for the company’s future business: cancer diagnostics. This past November, ITUS continued its apparent pivot away from patent assertion, forming a new subsidiary to develop “immuno-therapy drugs against cancer”, revealing an initial focus on ovarian cancer, and indicating that the company will remain engaged in “limited patent licensing activities in the area of encrypted audio/video conference calling” only as part of its “legacy operations”, which would not “require material financial resources or attention of senior management”. Nevertheless, this past week, ITUS subsidiary Meetrix IP, LLC filed separate lawsuits against Cisco (1:18-cv-00309) and Microsoft (1:18-cv-00310), targeting the defendants’ WebEx and Skype (and Skype for Business) products, respectively, each with patents from its “encrypted audio/video conference calling” portfolio.

Meetrix IP, LLC, a subsidiary of publicly traded NPE ITUS Corporation, has filed three new lawsuits, one each against Citrix (1:16-cv-01033), LogMeIn (1:16-cv-01034), and Polycom (1:16-cv-01035). The complaints assert three unified communications patents (8,339,997; 9,094,525; 9,253,332), targeting the defendants’ audio/video conferencing platforms (i.e., Citrix’s GoToMeeting, LogMeIn’s Join.me, Polycom’s RealPresence Collaboration Server). ITUS has launched this new litigation campaign despite its recent claims that it is moving away from patent assertion as a form of revenue.