Uniloc USA, Inc. et al v. HTC America, Inc

So far this year, Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Uniloc USA, Inc. (collectively, Uniloc) have kicked off two of their seven new litigation campaigns by filing suit against Amazon, asserting patents recently acquired from Pendrell Corporation. Uniloc, however, has also added cases against Amazon to a couple of the many litigation campaigns that it began last year. The latest (2:18-cv-00123) is a case over a patent received from HP Enterprise, generally related to using a “palm-sized computer” to control a “service” on a network. Uniloc accuses Amazon of infringement through provision of its Alexa platform that allows, for example, certain smartphones and tablets to control other devices, including “Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo, Tap, and video cameras”.

Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Uniloc USA, Inc. (collectively, Uniloc) continues its 2018 assertion of patents apparently acquired from Pendrell Corporation. The NPE has opened up two more litigation campaigns—its sixth and seventh so far this year—each with a new case against Amazon (2:18-cv-00080, 2:18-cv-00081) filed in the Eastern District of Texas. In the first, Uniloc asserts a single patent generally related to “borrowing” media files, targeting Amazon’s Kindle e-readers and web service (and related servers). The Kindle platform, books, and app are the subject of the second lawsuit, over one patent as well, this one broadly concerning distributing “digital assets” across a network. A few days later Uniloc added Amazon to two campaigns (2:18-cv-00091, 2:18-cv-00092) that it began in 2017, each asserting a single patent acquired from HP Enterprise.

Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Uniloc USA, Inc. (collectively, Uniloc) have continued filing new litigation for yet another consecutive week, adding additional suits to three of the 11 campaigns that the NPE has initiated in 2017. Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) has been added to two campaigns, the first case (1:17-cv-01526) asserting one former HP Enterprise (HPE) patent generally related to changing how a battery is charged based on temperature, and the second (1:17-cv-01527) asserting another former HPE patent generally related to the remote display of graphics from a mobile device. The third new case asserts yet another patent received from HPE, generally related to using a “palm-sized computer” to control a “service” on a network, this one against Binatone Electronics (Exclusive Group LLC d/b/a Binatone North America) (1:17-cv-03962).

So far in 2017, Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Uniloc USA, Inc. (collectively, Uniloc) have filed eleven cases against Apple. Uniloc subsequently added Samsung and/or LG Electronics (LGE) to several of those campaigns and continued in that vein late this past week, adding HTC (2:17-cv-01558) and Huawei (2:17-cv-00707) to one of them, HTC (2:17-cv-01562) and LGE (4:17-cv-00858) to a second, and HTC (2:17-cv-01561) to a third. Each of these campaigns asserts against the defendants patents that Uniloc received from HP Enterprise (HPE) earlier this year.

A variety of NPEs have reacted to the US Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands (2016-0341) by either dismissing and re-filing their cases in other districts or simply conceding venue challenges. In contrast, Australian NPE Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited has further dug its heels into the Eastern District of Texas. Shortly after Uniloc filed a series of new and amended complaints against Google, designed to establish proper venue in the Eastern District, defendants in some of the NPE’s other Texas litigation filed a host of venue motions against it. On June 2, Ubisoft (2:16-cv-00745, 2:16-cv-00781) filed two motions both seeking transfer to the Northern District of California or dismissal for improper venue in litigation targeting its software licensing and notification systems, joined by a similar motion filed by Piriform on June 7 (in a consolidated action against AVG, 2:16-cv-00393) seeking dismissal or transfer to Delaware. Ubisoft filed another such motion in Uniloc’s software update campaign on June 2 (2:17-cv-00175), also seeking transfer to the Northern District of California or dismissal for improper venue, joined by another Northern District transfer/dismissal motion brought by Box (2:17-cv-00173), with campaign co-defendant Zendesk (2:17-cv-00176) filing its own motion to dismiss due to improper venue that same day.

Uniloc USA, Inc. (as exclusive licensee) and Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. (as patent owner) (collectively, Uniloc) have filed three new cases against Apple. Each new complaint asserts a single patent not seen before in litigation. In the first case (2:17-cv-00454), the NPE accuses Apple of infringing a patent (6,661,203), generally related to changing how a battery is charged based on temperature, through the manufacture and sale of mobile devices (Apple Watch, laptops, iPhones, iPads, and iPods) with built-in mechanisms to prevent overheating. In the second (2:17-cv-00455), Uniloc asserts a patent (6,580,422), generally related to the remote display of graphics from a mobile device, targeting display and/or playback from iPhones or iPads through Apple TV. In the third suit (2:17-cv-00457), Uniloc asserts a single patent (7,092,671) generally related to remotely dialing a telephone number against using iPads and iPhones in combination to dial a stored telephone number. The patents asserted are three out of a group of 13 patents that Uniloc received in a May 16, 2017 transaction from HP Enterprise.