Hailo Technologies LLC v. Anker Innovations Limited DC

After three attempts to sue the manufacturer of Anker’s Roav SmartCharge Car Kit, Hailo Technologies, LLC has changed tacks, this time accusing retailers Best Buy (4:20-cv-00025), Target (4:20-cv-00026), and WalMart (4:20-cv-00024) of infringement through sales of the devices. The plaintiff first sued Roav in January 2018, shifting to Anker by amended complaint in that same case, which was dismissed for improper service. Hailo then, in May of last year, tried suing Anker in the Western District of Washington but voluntarily dismissed the suit, without prejudice, after Anker reiterated by letter that it is “a holding company registered in Hong Kong and does not have an agent for service of process in the United States”—the standoff triggering the current retailer suits.

Hailo Technologies, LLC has recently revived two of its three litigation campaigns to date and may yet revive the third. The NPE just added a case against Safr Technologies (1:19-cv-01139) to a June case against Juno (1:19-cv-01139) and May cases against Curb Mobility (1:19-cv-00945), Flywheel Software (1:19-cv-00949), and Via Transportation (1:19-cv-00946) in a campaign over a taxi dispatch patent that emerged from a reexamination triggered by Hailo itself with all claims found patentable as amended to avoid patent-ineligibility under Alice. In the second campaign, Hailo has recently added suits against Anker Innovations (2:19-cv-00751) and Moovn Technologies (2:19-cv-00958) over a patent generally related to locating a parked vehicle. In the third campaign, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) handed down a final written decision in an inter partes review (IPR) that found no challenged claims of a different taxi dispatch patent unpatentable under the arguments presented in a petition filed by Unified Patents.