Variant Holdings filed five separate suits against Ashton Hotel Partners, Hale-Blackwell, Live Oak Lodging, Mian Development Corporation, and Moody Gardens alleging that the defendants’ hotel booking systems and websites infringe a patent related to online systems for marketing goods and services.  All of the defendants are customers of TravelClick and use TravelClick’s iHotelier booking engine and central reservations system. Variant Holdings has filed six prior suits against more than 100 defendants since July 2008.  In September 2012, TravelClick filed a complaint for declaratory judgement against Variant Holdings alleging that Variant Holdings sued at least 13 TravelClick customers between June and September 2011.  Stephen Wren, the sole officer of Variant Holdings, is the named inventor on the patent-in-suit, which he assigned to Variant Holdings in November 2000.  According to the USPTO, Variant licensed the patent-in-suit to Scottrade at the same time.  RPX reviewed the patent-in-suit as part of an open market opportunity (Variant-Acq) in July 2010.  12/7, Eastern District of Texas, no judge yet assigned, 2:2012cv00762; 2:2012cv00763; 2:2012cv00765; 2:2012cv00767; 2:2012cv00769.