Starkey Laboratories filed a complaint for declaratory judgment against Acacia Research Corporation [NPE], Acacia Technologies LLC [NPE], and Adaptive Sonics [NPE], a subsidiary of Acacia Research, seeking declarations of non-infringement and invalidity of a patent that Adaptive Sonics has previously included in a patent infringement suits against Starkey and others.  Adaptive Sonics has filed five suits for patent infringement to date against Cochlear, GN Resound A/S, Sonics Innovations, Starkey Laboratories and Widex A/S since January 2012.  According to the complaint, the patent-in-suit was previously subject to an ex parte re-examination request from K/S Hearing Industries Manufacturers Patent Partnership in February 2010, which confirmed that the claims were valid without amendment.  A subsequent ex parte re-examination request from K/S Hearing Industries Manufacturers Patent Partnership in April 2011 was denied by the USPTO.  The patent-in-suit was originally issued to AT&T in December 1995 and was later assigned to Agere Systems by Lucent Technologies in May 2002, before Agere transferred the patent to Adaptive Sonics in October 2011.  7/25, District of Minnesota, assigned to Judge Susan Richard Nelson and referred to Magistrate Judge Steven E. Rau, 0:2012cv01820.