March 13, 2012 – The Court granted defendant Sharp’s motion for summary judgment of no direct infringement of plaintiff Intellect Wireless’s [NPE] wireless communication patents, but denied Sharp’s motion of no indirect infringement.  Following claim construction, the judge determined that defendant Sharp’s products could not directly infringe because they, “Only supply devices capable of being coupled to a message center [and] do not supply, control, or use the message center.”  Despite the ruling in favor of device manufacturer Sharp, the judge noted that, “Wireless telephone providers…could be direct infringers because they supply the consumer with the devices, the message center, and the rest of the wireless communications network.”  Intellect Wireless is located in Virginia and was founded by Dan Henderson, a former employee of IBM and assistant to Kazuo Hashimoto (the inventor of Caller ID).  Hashimoto is the named inventor on at least 26 patents (including the Intellect Wireless patents) and also the founder of Hybrid Patents, Phone Tel Patent Services, PintPoint, Solaia Technologies, and TronTech Licensing.  Intellect Wireless’ assets generally relate to picture and video messaging in wireless devices, and the company has filed suit against several service providers and manufacturers including Apple, Dell, Garmin, Helio, HP, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, Palm, Samsung, Sanyo, Sprint, and T-Mobile.