Sampo Campaign Shifts Focus to Online Notification and Communication Systems
The latest suits filed in a campaign by Sampo IP, a subsidiary of Marathon Patent Group (MPG), target Twitter and TIBCO applications that provide online notification and communication services. In separate suits Sampo alleges the defendants infringe two patents related to facilitating communication and collaboration over a network between members of a group (6,161,149, 6,772,229). Since March 2013 Sampo has filed over ten cases suing more than 30 companies, mostly end users of Jive, Rally, and HyperOffice software products, although those software makers have not been sued. Suits have been filed against a wide range of companies including Amazon, Blackboard, Dell, eBay, Facebook, HP, HomeAway, Juniper, LinkedIn, and Salesforce. All the lawsuits involve ‘149 and/or ‘229 and some include a third, related patent (8,015,495). In most cases defendants have been dismissed with prejudice within three months after the case is initiated. The campaign’s patents originate from GroupServe, who assigned the patents to LVL Patent Group, an IPNav subsidiary, in June 2012. MPG announced a “strategic partnership” with IPNav in 2013 and took ownership of the ‘149 patent family in March 2013. RPX reviewed ’149, ’229, and ’495 as an open market opportunity in December 2012 (GroupServe-OMA) and obtained sublicense rights to the patents for clients in March 2014. 4/7, Delaware District Court, 1:14cv00428, 1:14cv00429