Smart Energy Grid Campaign Takes a Turn Toward Social Networking with New Complaint Against Facebook

GroupChatter LLC has expanded the scope of its former smart energy grid campaign by filing a new case against Facebook (6:16-cv-00382). Two (8,588,207; 9,014,659) of the four patents already in suit are again asserted against Facebook’s social networking services (including Messenger), as is another patent (9,294,888) in that same family, which issued in late March 2016, as well as a new patent (7,945,249). The ‘249 patent is not related to the others in suit, originally issuing to Alcatel-Lucent before passing through Vringo, Inc.’s hands before assignment to GroupChatter in April 2016.