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Princeps Moves to Drop Complaints After Challenge to Premature Assignment of “Universal Keyboard” Patent

October 5, 2019

In June 2019, Princeps Interface Technologies LLC launched its sole litigation campaign with three District of Delaware lawsuits, one each against Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Samsung, about a month later adding another suit there against Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) and a suit against ASUSTek in the Northern District of California. A single patent—generally related to an “input device” that allows the user to switch between different input modes, including different keyboard types—was asserted in the complaints, a patent that RPX noted appeared to have been received by Princeps three weeks before the NPE’s actual formation in Delaware. In early September, Google filed a motion challenging the plaintiff’s standing at the time of filing, noting that “[a]ny assignment purporting to convey rights to a non-existent entity is ineffective”. Princeps has subsequently moved to dismiss all five of its complaints, without prejudice. Apple, which had filed an answer in Delaware, has now filed a complaint (3:19-cv-06352) seeking a declaratory judgment from the Northern District of California that it has not infringed that same keyboard patent.


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