Private Equity-Backed Monterey Research Files Its Inaugural US Suit, Targeting Qualcomm over Patents from a Portfolio of Thousands
Monterey Research, LLC, a subsidiary of IP advisory firm IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue), has filed its first US lawsuit, accusing Qualcomm; Qualcomm Technologies, its research and development subsidiary; and Qualcomm Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., the Singapore arm of its products and services business (1:19-cv-02083) of infringing eight patents from a large portfolio that the plaintiff has acquired from Cypress Semiconductor through a series of transfers between the two, beginning in August 2016. The plaintiff targets a wide variety of aspects of certain Qualcomm Snapdragon processors with the asserted patents, which Monterey Research characterizes as “directed to inventive technology relating to semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, and/or products containing the same”. Monterey Research also pleads multiple communications with Qualcomm concerning the patents-in-suit over the course of 2018. The plaintiff’s parent, IPValue, has been owned by private equity firm Vector Capital since 2014.