Hopewell Culture & Design Files New Suits against Tablet Makers

Hopewell Culture & Design filed six separate suits against Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Coby Electronics, Lenovo, ViewSonic, and Vizio, alleging that the defendants’ tablet devices infringe a patent related to point-and-click user interfaces.  Hopewell has filed two prior suits since December 2010 against over 15 defendants including Adobe, Apple, ASUS, Dell, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and T-Mobile. (The majority of defendants in the two earlier cases have been dismissed.)  The patent had previously been held by Actify, a San-Francisco-based CAD system developer.  Hopewell is the exclusive licensee of the patent-in-suit.  10/26, Eastern District of Texas, no judge yet assigned, 2:2012cv00690; 10/27, Eastern District of Texas, no judge yet assigned, 2:2012cv00691; 2:2012cv00692; 2:2012cv00693; 2:2012cv00694; 2:2012cv00695.