Investel Capital Corporation has followed its Canadian infringement suit against Snap (formerly known as SnapChat) with a declaratory judgment action in California (2:17-cv-00872), launched on the same day that Snap filed for a $3B initial public offering (IPO). The Toronto-based NPE had previously sued Snap in the Federal Court of Canada on August 24, accusing the company’s SnapChat service of infringing a single Canadian patent (2,887,596) allegedly related to the sharing of sponsored content on social networks. Investel’s US complaint seeks a judgment of invalidity under primarily Sections 102 and 103 against a single Snap US issued patent (9,407,816) that generally relates to content-aware photo filters, as well as a judgment that the NPE’s “iFramed” social network (supposedly in beta) does not infringe the ‘816 patent. (While the complaint also asserts invalidity under Sections 101 and 112, it only provides specific allegations as to anticipation and obviousness.)