Trial is set for early June in the Western District of Texas case brought by Caddo Systems, Inc., as owner of the asserted patents, and exclusive licensee 511 Technologies, Inc. against Microchip Technology. District Judge Alan D. Albright is in receipt of a slew of pretrial motions, a hearing concerning which was held on May 18. Two days later, the plaintiffs filed a new case in the campaign, this one in the Eastern District of Texas against Texas Instruments (4:22-cv-00434). Asserted is an overlapping set of patents generally directed to hierarchical menu navigation, with infringement allegations again targeting the provision of nested menus on product platforms and/or a company website.

In its new set of complaints—filed against 8x8 (FUZE) (6:22-cv-00531), Adobe (6:22-cv-00527), and Lifesize (6:22-cv-00529)—would-be patent plaintiff Silent Communication, LLC has correctly spelled its name; however, questions remain about whether this Texas entity owns the patents asserted in this campaign. The ownership question, as well as additional questions about the conduct of litigation counsel here, Ramey LLP, have been raised in a motion to dismiss from the first defendant in the campaign, BlackBerry, sued in early March, also in the Western District of Texas.

Earlier this year, the first case of DoDots Licensing Solutions LLC, filed back in January 2018 against Lenovo (Motorola Mobility), was dismissed from the District of Delaware after the court granted the plaintiff’s motion to lift a stay that had been imposed to await the outcome of three inter partes reviews (IPRs), one of each of the three asserted patents. The PTAB declined to cancel any of the claims challenged. Now, DoDots has turned those three patents on Apple (6:22-cv-00533) and Samsung (6:22-cv-00535), each sued alongside Best Buy, this time in Western District of Texas complaints.

Display Technologies, LLC, an entity associated with prolific inventor and frequent plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild, has sued Ford (6:22-cv-00515) and Nissan (6:22-cv-00516) in the Western District of Texas over the support of wireless connectivity in their respective automobile infotainment systems. A single patent generally related to transferring media files wirelessly between devices is asserted. Since launching its sole litigation campaign in 2015, Display Technologies has sued over 70 defendants and asserted two patents (each naming Rothschild as its inventor).

Nodal Technologies LLC has launched its first litigation, suing Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) (2:22-cv-00176) in the Eastern District of Texas over the provision of its LTE-Advanced-compliant wireless telecommunications network. The plaintiff asserts two wireless communications patents originally developed at BBN Technologies (before its acquisition by Raytheon in 2009), which currently available USPTO assignment records still identify as held by another NPE.

Auto Telematics Ltd. (f/k/a Snoring Dog Ltd.) has filed suit against United Services Automobile Association (USAA) (6:22-cv-00474) in the Western District of Texas, alleging infringement of four patents generally related to a downloaded application that “log[s] driving information associated with a vehicle” through a mobile device. The inventor-controlled plaintiff targets the provision of USAA SafePilot mobile app, which supports features for tracking and scoring users’ driving information.

Earlier this month, Advanced Silicon Technologies LLC (AST) resumed its litigation campaign, suing NXP Semiconductors (6:22-cv-00466) over two former ATI Technologies patents, one generally related to a “video decoder” and another, to a “graphics processing unit”. Targeted in the Western District of Texas complaint is the provision of certain processors, including its i.MX-series applications processors. AST’s last open case, against Sigma Designs, ended in a quick, voluntary dismissal without prejudice in early 2019.

MEL NavIP LLC, a Texas plaintiff managed by a familiar patent monetization figure, has filed its first litigation, suing Toyota (2:22-cv-00152) over the provision of infotainment systems in certain automobiles. Four patents are asserted in the new Eastern District of Texas complaint, all developed at Mitsubishi Electric. This portfolio is one of many, according to publicly available USPTO assignment records, to leave Mitsubishi Electric for NPE hands over the past several years.

InnoBrilliance, LLC has sued LG Electronics (LGE) (2:22-cv-00145) in the Eastern District of Texas in a litigation campaign that has previously hit Samsung and Sony, both in the Western District of that state. This time only one of the five prior patents has been asserted, LGE targeted over the provision of certain TVs that support the LG multi-view software system. Such televisions—those displaying multiple streams at once and switching between different content—have been at issue throughout this campaign. The managing member of InnoBrilliance is AppBrilliance, Inc., a Texas entity associated with another plaintiff that just sued LGE, albeit in the Northern District of Texas, Comarco Wireless Systems LLC.

So far in May, InnoMemory, LLC has added one case to each of its two litigation campaigns. In the first, the Texas plaintiff sued Kyocera (Kyocera Document Solutions America) (3:22-cv-01061) over the provision of certain printers in the Northern District of Texas. In its second, InnoMemory sued KIOXIA (6:22-cv-00479) over the provision of certain solid state drives, this time in West Texas. The two suits share analogous accusations (targeting the inclusion of Nanya Technology memory modules within the accused products), litigation counsel (experienced plaintiff-side firm Ni, Wang & Massand, PLLC), and a disclosure statement indicating that InnoMemory has no “parent corporation” (and that no publicly held corporation owns ten percent or more of its stock). However, such a disclosure does not appear to comply with the local rules of the Northern District of Texas.