Over the past several years, Ramey LLP has filed more than 300 patent cases for plaintiffs tied to Texas monetization firm Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP). As thoroughly covered above, Ramey LLP’s representation has caused a long list of federal judges to grant motions shifting fees or otherwise impose sanctions, including Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang in the Northern District of California. That district imposes heightened disclosure requirements on litigants, in response to which Susan S.Q. Kalra, a now-sanctioned attorney with Ramey LLP, signed a “Certification of Interested Entities or Persons” that appears at best to be incomplete, given the formation records for the plaintiff, KOJI IP LLC—and potentially also in light of sworn statements that Carlos O. Gorrichategui, DynaIP’s president, has made in declarations submitted to other federal courts.

This week’s look at US patent assignments recently made public by the USPTO considers the movement of a networking portfolio to a New Mexico plaintiff that has already filed suit; the transfer of a portfolio from a shuttered Colorado-based software company that used to operate in the SSD space to a Delaware entity formed by its last CEO; and suggestions in a recent denial of a motion to compel from Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap that the conduit of a pair of portfolios divested from an operating company has retained a financial interest in the outcome of subsequent litigation over one of them.

Anadex Data Communications LLC, an Equitable IP Corporation plaintiff, has filed separate Eastern District of Texas cases against AT&T (4:25-cv-00317), Charter Communications (Spectrum Management) (4:25-cv-00321), CenturyLink Communications (4:25-cv-00319), Frontier Communications (4:25-cv-00320), and Verizon (4:25-cv-00322). Throughout this campaign, Anadex has taken aim at the provision of video surveillance systems with a single patent generally related to processing analog video frames. The plaintiff repeats the same articulation of the accused products across this latest round of complaints: “security video camera DVR recording system(s) that have analog inputs as well as analog outputs, which by way of example include, without limitation, Defendant’s set top boxes, cable boxes, digital video recorders, and similar systems”.

The pair of January 2025 cases that Redwood Technologies, LLC, a Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC plaintiff, filed against Broadcom lasted two months, a settlement leading to dismissals with prejudice last week. Now, Redwood Technologies has turned to Realtek Semiconductor (6:25-cv-00111, 6:25-cv-00112), again through two Western District of Texas complaints. Redwood targets with 14 wireless communication patents the provision of a wide array of devices that are compliant with various Wi-Fi standards (e.g., IEEE 802.11n/ac/ax/be), including Wi-Fi mesh devices as well as certain “[p]roducts comprising Realtek Wi-Fi compliant devices”. Both complaints more specifically identify the accused products as “Wi-Fi compliant components as well as routers, laptops, computers, TVs, automotives, IoT devices and other products that include Realtek’s Wi-Fi compliant components”, naming ASUSTek and Lenovo as making such downstream products—with those products being sold by those two companies, as well as Amazon and/or Walmart.

In its fifth case against Apple (1:25-cv-00366) in Delaware, ImmerVision Inc. (f/k/a 6115187 Canada Inc.) asserts a patent—generally related to a “miniature wide-angle optical apparatus”—that issued on the day the suit was filed, March 25. This complaint again targets the incorporation of an “ultra wide lens and camera assembly” within the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max, 12, 12 Mini, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max, 13, 13 Mini, 14, 14 Plus, 15, and 15 Plus. Two of ImmerVision’s prior cases against Apple remain stayed to await the appeal from inter partes review (IPR) claim cancellations, a third was dismissed with prejudice, and a fourth is back active, after an IPR-related stay, well into discovery.

Northern District of California Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang has sanctioned three Ramey LLP attorneys as individuals: William P. Ramey III ($45,264) as well as Susan S.Q. Kalra ($8,364) and Jeffrey E. Kubiak ($10,496). Monetary penalties are in the amounts indicated, calculated against pro hac vice application fees avoided as part of a cost-cutting scheme that led Ramey and Kubiak, per the court, to engage in the unauthorized practice of law in California and Kalra to aid and abet that unauthorized practice. Among the court’s other sanctions, the three attorneys are required to distribute copies of the order outlining their behavior: (1) to the Standing Committees of Professional Conduct for the Central and Northern Districts of California; (2) to any judge presiding over a case currently pending in the Northern District of California in which one of their names appears on any filings (as pro hac vice pending or otherwise); and (3) “as an attachment to any motion for pro hac vice admission filed by or on behalf of any of these lawyers in any action filed in a California federal court during the next five years” (court’s emphasis). Meanwhile, last week Southern District of Florida Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. shifted attorney fees against another Ramey LLP-repped plaintiff, Ramey, and local counsel, awarding $33,986.43 under 35 U.S.C. § 285 and $50,619.59 under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, adopting a magistrate judge’s report that admonishes Ramey for the unauthorized practice of law there as well.

Last month, Acting USPTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart rescinded a memorandum introduced by her predecessor, Kathi Vidal, that had limited the circumstances in which the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) could discretionarily deny institution under the NHK-Fintiv rule. Now, the USPTO has taken two more notable steps on discretionary denials: On March 24, PTAB Chief Administrative Patent Judge (APJ) Scott Boalick issued a memorandum that explicitly repudiates the key points from the rescinded 2022 guidance; and on March 26, Stewart released another memorandum that creates a bifurcated institution process for America Invents Act (AIA) reviews. Now, the USPTO director is to decide all requests for discretionary denial, and only after the director rejects such a request may a PTAB panel then address the merits and non-discretionary factors. Significantly, the memorandum indicates that in addition to the factors established by PTAB precedent, the director will consider the PTAB’s workload in deciding whether to discretionarily deny institution.

Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge Valerie Figueredo has granted an Alphabet (Google) motion for attorney fees against EscapeX IP LLC, the third such grant in a single campaign. Meanwhile, Aero Global, a defendant in the litigation campaign of AML IP LLC, also sued in the Southern District of New York, has quickly brought that order to the attention of District Judge Dale E. Ho, in connection with a separate motion to shift fees there. The two plaintiffs both operate under the monetization approach of Texas monetization firm Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP), which manages the litigation campaigns of Pueblo Nuevo LLC, a Texas entity solely owned by a Panamanian citizen, through representation by Ramey LLP.

Its first case against Alphabet (Google) still stayed to await the outcome of multiple inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, Virginia plaintiff Security First Innovations, LLC (SFI) has now sued IBM (1:25-cv-00514) in the Eastern District of Virginia. The three patents-in-suit, each newly asserted in litigation, are described in the complaint as generally “relate[d] to systems for securing Data-At-Rest from unauthorized access or use”. IBM is accused of infringement through the provision of its Cloud Object Storage system and related products, with features related to data parsing and encryption at issue.

Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC (RPI), a plaintiff associated with Leigh M. Rothschild, has filed cases against BH Security (d/b/a Brinks Home) (3:25-cv-00650) in the Northern District of Texas and Bumble (7:25-cv-00129) in the Western District of Texas. The two patents-in-suit are broadly directed to the wireless exchange of digital images between devices. BH Security is accused of infringing one of the patents through the provision of cameras that support features for filtering captured images before transmitting alerts and data to a paired mobile device running the Brinks Home app, while Bumble is accused of infringing a different patent through features that allow users to receive matches based on a distance filter on the Bumble platform.