In August 2021, Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap overturned a $308M verdict that Personalized Media Communications, LLC (PMC) had won against Apple in March, ruling that the NPE’s strategic delay in prosecuting the patent rendered it unenforceable due to the equitable doctrine of prosecution laches. A divided panel of the Federal Circuit has upheld that judgment, ruling both that PMC’s delay in prosecution was unreasonable and inexcusable and that Apple suffered prejudice attributable to that delay. However, Judge Leonard P. Stark penned a dissent that throws PMC a potential lifeline, arguing that while PMC’s delay in prosecution was unreasonable and inexcusable, Apple failed to prove prejudice during the period of delay.

In September of last year, Bloomberg Law reported that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) “which provides nonpartisan research to Congress” was working on a study on third-party litigation funding (TPLF). Commissioned by a group of lawmakers, the report was meant to shed light on the activities of litigation funders in the US, including how many cases have been funded, how many have concluded, and what types of returns they have generated. By its own admission, the report—which was released last week—fell short of its goals, citing gaps in available data on TPLF.

Inventor-controlled Nariste Networks Pty Ltd has filed suit against Samsung (2:23-cv-00031) over the provision of certain smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets, targeting their inclusion of certain GPS/location-tracking functionalities, allegedly implemented in Samsung’s software and Google’s Android operating system. A single patent generally related to managing a “power-up phase” for a GPS system on a mobile device is asserted in the new Eastern District of Texas complaint, in which Nariste asserts that “[t]he GPS system is one of the most power-intensive systems of a smart phone”; that “users of Mobile Devices prefer a device that needs to be charged less frequently to a device that would have to be charged more frequently”; and that “[i]t is important to users of cellular phones, tablets, smart watches and other mobile devices . . . that the device consume power in an efficient manner”.

FlickIntelligence, LLC appears to have sued Activision Blizzard (Activision Publishing) (6:23-cv-00050), Alphabet (Google) (6:23-cv-00051), and Apple (6:23-cv-00057) in separate Western District of Texas complaints. Two patents generally related to “displaying additional information about a scene element displayed in a frame of video content” are asserted, with infringement allegations targeting, for Activision, the support for multiplayer functionalities in the Call of Duty: Mobile game; for Google, the support for certain augmented reality (AR) tools in its Pixel-series smartphones; and for Apple, the provision of ARKit in certain iPhones and iPads. The plaintiff has now four times pleaded that it is a Texas LLC, but Texas records do not support that assertion; rather, it appears that FlickIntelligence is a New Mexico LLC associated with set of figures familiar to patent monetization.

Last year, the Federal Circuit overturned a bench trial infringement ruling that had led to a $2.7B judgment in Centripetal Networks v. Cisco, ruling that the district judge was disqualified to hear the case after he learned that his wife owned of $5K in the stock of defendant Cisco but then failed to recuse himself. That decision now appears to be having a broader ripple effect: plaintiff Centripetal Networks has raised a similar issue before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), arguing that an inter partes review (IPR) against one of the tried patents has been “tainted” by an administrative patent judge’s (APJ’s) ownership of Cisco stock and other purported financial interests in the company. Meanwhile, in another campaign, plaintiff CellSpin Soft, Inc. has argued that a June 2022 summary judgment of noninfringement should be overturned due to a Northern District of California district judge’s alleged interest in Google, the parent of defendant Fitbit. The Centripetal decision has also been invoked in a closely watched fight over transparency in the courtroom of Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly, under which certain amici have contended that patent litigants must disclose their ownership/management and funding sources to allow judges to perform a proper conflicts check.

The Federal Circuit has denied a petition for a writ of mandamus that had sought an order requiring Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright to transfer a case filed by Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) (as Intellectual Ventures I LLC (IV I) and Intellectual Ventures II LLC (IV II)) against GM to the Eastern District of Michigan. Judge Albright having found, among other things, “that there were GM employees in the Western District of Texas with relevant and material information” and that “the Western District could compel the testimony of potential third-party witnesses, including inventor testimony”, the appellate court ruled that the district court’s findings “provide a plausible basis for the conclusion that GM failed to demonstrate that litigating this case in the transferee forum would be clearly more convenient”. Judge Albright denied GM’s motion to transfer one day before holding a claim construction hearing in the suit, the court handing down the resulting Markman order about a month later but doing something in parallel that it has relatively seldom done: entering a memorandum that explains the reasoning for the court’s constructions.  

BeSang Inc. has initiated what appears to be its first litigation, simultaneously suing Intel (3:23-cv-00113) in the Eastern District of Texas and Micron Technology (2:23-cv-00028) in the District of Oregon. The defendants are accused of infringing a single “semiconductor memory structure” patent through the provision of 3D NAND Memory products that feature a “CMOS under array” (CuA) structure and “vertical floating gate architecture”. In each complaint, BeSang alleges willful infringement, based on separate backstories.

Winterspring Digital LLC has filed another pair of complaints, accusing Marvell (2:23-cv-00024) and Renesas Electronics (2:23-cv-00025) of infringing three patents described by the plaintiff as generally related to “routing data over a network”. The plaintiff targets the provision of Ethernet network adaptors and controllers, PHYs, ethernet switches, and/or optical modules that “receive, convert, monitor, and send 10GE LAN signals”; “implement packet tagging”; and allow for “traffic admission control using real time bandwidth allocation”. The same three patents are asserted in complaints filed earlier this month against MediaTek and Microchip Technology, also in the Eastern District of Texas.

Qualserve Solutions LLC has filed its first litigation, suing LG Electronics (LGE) (1:23-cv-20253) in the Southern District of Florida and Samsung (1:23-cv-00550) in the Southern District of New York. The sole asserted patent, originating with Netherlands research organization Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO), generally relates to a system for picking the route to a destination based on quality-of-service (QOS) values derived from service level agreement (SLA) arrangements with network domain operators. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of smartphones that support certain LTE networking functionalities.

Inventor-controlled SOTAT, LLC has expanded its sole litigation campaign, launched in May 2021, suing Wyze Labs (1:23-cv-00070) in the District of Delaware. The two patents-in-suit generally relate to mobile surveillance systems, with Wyze Labs accused of infringement through the provision of the Cam Outdoor v2 camera and related “Wyze” mobile app.