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New Plaintiff, Newly Issued Patent in a Familiar Family, New Focus on Retailers’ E-Commerce Websites
New Patent Litigation
Browse3D, LLC, a Texas entity created in February, has filed suit over the member to issue most recently in a family familiar to litigation. The NPE has sued retailers Dick’s Sporting Goods (6:19-cv-00186) and Nordstrom (6:19-cv-00188) over their e-commerce websites’ presentation of customized information (e.g., items recommended for purchase) based on tracking links that a user previously clicked on. In prior litigation, a different plaintiff—Flash3D LLC, an affiliate of monetization firm IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal)—accused Facebook, Microsoft, and Samsung of infringing earlier-issuing members of the same family, the former through the presentation on www.facebook.com of multiple “panels” on a single browser page and the latter two through the provision of virtual reality headsets.
March 6, 2019
In Smartphone Camera Campaign, PTAB Setbacks Prompt Apparent Belt-and-Suspenders District Court Case
New Patent Litigation
Just over a year ago, inventor-backed Lemaire Illumination Technologies LLC added an Eastern District of Texas case against HTC to its sole litigation campaign, targeting color-adjusted camera flash systems within the defendants’ smartphones with three patents broadly related to controlling and powering a solid-state light source such as a light-emitting diode (LED). That complaint highlighted one claim from each of the three patents. HTC countered, in part, with petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of the patents asserted, challenging those three highlighted claims, as well as others. The district court proceeded into claim construction, with Lemaire Illumination briefing disputes over terms from each patent, when the NPE, shortly thereafter, disclaimed before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) the highlighted claims for two of the patents. HTC has quickly moved in Texas for partial summary judgment as to those two patents, while Lemaire Illumination has filed an apparent belt-and-suspenders complaint (2:19-cv-00317)—naming HTC America, instead of its parent HTC Corporation, in a new forum. That second complaint asserts the same three patents against the same products but highlights different claims from those two patents in some trouble before the PTAB.
March 5, 2019
Virtual Immersion Files Another Round in VR Campaign
New Patent Litigation
Atlas Entertainment (1:19-cv-00429), Coca-Cola (1:19-cv-00430), GE (1:19-cv-00436), Honeywell (1:19-cv-00431), Mattel (1:19-cv-00477), and STERIS (1:19-cv-00433) are the latest defendants to be sued in the sole litigation campaign of Virtual Immersion Technologies LLC, an entity under the apparent control of Equitable IP Corporation. A single patent, broadly concerning virtual reality entertainment systems, has been asserted against each defendant sued in this campaign, which began in September 2016. Virtual Immersion accuses Atlas Entertainment of infringement through the use of a 3D live production system for performance capture (using the Simulcam technology developed by James Cameron for “Avatar”); Coca-Cola and GE, through their internal use of augmented reality systems; Honeywell, through its provision of an augmented reality headset for industrial use; Mattel, through its use of the Spatial real-time AR collaboration platform with Microsoft Hololens 2 (as recently demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona); and STERIS, through the use of virtual reality systems to provide a virtual showroom for its products.
March 5, 2019
ZTE Mobile Devices Targeted in Latest Ironworks Complaint
New Patent Litigation
Ironworks Patents LLC has added a Northern District of Texas lawsuit against ZTE (3:19-cv-00513) to the long-running mobile devices campaign, begun in March 2010, that Ironworks took over from MobileMedia Ideas LLC in mid-2017. The NPE asserts a set of five familiar patents, generally related to alerts, including tactile alerts, on a “mobile station”, that includes the four patents asserted in a January case filed against ASUSTek in the Eastern District of Texas. These new suits follow dismissals in prior litigation against Apple, BLU Products, and TCL Communication, as well as an appeal to the Federal Circuit from a stipulated final judgment entered in a Northern District of California case filed against Samsung. Ironworks has targeted features on smartphones and tablets for silencing “alert sounds” announcing, e.g., the receipt of a call, alleging that it began communications with ZTE about the portfolio now asserted in litigation starting in June 2010.
March 4, 2019
Image Capture and Transfer Campaign Keeps Rolling Past Repeated Alice Motions
New Patent Litigation
As Sapphire Crossing LLC adds to its litigation campaign a case against SAP (Concur) (1:19-cv-01442) in the Northern District of Illinois and two other cases, one each against Kellogg (1:19-cv-00415) and WageWorks (1:19-cv-00416) in the District of Delaware, existing defendants in the latter forum have established a pattern. HealthEquity, Intuit, Quotient, WEX Health, Visa, and Xero have all answered Sapphire Crossing’s complaint but have also filed concurrent motions to dismiss, which challenge the few claims of the patent-in-suit left standing after an earlier inter partes review (IPR) under Alice. The motions are nearly identical, identifying the putative abstract idea to which the image transfer patent is patent-ineligibly directed as “data recognition and transfer”. If recent past is precedent, those suits will likely reach a resolution before the court addresses any of the motions filed.
March 4, 2019
TiVo Begins Internal Preparations for Possible Split of Its Product and Licensing Businesses
Patent Market, Patent Watch
TiVo’s interim CEO Raghu Rau told investors in a February 26 earnings call that the company’s strategic review process continues, including through discussions with parties interested in each of TiVo’s product and IP licensing businesses. While the process is taking longer than expected, Rau said TiVo has begun internal preparations “for the possible separation of the businesses”.
March 3, 2019
Under New Ownership, PanOptis Files Its First New Litigation in Years, Hitting Apple
New Patent Litigation
Weeks after the announcement of its acquisition by private equity firm Brevet Capital, PanOptis Holdings, LLC (through various litigating affiliates) has filed its first new infringement case in two years, suing Apple in the Eastern District of Texas over a group of patents declared essential to the LTE standard (2:19-cv-00066). Apple is accused of infringing the patents-in-suit—each of which originated with Ericsson, LG Electronics (LGE), Panasonic, or Samsung—through provision of “all [its] products capable of implementing the LTE standard”, including all “LTE-capable models” of Apple’s iPhone, iPad, Watch products. Three of the patents-in-suit have been previously asserted by PanOptis in a campaign that has also hit BlackBerry, Huawei, Kyocera, and ZTE.
March 2, 2019
Fortress Triples Down Against Intel in Delaware, Where Recent Appointee’s Ruling May Signal a Steep Climb for Transfers
New Patent Litigation
The battle between VLSI Technology LLC and Intel has heated up for a third time. In October 2017, VLSI Technology, an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC, sued Intel in the Northern District of California (5:17-cv-05671) over eight patents, and in June 2018, the NPE opened up a second litigation front, suing Intel in the District of Delaware (1:18-cv-00966) over five more. Now, in the immediate wake of a mid-February order construing claims in California and an Intel motion to stay the California action in light of multiple instituted trials in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings—and after the Delaware court last year refused to transfer the case before it to California—VLSI Technology has hit Intel a second time in Delaware (1:19-cv-00426), this case asserting six more patents from the NPE’s sizable portfolio of assets originating principally with either Freescale, NXP, SigmaTel, or VLSI Technology, Inc.
March 2, 2019
A Second IP Edge Affiliate Asserts a Former Siemens Patent, in Campaign over Motion Sensors
New Patent Litigation
Another IP Edge LLC affiliate has launched a litigation campaign over a patent from a portfolio that the Texas monetization firm acquired from Siemens last October. Pinek IP LLC has accused Fibar (1:19-cv-01463), Honeywell (1:19-cv-00425), Lutron Electronics (1:19-cv-01487), Monitronics (2:19-cv-00074), Robert Bosch (Bosch Security Systems) (1:19-cv-00424), and Sercomm (3:19-cv-01133) of infringing one of those patents, generally pertaining to firing a circuit in response to an “activation signal”, through the provision of motion sensors used to trigger intrusion alarms. The NPE filed this campaign across districts in California, Delaware, Illinois, and Texas.
March 1, 2019
A Third IP Edge Affiliate Asserts a Former Siemens Patent, This Campaign over Conference Call Notifications
New Patent Litigation
Wave Linx LLC, an affiliate of Texas monetization firm IP Edge LLC, has asserted another patent from among those acquired from Siemens in October 2018. The NPE targets Blue Jeans Network (1:19-cv-00419), HighFive Technologies (1:19-cv-00420), LogMeIn (1:19-cv-00421), Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (Arkadin) (1:19-cv-00418), RingCentral (1:19-cv-00422), and Zoom Video Communications and Zoom Voice Communications (1:19-cv-00423), all in the District of Delaware, over their provision of online meeting or conferencing systems that provide a notification when a participant has entered or exited via a phone connection (e.g., by playing a tone, allowing users to hear the name of the participant, or showing a visual notification).
March 1, 2019