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Public Records Identify Marconi as Source of Acacia’s Recent Patent Acquisition
In Case You Missed It
Earlier this month, RPX pointed the readers of this weekly newsletter to public records identifying Marconi as the source of at least some of the patents recently acquired by Acacia Research Corporation. The transacted portfolio, assigned in February to a newly created Acacia subsidiary, includes assets originating with Samsung as well as patents developed by Fusion-IO (which in 2014 was acquired by SanDisk for $1.1B).
March 30, 2020
Lightside’s Video Processing Campaign Keeps Adding Defendants in 2020
New Patent Litigation
Lightside Technologies, LLC continues to add defendants to the litigation campaign that it began back in November 2016, suing Westinghouse Electronics (5:20-cv-00378) in the Central District of California and HTC (3:20-cv-00725) in the Northern District of Texas. Each complaint asserts different members of the same patent family, generally related to upscaling video content and providing video frame-rate conversion—with two family members asserted against HTC over the provision of HTC One series smartphones with slow-motion video capture and one family member against Westinghouse, targeting the provision of HDTVs and UHDTVs with MEMC (motion estimation/motion compensation) features.
March 30, 2020
Amid Continuing Divestitures, IV Files Cloud Computing Case in Its First New Campaign in Three Years
New Patent Litigation
Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), through subsidiary Intellectual Ventures II LLC (IV II), has sued Dell (VMware) (6:20-cv-00220) over the provision of various products related to virtualization and data center network traffic monitoring and optimization. Five patents of disparate origins are asserted in the new Western District of Texas complaint, IV having moved three of them into the plaintiff’s possession back in 2018, assigning the other two to IV II earlier in March—along with five others of similar subject matter but not yet asserted in litigation. Various VMware products are accused of infringing the five patents.
March 29, 2020
Neodrón Keeps Filing as the ITC Suspends Hearings but Not Institutions
COVID-19, New Patent Litigation, TPLF
Irish NPE Neodrón Limited has filed a second Western District of Texas case against Apple (6:20-cv-00212), already a defendant in a case filed there in February. Apple is also a respondent in a related investigation before the International Trade Commission (ITC)—the second ITC action filed by Neodrón in this campaign (337-TA-1193). Fellow respondent Samsung sought to delay institution of the investigation altogether in the -1193 action in light of the global coronavirus pandemic, but to no avail. Institution occurred on March 16. However, the hearing in the first ITC action (337-TA-1162) has been postponed. Pursuant to ITC COVID-19 guidance to suspend all hearings scheduled to fall within 60 days of March 13, 2020, Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Cameron Elliot has just reset the hearing in the -1162 action, from March 23 to June 8. The plain language description from the second ITC action fairly describes the products that Neodrón accuses of infringement campaign wide: “touch-controlled smartphones, touch-controlled tablet devices, touch-controlled notebook computers, touch-controlled laptop computers, and components thereof”.
March 28, 2020
Dominion’s Monument Peak Ventures Acquires Varied Portfolio from Siemens
Patent Market, Patent Watch
According to recently released USPTO records, Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (MPV)—a subsidiary of the patent monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC—received nearly 60 US assets from Siemens in a series of February 2020 patent assignments.
March 28, 2020
Hierarchical Menu Navigation Campaign Sees Fresh Suits After Several Years’ Hiatus
New Patent Litigation
Caddo Systems, Inc., as owner of the asserted patents, and exclusive licensee 511 Technologies, Inc. have filed another round in a litigation campaign over a family of patents generally related to hierarchical menu navigation. The newest defendants are MediaTek (6:20-cv-00241), Microchip (6:20-cv-00245), NXP (6:20-cv-00244), and Siemens (4:20-cv-00255), each accused of infringement through the provision of nested menu systems for navigating product platforms and/or company websites. The plaintiffs began this campaign in 2016, with the last open cases closing in mid-2017.
March 27, 2020
After a First Round in East Texas, Far North Turns to West Texas for the Second Round of Suits in Its Networking Campaign
New Patent Litigation
Far North Patents, LLC has added four Western District of Texas cases—against ADVA Optical Networking (6:20-cv-00218), Analog Devices (6:20-cv-00219), Microchip (6:20-cv-00221), and ZTE (6:20-cv-00222)—to the eight that it filed in the Eastern District of Texas this past December. A dozen networking patents, received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) in December 2018, are at issue in the campaign, with each of the new complaints asserting the same five. ADVA, Analog Devices, Microchip, and ZTE have been accused of infringement through the provision of networking hardware and systems that feature “advanced quality of service [QoS] capabilities”.
March 27, 2020
Federal Circuit Declines to Rehear Arthrex
COVID-19, Top Insight
Last October, the Federal Circuit held in Arthrex that the appointment of administrative patent judges (APJs) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is unconstitutional, casting doubt on numerous invalidity proceedings and related appeals as a result. Indeed, an RPX analysis indicates that hundreds of America Invents Act (AIA) reviews may be subject to rehearing in light of that decision. Now, the appeals court has declined to rehear the case en banc, following months of appellate briefing in this litigation and a companion appeal that saw the US government file briefs in both cases. The denial of the petition for en banc review sparked further debate within the Federal Circuit, with two concurrences and three dissents filed along with the court’s order.
March 26, 2020
NTT and Essential WiFi Open Up Litigation Campaign Targeting Products Practicing Wi-Fi Standards
New Patent Litigation
NTT (as patent owner) and Essential WiFi, LLC (as exclusive licensee) have kicked off a litigation campaign over four patents, broadly pertinent to communicating between devices over a wireless network, that the plaintiffs plead are essential to the practice of IEEE 802.11n and/or 802.11ac Wi-Fi standards. Each defendant—Acer (6:20-cv-00227), MediaTek (6:20-cv-00225), and TI (6:20-cv-00226), sued in the Western District of Texas—is accused of having refused to take a license under FRAND (“fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory”) terms since receiving a notice letter dated May 31, 2016. The plaintiffs tag the defendants over the provision of long lists of products that allegedly practice these Wi-Fi standards: Acer computers identified either by product line (e.g., Acer Nitro, Predator, Helios, etc.) or by incorporation of an AMD microprocessor (i.e., the AMD Ryzen product); certain MediaTek systems-on-chips (SoCs); and TI’s various SimpleLink Wi-Fi series microcontrollers.
March 26, 2020
Texas NPE Picks Up a Semi Portfolio from Intellectual Ventures
Patent Market, Patent Watch
Two January 2020 assignments from an affiliate of Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) to Innovative Silicon Solutions, LLC, an NPE formed in Texas the prior month, were recently recorded with the USPTO. The transacted portfolio includes patents originating with Cypress Semiconductor or STMicro.
March 25, 2020