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Vindolor’s Payment Systems Campaign Hits More Retailers
New Patent Litigation
Vindolor, LLC continues to add defendants to its sole litigation campaign, last month adding suits against Target (6:19-cv-00338) and Walmart (6:19-cv-00339) that allege infringement of a single patent broadly related to using biometric authentication to create an “access code” based on a resulting identification profile. The NPE’s newest complaints target the retailers’ alleged sale of Apple and Samsung devices featuring Apple Pay or Samsung Pay.
June 12, 2019
New NPE Begins Litigating Former Lexmark Patents Among More Than 100 Received from Funai
Patent Market, Patent Watch
In April 2013, Japanese consumer electronics maker Funai Electric announced that it had agreed to acquire the inkjet-related technology and assets of IBM-spinoff Lexmark International for roughly $100M. The announcement was followed by Lexmark’s assignment of more than 1,500 US and foreign patent assets to Funai. Now, some of those patents are being asserted by recently formed NPE Slingshot Printing LLC—which earlier this year received more than 100 US assets from Funai—with assignment records suggesting that Funai might hold an economic interest in Slingshot’s litigation.
June 12, 2019
May 2019 RPX Acquisitions Update
Patent Market, Patent Watch
RPX completed a number of deals in May 2019 on behalf of its patent risk management network and acquired a single patent portfolio. The acquisition occurred within the Financial Services market sector.
June 11, 2019
Israeli Plaintiff Kicks Off IoT Campaign
New Patent Litigation
TriDiNetworks Ltd. has launched a litigation campaign over a single patent generally related to network management systems comprising wired and wireless devices and a “commissioning tool”. Defendants NXP Semiconductors (1:19-cv-01062), Signify (1:19-cv-01063), and STMicroelectronics (1:19-cv-01064) through the provision of certain semiconductor products that incorporate NFC (near field communication) technology, principally to develop “Internet of Things” applications. The plaintiff describes the patent as representing “a breakthrough development in the practical implementation of the Internet of Things and other systems wherein electronic devise are desired to be deployed over communications networks”.
June 10, 2019
Inventor-Backed Plaintiff Opens Up New Campaign in the Western District of Texas with Suits Against Amazon and Google
New Patent Litigation
Inventor-controlled Hammond Development International, Inc. has filed suit in the Western District of Texas against Alphabet (Google) (6:19-cv-00356) and Amazon (6:19-cv-00355), accusing each defendant of infringing a family of eight patents generally related to remote execution of an application by a “communication device”. The plaintiff’s infringement allegations target the provision of smart home products and services, including Amazon Alexa, Amazon Echo products, Google Assistant, and Google Home and Nest products.
June 8, 2019
More OpCos Receive Patents from Intellectual Ventures
Patent Market, Patent Watch
Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) continued to divest patents through April and May, with public records suggesting that the outflow of patents from IV is unlikely to dry up any time soon. While NPEs were among the assignees of IV assets, some were also picked up by Citrix and Samsung.
June 8, 2019
Judge Albright Takes a First Trip Through the Alice Looking Glass, Denying Eligibility Challenge Against IPVal Patent
Patent Litigation Feature
District Judge Alan D. Albright has made no secret of plans to make the Western District of Texas the new hotbed for patent litigation following his confirmation there in September 2018. Since then, he has taken steps to make the district more attractive to patent litigants, including a standing order implementing rules designed to appeal to both plaintiffs and defendants. The apparent result has been an uptick in NPE litigation in the Western District. Now, Judge Albright has issued what seems to be his first Alice ruling in one such NPE case, denying an eligibility challenge brought by HomeGoods against IPValuation Partners, LLC (d/b/a IPVal) affiliate eCeipt LLC. Judge Albright held that the challenged patent is directed to a technological improvement, and thus not to an abstract idea, for reasons similar to the Federal Circuit’s holdings in Enfish v. Microsoft and Finjan v. Blue Coat Systems. Dismissal would also be precluded at Alice step two under Berkheimer and Aatrix, held Judge Albright, finding that the plaintiff had raised a material dispute of fact as to whether the claims contain an inventive concept.
June 7, 2019
Activist Investor Calls for Change at Immersion
Patent Market, Patent Watch
Immersion Corporation appears to be the latest publicly traded IP licensing company that is being pushed by large investors to consider strategic alternatives. On June 3, hedge fund VIEX Capital Advisors—which holds a 10.3% stake in Immersion—filed a Schedule 13D in which it described Immersion’s shares as being “materially undervalued” and called for “significant and immediate improvements” to Immersion’s “corporate governance, cost structure and capital allocation”.
June 7, 2019
Alice Invalidations Continue to Ripple Through Data Scape Campaign
New Patent Litigation
Data Scape Limited continues to reorder its cloud computing campaign in the wake of a May 17, 2019 order from the Central District of California invalidating four challenged patents under Alice. District Judge David O. Carter ruled that those patents are patent-ineligibly directed to the abstract idea of “data storage, transfer, and processing”, prompting the NPE, that next week, to file voluntary dismissals and new complaints against previous defendants Amazon, Box, Dell, Dropbox, Pandora, Spotify, and Teradata and to file separate complaints against defendants Apple and Verizon. This past week, Data Scape added Citrix (2:19-cv-04667) to that first list, dismissing without prejudice a December 2018 complaint while filing a new one that asserts a single, newly issued patent, not litigated prior to the Alice invalidation.
June 7, 2019
Delaware NPE Begins Asserting Patents Received from Plano Encryption Technologies
New Patent Litigation
As predicted, Honeyman Cipher Solutions LLC has launched its first litigation campaign, asserting one of the patents previously litigated by Bradley D. Liddle’s Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC (PET). The new Northern District of Illinois complaint asserts a patent generally related to digital content protection in computer systems against Groupon (1:19-cv-03754) for a second time, again targeting the company over its use of Apple’s iTunes Connect and Google’s Android Developer Console to register and distribute its iOS and Android apps, respectively. In June 2017, a suit over the same patent, filed by PET in the Eastern District of Texas, was dismissed for improper venue a few months after the US Supreme Court’s TC Heartland decision.
June 6, 2019