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Power Management Campaign Sees Xerox Exit, Oki Data Enter
New Patent Litigation
PC Coma LLC, an affiliate of monetization firm IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal), has added a second case to the litigation campaign that it began at the end of May by suing Xerox in the Eastern District of Texas. The new defendant is Oki Electric Industry (Oki Data Americas) (1:18-cv-00872), with the Delaware complaint again asserting a single patent, generally related to power management in computing devices, against the defendant’s multifunction printers (the “Okidata MB472w”). The accused model’s power management system—i.e., its “Power Save Mode” and “Sleep Mode”—is at issue. The day after PC Coma filed against Oki Data, it voluntarily dismissed the Xerox complaint.
June 13, 2018
May 2018 RPX Acquisitions Update
New Patent Litigation
RPX completed a number of acquisitions on behalf of its patent risk management network in May 2018, obtaining rights to the patents involved either to end litigation against its members or to prevent it in the first place. Acquisitions occurred within the Consumer Electronics and PCs; Semiconductors; and E-Commerce and Software market sectors.
June 13, 2018
IP Bridge Acquires Set of Networking US Patents from NTT Docomo
On May 31 of this year, the assignment of five US patents from Japanese telecom carrier NTT Docomo to Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 (IP Bridge 1), a subsidiary of monetization firm IP Bridge, Inc., was recorded with the USPTO, an assignment agreement executed between the parties on May 9 accompanying the filing. The patents generally relate to router discovery, network security, and other aspects of network communications, issuing across four families between 2007 and 2010.
June 9, 2018
New Campaign Accents the Ability to Enter Special Characters Through Smartphone Keypads
Rondevoo Technologies, LLC has opened up a second litigation campaign, filing a District of Delaware suit against LG Electronics (LGE) (1:18-cv-00860) and a Northern District of Illinois suit against Sony (1:18-cv-03950). The NPE asserts a single patent generally related to “clustering” keys on an input device, such as telephone keypad or computer keyboard, to facilitate selection entry, with infringement allegations focused on the ability to enter alternate (i.e., accented) characters through the keypads of certain Android smartphones—e.g., Sony’s Xperia Z5 and the LG G3. Rondevoo pleads that the “inventors” recognized “a need for improving cluster key arrangements for mobile devices such as cell-phones”, citing to the patent’s abstract for the statement that “[t]his cluster key arrangement may be mechanically configured or electronically configured”.
June 9, 2018
Realtime, Both Data and Adaptive, Keep On Filing New Cases, Most Recently Against Charter, Comcast, Cox, and Facebook
Both Realtime Data LLC (RTD) and its subsidiary Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC (RAS) recently added cases to their respective wings of what has become one of the longest-running, widest-ranging active litigation campaigns. RTD asserted three familiar data compression patents against Facebook (1:18-cv-01373), targeting its Zstandard compression algorithm, as well as products and services “that incorporate the algorithm”. Meanwhile, RAS tagged Charter Communications (1:18-cv-01345), Comcast (1:18-cv-01446), and Cox Communications (8:18-cv-00942), asserting three equally familiar video compression patents against the companies’ respective broadcasting services, training infringement allegations—as it has in most of its cases in this campaign—on the use of the H.264 video compression to standard “to deliver HD video broadcasting products/services” to customers.
June 8, 2018
Uniloc Kicks Off a Tenth Campaign of 2018, Again Asserting a Patent Acquired from Pendrell
Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Uniloc USA, Inc. (collectively, Uniloc) have filed a new case against Box (3:18-cv-03432), asserting a patent generally related to replacing substrings in a file or directory pathname with tokens. At issue in the complaint is Box’s “content management and file sharing software”, including Business, Individual, and Enterprise editions. This campaign is the tenth that Uniloc has initiated this year, all asserting patents acquired from publicly traded NPE Pendrell Corporation, which sold hundreds of patent assets from its “Pendragon” portfolio (held by subsidiary Pendragon Wireless LLC) to Uniloc in January—the patents derive from multiple original sources, including the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), IBM, and Philips.
June 8, 2018
PTAB Sees Activity in Long-Running, Convoluted Campaigns in May 2018
Throughout May 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw activity in multiple long-running campaigns, including challenges brought against patents and plaintiffs with colorful and tangled litigation histories. The Board saw petitions for AIA review brought in May against Publishing Technologies LLC, an NPE controlled by patent attorney and frequent litigant Bradley D. Liddle; in the mobile devices campaign waged by AGIS Software Development LLC; and in the networking campaign brought by XR Communications, LLC. Also in May, the Board instituted trial for inter partes reviews (IPRs) against Iridescent Networks, Inc. and Oyster Optics, LLC. Final decisions issued in May include three against prolific plaintiff Realtime Data LLC, which saw claims cancelled from one of its data compression patents while another two survived unscathed, as well as final decisions cancelling claims from patents held by General Patent Corporation and VirnetX Holding Corporation.
June 8, 2018
LGE Smart TVs Targeted with TVnGO Patents
TVnGo Ltd. (BVI) has filed suit against LG Electronics (LGE) (2:18-cv-10238) in the District of New Jersey, asserting a family of five patents generally related to making televisions “smart” by “combining television content, such as analog and digital television signals, with Internet content, such as streaming services like Netflix, in a user friendly and easily manageable manner”. TVnGo accuses LGE of infringement through the manufacture and sale of certain smart TVs, including various older models as well as more recent models running WebOS sold after 2014, that allegedly use “overlays to display both television content and Internet content on a television screen”.
June 6, 2018
Wireless Call Quality the Subject of New Campaign Hitting Samsung
Satius Holding, Inc., a subsidiary of Satius, Inc. (f/k/a Wire21, Inc.), has filed suit against Samsung (1:18-cv-00850), asserting a single patent generally related to a coupler for wireless communications. The new complaint targets a long list of Samsung smartphones and tablets that incorporate certain RF transceivers allegedly maintaining call quality “through use of an air-core or dielectric core coupler that eliminates noise and is matched to the characteristic impedance of the air at a preselected frequency”.
June 5, 2018
International Patent Row over Prepaid Payment Systems Lands in US Laundromats
Upaid Systems, Ltd. (f/k/a InTouch Technologies, Ltd.) has continued to pursue a revived US leg of its international litigation campaign, suing more laundromats across a variety of states for the use of the payment system facilitated by Card Concept’s LaundryCard and FasCard “cashless cards”. Facing new complaints so far in June are Lancer Laundry Wilmington (1:18-cv-00837) in Delaware; Midtown Wash (1:18-cv-02787), Speed Queen Laundry (1:18-cv-02788), and Blue Water Express Laundry (1:18-cv-02786) in Georgia; Azizi Enterprises (d/b/a Duds ‘n’ Suds) (2:18-cv-02291) and Rosedale Ultra Wash (2:18-cv-02292) in Kansas; and Washateria (4:18-cv-00834) in Missouri. The complaints assert a single patent already at issue in a Northern District of Illinois case brought last November directly against Card Concepts, which has challenged the patent under Alice. This spate of new litigation follows past disputes between Upaid and other companies in Australia, Britain, and Japan, as well as here in the US.
June 4, 2018