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Four Defendants Steel Themselves in the Face of New Campaign from IP Edge’s Valyrian IP
New Patent Litigation
Valyrian IP LLC has become the seventh plaintiff in apparent association with IP Edge LLC to file suit over patents that the monetization firm received from Siemens in October 2018. The patent that Valyrian has now asserted against Avaya (1:19-cv-01436), Grandstream Networks (1:19-cv-01437), ICON Voice Networks (3:19-cv-01829), and Plantronics (Polycom) (1:19-cv-01438) generally relates to a cordless phone system where calls are forwarded from a base station to handsets based on one of three priority levels assigned to a phone number as stored with caller ID info in a directory: “lowest priority” (or “DO NOT DISTURB”), “intermediate priority”, and “highest priority”. The NPE targets the defendants over the provision of cordless phone systems with “Do Not Disturb” features that allow the user to pick certain phone numbers from a directory as “priority” numbers, where calls still go through when Do Not Disturb is enabled.
August 3, 2019
NPE Launches Campaign Targeting Ink Cartridges with Patent Acquired from IV
New Patent Litigation
DrivePrint LLC, a Texas entity formed in April of this year, has filed its first lawsuit, alleging in a new Southern District of Texas complaint that HP (4:19-cv-02786) has infringed a single patent generally related to printhead cartridges “with asymmetrical contacts”. At issue is HP’s provision of certain ink cartridges, including the HP 63 Black, HP 64 Black, HP 65 Black, and Tri-Color cartridges. DrivePrint pleads ownership of the patent-in-suit, which currently available USPTO records suggest was last held by an affiliate of Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV).
August 2, 2019
Acacia Joins VIEX Capital as an Activist Investor in Immersion
Patent Market, Patent Watch
Immersion Corporation’s CEO Ramzi Haidamus told investors on August 1 that with its last outstanding lawsuit settled, the company—which he said has been “mired” in “constant” patent litigation for the past 17 years—can now focus on a strategic initiative to drive long-term value for its shareholders. However, despite having settled its litigation against Samsung and, most recently, Motorola Mobility, Immersion may need to gear up for a new battle, this one with large investors VIEX Capital Advisors and Acacia Research Corporation.
August 2, 2019
Federal Circuit Rules that IPR Applies to Pre-AIA Patents, Teeing Up Likely Appellate Battle
Biotech and Pharma, Patent Litigation Feature
The Supreme Court’s April 2018 opinion in Oil States was its first ruling on the constitutionality of inter partes review (IPR), with the Court concluding that IPR did not run afoul of Article III and the Seventh Amendment. However, by stating that its holding did not foreclose constitutional challenges on other grounds, the Court set the stage for other such broadsides against the program—one of which has now been addressed by the Federal Circuit. On July 30, the appeals court ruled in Celgene’s challenge of two IPR decisions that the retroactive application of IPR to patents issued before the America Invents Act (AIA) is not an unconstitutional taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment, all but ensuring that IPR will end up before the Supreme Court once again.
August 2, 2019
New Networking Campaign Opens Up over Canadian Company’s “Flagship Patent”
New Patent Litigation
Wireless Transport LLC, a recently formed in Delaware entity, has launched a new litigation campaign over a wireless communications patent described as the “flagship patent” for cStar Technologies (aka CSTI) on that Canadian company’s website. Late last month, Wireless Transport accused Aerohive Networks (1:19-cv-01406), China Huaxin Post & Telecommunication Economy Development Center (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE)) (1:19-cv-01405), CommScope (Ruckus Wireless) (1:19-cv-01390), Extreme Networks (1:19-cv-01408), Fortinet (1:19-cv-01404), NETGEAR (1:19-cv-01409), and Proxim Wireless (1:19-cv-01407)—in complaints filed in the District of Delaware—and Juniper Networks (6:19-cv-00353)—in an Eastern District of Texas complaint—of infringement through the provision of certain enterprise network systems that feature unified (wired and wireless) connectivity. The patent asserted in this new campaign is not the first associated with cStar to land in litigation.
August 1, 2019
Delaware NPE Expands Mobile Device Keyboard Campaign
New Patent Litigation
Princeps Interface Technologies LLC has added cases against ASUSTek (5:19-cv-04298) and Lenovo (1:19-cv-01425) to the campaign that it began six weeks ago, suing Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Samsung in mid-June. The sole patent asserted generally relates to an “input device” that allows the user to switch between different input modes, including different keyboard types, with infringement allegations throughout the campaign focused on the keyboard setup features on mobile devices, as well as options allowing users to toggle between keyboards in various languages and/or a menu of emojis.
August 1, 2019
University of California Taps Longford Capital to Fund LED Lighting Campaign
Patent Market, Patent Watch
An LED light bulb campaign begun in 2016 by The Regents of the University of California has been rebooted, this time with funding by litigation finance firm Longford Capital. On July 30, The Regents filed a wave of lawsuits against Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ikea, Target, and Walmart in the Central District of California, alleging infringement of a group of four patents developed by a “Nobel laureate-led team” at the University of Santa Barbara. The defendants are accused of infringement through provision of filament LED light bulbs, sales of which—according to The Regents, which have also filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC)—are expected to exceed $1B in the US this year.
August 1, 2019
Spellcheck Campaign Nears the Close of Its Second Decade, with a New Case Against Apple and Open Cases Against HTC, LG Electronics, and Zoho
New Patent Litigation
Inventor-controlled Sentius International, LLC has filed another suit in its spellcheck and grammar check campaign, accusing Apple (1:19-cv-01444) of infringing two patents already at issue in the litigation. The NPE accuses Apple of infringement through the provision of a wide variety of iOS devices, as well as certain versions of online applications (e.g., iCloud Keynote, iCloud Pages, iWork), as used with “Apple servers, a master dictionary database, [and] syndicated versions of that master dictionary database in the form of spell check dictionaries”. The complaint targets spellcheck and grammar check functionalities within those products. The new Delaware suit joins open cases in the same district filed last August against HTC and LG Electronics (LGE) and an open declaratory judgment action brought in the Northern District of California against Sentius by Zoho.
August 1, 2019
IP Edge Plaintiff Files Second Round in Database Query Campaign
New Patent Litigation
Devine Licensing LLC, an NPE associated with monetization firm IP Edge LLC, has filed a second round of suits in its campaign over a single patent generally related to optimizing a database query. The new defendants are Altibase (2:19-cv-16163), DataStax (1:19-cv-01440), and MariaDB (1:19-cv-01441), accused of infringement over the provision of their database management systems: Altibase HDB 6.5.1, DataStax Enterprise 5.0, and MariaDB MaxScale 1.4, respectively. IP Edge acquired the asserted patent, which originated with IBM, from Huawei in a February 2019 transaction involving a total of 11 US patent assets, with subject matters ranging from network-connected “domestic food-processing appliances” to sharing “presence information”, from battery charging to digital cameras.
July 31, 2019
Amazon’s Alexa Products Targeted with Patents from the VoiceBox Technologies Portfolio
New Patent Litigation
Currently available USPTO records indicate that most of the patents held by VoiceBox Technologies, a Washington-based company developing voice assistant and “conversational AI” technology, including significant work for automotive clients, were transferred in March 2018 to VB Assets, LLC, an entity created in Delaware on February 12, 2018. That entity has now turned plaintiff, suing Amazon (1:19-cv-01410) over six of the patents received, all generally related to various aspects of voice processing, targeting the tech giant’s provision of Alexa products. The complaint recounts an extensive history of purported contacts between VoiceBox Technologies and Amazon, beginning in 2011 and ending in April 2017.
July 30, 2019