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Intellectual Ventures Acquires Patents from Apparent Transpacific IP Affiliate
Patent Market, Patent Watch
Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) continues to divest patents at a rapid rate, including to NPEs. However, notable among the patent assignments recently made public by the USPTO are two acquisitions by IV—both from an apparent affiliate of Transpacific IP Group Limited. The transacted portfolios comprise US patents and foreign counterparts developed by Sarnoff Corporation (integrated with its parent corporation, SRI Research, in 2011) or Mitsubishi.
September 9, 2018
Dominion Campaign Asserting Former WiLAN Patents Grows Larger
New Patent Litigation
The first week of September saw four new defendants added to a wireless communications campaign initiated by Cellular Transitions, LLC (CellTran) late last month. CellTran, an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, has now hit ASUSTek, Razer, and LG Electronics (LGE) in the Central District of California; Huawei in the Eastern District of Texas; and Lenovo (with subsidiary Motorola Mobility) in Delaware. The defendants are accused of infringing two patents developed by NextWave Wireless (acquired by AT&T in 2013); CellTran’s infringement allegations focus on smartphones supporting LTE Advanced and Licensed Assisted Access (LAA).
September 7, 2018
Texas Judge Upholds VirnetX Verdict Against Apple over Claims Cancelled by PTAB, but Declines to Enhance Damages or Grant Injunction
Patent Litigation Feature
A Texas judge has upheld a pair of infringement verdicts issued in April for VirnetX Inc. against Apple, in which a jury found that the company had infringed claims from four patents through certain versions of the FaceTime and VPN on Demand features offered on iOS and macOS devices (6:12-cv-00855). In an order issued on August 30, District Judge Robert Schroeder III denied Apple’s motion judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial as to both verdicts, the first of which included a damages award of $502.6M and the second of which included a finding of willfulness. However, Judge Schroeder also declined to award VirnetX enhanced damages and denied the NPE’s request for an injunction. Meanwhile, each of the claims Apple was found to infringe was cancelled by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) before the trial in the -855 case, in inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed by Apple and other parties, and appeals of those decisions remain active before the Federal Circuit.
September 7, 2018
Networking Equipment Makers Targeted in New DSL Extension Campaign
New Patent Litigation
Ospreay, LLC has launched a new litigation campaign, filing suit against Cavalier Telephone (1:18-cv-01364), CenturyLink (1:18-cv-01365), Consolidated Communications (FairPoint Communications) (1:18-cv-01366), and Windstream Communications (1:18-cv-01367) in the District of Delaware. The sole patent-in-suit generally relates to extending the distance at which xDSL services can be provided to subscribers. Cavalier and Windstream are accused of infringement through the provision of DSL gateways made by ARRIS; CenturyLink, through the provision of various ZyXel DSL modems and modem/router combinations; and FairPoint, through the provision of certain Zhone DSL modems.
September 5, 2018
After Multiple Early Dismissals, Be Labs Adds Three More Defendants to Networking Campaign
Include in last month's report, Patent Market, Patent Watch
Allied Telesis (1:18-cv-01368), Calix (1:18-cv-01369), and Cisco (1:18-cv-01370) are the latest defendants to be added to the sole litigation campaign of inventor-backed NPE Be Labs, Inc. The two patents-in-suit generally relate to systems for wirelessly distributing media content throughout a “premises”. Throughout its campaign, Be Labs has targeted routers and gateways compliant with the IEEE 802.11ac and 802.11n Wi-Fi standards. The accused products in the complaints against Allied Telesis and Cisco suits include enterprise-grade Wi-Fi access points, while the accused Calix products are its GigaCenter “service delivery center” devices, which offer Wi-Fi, are designed to provide mesh networking in conjunction with related Calix products not named in the complaint (Calix 804Mesh satellites and Support Cloud), and are meant for provision by Internet service providers.
September 4, 2018
Recently Released USPTO Records Reveal More Divestitures by Intellectual Ventures
Patent Litigation Feature
The steady outflow of patents from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) continued through August, with an assignment to a newly formed Texas entity with ties to NPE Vindolor LLC, and transfers to a Native American tribe (previously reported by RPX here). As the month of August closed, the USPTO also made public a January 2018 assignment from IV to an affiliate of IP Valuation Partners, LLC (d/b/a IPVal) involving patents originating with Conexant, ST Microelectronics, Xerox, and elsewhere. IPVal has multiple ongoing litigation campaigns asserting patents received from IV.
September 3, 2018
In Network-1 Power-over-Ethernet Suit, Texas Judge Upholds Noninfringement Verdict for HP and HPE but Revives Asserted Patent
New Patent Litigation
A Texas judge has upheld a noninfringement verdict for HP and HP Enterprise (HPE) in a Network-1 Technologies, Inc. lawsuit but overturned the jury’s finding of invalidity as to the asserted Power-over- Ethernet (PoE) patent (6:13-cv-00072). In a sealed August 29 order addressing a variety of post-trial motions, as well as issues from a May 2018 bench trial, District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III denied Network-1’s motion for a new trial on infringement yet granted judgment as a matter of law of validity, ruling that the patent is not invalid as obvious as found by the jury. Publicly traded Network-1 previously disclosed to investors that the newly revived patent-in-suit had been responsible for the majority of its licensing revenue prior to the invalidation of the claims asserted against HP and HPE.
September 3, 2018
Fortress and Uniloc Add New Patents in Recent Cases Against AT&T and Verizon
New Patent Litigation
Fortress Investment Group LLC and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited have added two additional patents to one of their existing litigation campaigns with new suits against AT&T (AT&T Mobility) (2:18-cv-00379) and Verizon (Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless) (2:18-cv-00380). The plaintiffs accuse AT&T of infringing a patent generally related to system control using a “wireless terminal” through the provision of the Smart Home Manager mobile app, as used to change settings for a home Wi-Fi network; Verizon, of infringing a patent broadly related to the delivery of data through “beacon devices” through the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) beacons in its retail stores, as used to send notifications to mobile devices running the Verizon app. The two complaints each assert additional patents already in suit in the campaign, all of them part of a large, January 2018 acquisition from Pendrell Corporation, with ownership moving to Fortress subsidiary Uniloc 2017 LLC this past May.
September 3, 2018
Packet Intelligence Expands Campaign in Wake of Two Jury Trials as Judge Gilstrap Shields Alice Decision Within Findings of Fact
Late in 2017, Packet Intelligence LLC tried its overlapping claims of patent infringement against NetScout Systems (in October) and Sandvine (in November) to separate Eastern District of Texas juries, with contrasting results. The first jury found NetScout Systems to have willfully infringed multiple claims, also found not invalid, awarding Packet Intelligence $5.75M in damages, while the second jury found in Sandvine’s favor on infringement, awarding the NPE nothing. Neither case appears to have reached final resolution, with District Judge Rodney Gilstrap having ruled on some, but still in receipt of multiple other, post-trial motions. Meanwhile, Packet Intelligence has filed new lawsuits—asserting patents from the same network traffic monitoring and packet processing family—against Ericsson (2:18-cv-00381) and Nokia (2:18-cv-00382) in the same forum.
September 2, 2018
Vindolor’s POS Campaign Expands, Hitting Additional Retailers
Vindolor, LLC has expanded its sole litigation campaign with new suits filed against Disney Stores (2:18-cv-00375), NTW, LLC (d/b/a National Tire and Battery) (2:18-cv-00374), and Restoration Hardware (2:18-cv-00373) in the Eastern District of Texas. The asserted patent generally relates to using biometric authentication to create an “access code” based on a resulting identification profile, with defendants throughout the campaign targeted over their use of NFC-enabled point-of-sale terminals offering contactless payments. Vindolor alleges infringement through the accused terminals’ compatibility with various payment platforms, including “Microsoft Wallet, Wells Fargo Wallet, Masterpass, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, Google Pay, Google Wallet, Apple Pay, and PayPal mobile” as used with a variety of Android, iOS, and/or Windows smartphones and related mobile apps.
September 1, 2018