Last month’s review of notable patent assignments considered the movement of assets from Avaya to Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC; from Level 3 Communications to Sandpiper CDN, LLC; from Seiko Epson to IPValue’s 138 East LCD Advancements Ltd. and Lumitek Display Technology Ltd.; from Transaction Security to a “BioCrypt Access”; from Fortress Investment Group LLC’s KIP Prod P1 LP to Prodea Automation LLC; from EMM Patents Ltd. to Empire IP LLC; from Siemens and Abdelsalam Helal to Rokiot USA LLC; and from Proxicom Wireless, LLC to Secure Communication Technologies, LLC. While a couple of these entities again feature prominently, this month’s review extends well beyond them to cover the movement of patents away from other operating companies, as well as within several repeat monetization players.

Late last month, two entities associated with Brian Yates—who oversaw NPEs filing more than 500 patent infringement suits in 2015-2017, and who now has ongoing enforcement efforts in China—assigned patent portfolios to an apparent Delaware NPE controlled by an experienced licensing professional. The transacted portfolios include two patents asserted in a Yates campaign that hit McAfee, ForeScout Technologies, Fortinet (Bradford Networks) and Pulse Secure before ending a mere six months after launch.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw the number of petitions for AIA review in November hold fairly steady at 111 (compared to October’s 128) as the US Supreme Court continued its review of the constitutionality of inter partes review (IPR) in Oil States v. Greene’s Energy Services, for which oral arguments were held on November 27. Among the NPEs targeted by petitions brought in November were publicly traded Quarterhill Inc. and Xperi Corporation, prolific litigant Brian Yates, and several privately held NPEs waging networking campaigns, including Alacritech, Inc.; Iridescent Networks, Inc.; Monument Patent Holdings, LLC; MyMail Ltd.; and Oyster Optics LLC. The PTAB also instituted trial in November for other IPRs against Alacritech and Quarterhill and for an IPR against Plectrum LLC. Final decisions issued by the Board in November include one in the automotive campaign waged by Paice LLC and in IPRs against InfoGation Corporation and VoIP-Pal.com, Inc., both of which saw their patents survive review.

A new NPE affiliated with California attorney Brian Yates, Network Security Technologies, LLC,  has begun a new litigation campaign, filing separate lawsuits against Bradford Networks (1:17-cv-01487), ForeScout Technologies (1:17-cv-01488), McAfee (1:17-cv-01489), and Pulse Secure (1:17-cv-01490). Each complaint asserts two patents from a family of five generally related to protecting a computer network, with the defendants accused of infringement through provision of network security products, including Bradford’s Network Sentry, ForeScout’s CounterACT, Pulse Secure’s Policy Secure, and McAfee’s Network Access Control Solution. The NPE pleads that each defendant allegedly adopted a standard promulgated by the Trusted Network Connect Work Group of the Trusted Computing Group.

RPX noted among the assignment records released by the USPTO during the second week of October transfers to affiliates of IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal) and IP Bridge, Inc. Also during the week, a late September assignment between two NPEs controlled by patent attorney Brian Yates was recorded, as well as a 2016 transfer to Unwired Planet International Ltd.

RPX took notice, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the latter half of May, of the transfer of patents from operating companies HP Enterprise, Panasonic, and Qisda to various NPEs. Two of those NPEs (Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Deshodax LLC) have already launched campaigns asserting some of the transacted patents. RPX also saw during this time the recordation of assignments to Brian Yates; Fortress Investment Group LLC; Intellectual Ventures LLC; Blackbird Tech LLC; and IP Bridge, Inc., among others.

RPX took note, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the first half of May, of the transfer of patents to frequent plaintiffs Leigh M. Rothschild and IP Valuation Partners (both of which received patents from Intellectual Ventures LLC) and BlackBird Tech LLC. RPX also took note of transfers of patents from multiple assignors to an NPE controlled by patent attorney Brian Yates—a California attorney revealed, by a January sanctions ruling in Texas, as controlling more entities than previously thought. Also among the noted transactions are outbound assignments by Panasonic, Pantech, and ZTE, and a transfer from Allied Security Trust’s Industry Patent Purchase Program involving former IBM and Nokia patents.

District Judge Rodney Gilstrap has imposed $355K in attorney fees and costs on Iris Connex, LLC, ruling that the Texas-based NPE had pursued such an objectively meritless case against defendant Dell (2:15-cv-01915) that the lawsuit was exceptional under Octane. In a 57-page opinion issued on January 25, Judge Gilstrap also ordered attorney Brian Yates to pay Dell $152K in sanctions, ruling that he had abused the corporate form by controlling the Iris Connex campaign through shell company Q Patents, Inc., failed to disclose that entity as the NPE’s parent, and then acted in bad faith in his further attempts at concealing that relationship. Finally, Judge Gilstrap imposed sanctions on Craig Tadlock, Iris Connex’s counsel, requiring him to pay $25K to the court for advancing a wholly implausible claim construction argument.