Since late last year, a growing web of plaintiffs associated with IP Edge LLC have become tangled in compliance issues over heightened disclosure requirements imposed by Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly in a pair of April 2022 standing orders. Now, Judge Connolly has rejected motions from two more IP Edge-linked plaintiffs, Backertop Licensing LLC and Mellaconic IP LLC, that sought to overturn a related set of production orders requiring them to disclose reams of information on their corporate control, assets, and legal representation. Not only did those decisions reject objections related to jurisdiction and allegations of overbreadth, Judge Connolly also ominously suggested that their claims of attorney-client privilege are undercut by the crime/fraud exception—which allows the disclosure of communications between a party and counsel that relate to legal advice used in furtherance of illegal activity.

Over the past several months, several plaintiffs affiliated with patent monetization firm IP Edge LLC have sparred with Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly over disclosure rules imposed in his courtroom. As this “Series of Extraordinary Events” has unfolded, those plaintiffs have found themselves under close scrutiny due to their apparent failure to disclose information on their management and control in compliance with those heightened rules. Now, one of those entities, Backertop Licensing LLC, has urged the court to halt an order mandating the wide-ranging production of information on those topics until its challenge of that order gets decided—while its attorney is looking for a way off of its cases altogether.

As former top filer IP Edge LLC struggles to extricate itself from the courtroom of Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly, last April’s standing orders remain in force: one of those orders requiring litigants to disclose details related to any nonrecourse funding arrangements with third parties; and another requiring all “nongovernmental joint ventures, limited liability corporations, partnerships or limited liability partnerships” to include in disclosure statements “the name of every owner, member and partner of the party, proceeding up the chain of ownership until the name of every individual and corporation with a direct or indirect interest in the party has been identified”. Both orders continue to surface information that otherwise would have remained private.

NexGen Control Systems LLC has expanded its US litigation over former Mitsubishi Electric (MELCO) patents beyond NXP Semiconductors, which the plaintiff peppered with two Eastern District of Texas complaints in early March. The second defendant is Infineon Technologies (1:23-cv-00315), alleged in a new District of Delaware complaint to infringe a single electric motor controller patent through the provision of certain iMotion Integrated Motor Control Solutions products, highlighting Infineon’s iMotion IMM100 Series and IMC100 Series products. A week after the filing, the case was assigned to Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly, which will force NexGen Control to address two standing orders applicable to all litigants in that courtroom.

Delaware plaintiff NexGen Control Systems LLC has filed its first litigation, suing NXP Semiconductors in two separate Eastern District of Texas complaints, one targeting the provision of various automobile computing products, including the Peripheral Sensor Interface 5 (PSI5) system, FXOS8700CQ series devices, and the MC33789 Airbag System Basis Chip and related inertial sensors (5:23-cv-00022); and the other targeting the provision of various devices such as chipsets, controllers, drivers, and integrated circuits (5:23-cv-00025). All six patents now in suit share a development history, at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO), multiple assigned portfolios of which have spawned recent litigation.

MEL NavIP LLC, a Texas plaintiff managed by a familiar patent monetization figure, has filed its first litigation, suing Toyota (2:22-cv-00152) over the provision of infotainment systems in certain automobiles. Four patents are asserted in the new Eastern District of Texas complaint, all developed at Mitsubishi Electric. This portfolio is one of many, according to publicly available USPTO assignment records, to leave Mitsubishi Electric for NPE hands over the past several years.