In the past two months, three NPEs with ties to Robert A. Westerland—IP Communication Solutions, LLC, Content Aggregation Solutions LLC, and Nova Intellectual Solutions, LLC—have filed nearly 20 cases against a total of 18 operating companies, including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Huawei, HTC, LG Electronics, Sharp, Sony, and ZTE. These NPEs’ principal place of business, according to their complaints, is a luxury condominium in Dallas, Texas owned by Westerlund—a well-known patent attorney, patent broker, and inventor connected to NPEs that have litigated both patents issuing to Westerlund and patents issuing to others but subsequently acquired for assertion.

IP Communication Solutions, LLC has followed six March suits asserting a single patent (9,247,071) with one in April, filed against AT&T (1:16-cv-00227).  The ‘071 patent generally concerns VoIP services for mobile phones. The prior complaints hit Comcast, Facebook, Genband, Line2, TangoMe, and ViberMedia, with all seven complaints focusing allegations on the provision of server systems that connect VoIP client application programs. IP Communication Solutions was formed in Delaware on February 11, 2016. It lists as its address a Dallas luxury condominium that public records indicate that prolific inventor Robert A. Westerlund owns. That same address has been given by other litigating NPEs as their own, including two that have disclosed in court filings that they are subsidiaries of Strategic Intellectual Solutions, LLC (SIS). The ‘071 patent issued to its named inventors, Westerlund and Eric M. Dowling, on January 26, 2016. IP Communication Solutions pleads ownership of the patent, although no record of transfer from Westerlund or Dowling has been recorded with the USPTO. The ‘071 patent is the most recent patent in a ten-member family that began issuing in November 2008. More information regarding the other patents in that family, as well as for additional details about Strategic Intellectual Solutions and its large number of litigating subsidiaries and apparent affiliates can be found at “For the Second Time in March, a New NPE Apparently Connected to Strategic Intellectual Solutions Springs into Litigation” (March 2016). 4/5, District of Delaware.

Newly formed NPE IP Communication Solutions, LLC has filed six suits asserting a single patent (9,247,071) generally related to VoIP services for mobile phones. The complaints accuse defendants Comcast (1:16-cv-00130), Facebook (1:16-cv-00147), Genband (1:16-cv-00131), Line2 (1:16-cv-00132), TangoMe (1:16-cv-00133), and ViberMedia (1:16-cv-00134) of infringement by providing server systems that connect VoIP client application programs.