Inventor Leigh M. Rothschild has continued his streak of conceding to venue challenges in Texas, less than a year after largely consolidating his litigation in that state. On July 18 and 24, dockets were opened in the Central District of California and Delaware, respectively, for the cases against ShopStyle (1:17-cv-00978) and Clique Media (2:17-cv-05463) brought by the Rothschild-controlled Product Association Technologies, LLC after the defendants filed motions to dismiss due to improper venue in the Eastern District of Texas cases against them (2:17-cv-00270, 2:17-cv-00265). Product Association also dismissed cases against IAC Search & Media (2:17-cv-00269) and Verizon (Altaba (f/k/a Yahoo), Polyvore, Yahoo Holding) (2:17-cv-00272, 2:17-cv-00268) with prejudice on July 20 after the defendants filed motions to dismiss for improper venue or, in the alternative, to dismiss due to the alleged invalidity of the asserted patent (6,154,738) under Alice. Each of those virtually identical motions was filed on June 26 and alleged that the ‘738 patent is impermissibly directed to the abstract idea of “locating and sending product information in response to a request”.

Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC (RPI) filed eight new suits this week, accusing Badoo Trading Limited (d/b/a Badoo Software Ltd.), Foursquare, Grindr, MeetMe, Photobucket, Skout, TangoMe, and Yahoo (Tumblr) of infringing an image processing patent (8,437,797). At issue are the defendants’ mobile applications that allow users to send photos to each other. To date, nearly thirty companies have been sued over the ‘797 patent via three separate litigation campaigns, all waged by various entities controlled by inventor Leigh M. Rothschild. Past defendants include Apple, Canon, HTC, LG Electronics, Microsoft, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony, as well as Ricoh, which was sued earlier this month.

Inventor Leigh M. Rothschild has kicked off October with nine new patent suits—five filed by Battery Conservation Innovations, LLC (BCI), three by Scanning Technologies Innovations, LLC (STI), and one by Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC (RPI). On October 4, STI lodged five separate complaints against Bindo Labs, iConnect, Lightspeed, Microbiz, and Smartosc, accusing the defendants’ point-of-sale systems of infringing a mobile device patent (9,053,498). BCI launched its first and sole litigation campaign to date two days later with suits against Easton Sports, Sony, and Zepp Sports, alleging infringement of a patent generally related to a battery-conserving flashlight (9,239,158). Smart athletic sensors are the accused products. RPI closed out the first week of October with a complaint against Ricoh, accusing the company of infringing an image processing patent (8,437,797) through provision of its Pentax K-S2 camera. With these latest filings, NPEs controlled by Rothschild—which to date number over 20—have filed more than 260 patent infringement suits against operating companies.

Prolific inventor and plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild has apparently formed a new Texas entity to continue filing suits over a patent (8,437,797) that Rothschild Storage Retrieval Innovations LLC (RSRI), a Florida entity, has been asserting since July 2014. The ‘797 patent generally relates to the wireless exchange of digital images between devices, and the new complaints name as defendants Canon (2:16-cv-00352), Casio (2:16-cv-00355), Eastman Kodak (2:16-cv-00357), Fujifilm (2:16-cv-00356), Leica Camera (2:16-cv-00358), Nikon (2:16-cv-00359), Olympus (2:16-cv-00360), and Panasonic (2:16-cv-00361). The new plaintiff is Texas Patent Imaging LLC, and camera products remain at issue in the campaign.