A recent Federal Circuit decision may prove to be bittersweet for plaintiff Sequoia Technology LLC. On April 12, the appellate court issued a precedential ruling that overturned the District of Delaware’s construction of a key claim term, as a result overturning the invalidation of the asserted storage management patent claims under Alice. However, the Federal Circuit affirmed another claim construction that formed the basis of a judgment of noninfringement for defendant Red Hat and several of its customers.

Throop, LLC, a California entity, has filed its first lawsuits, accusing Alphabet (Google) (2:19-cv-10602), Microsoft (2:19-cv-10604), Seiko (Epson America) (2:19-cv-10597), Sony (2:19-cv-10605), and Vuzix (2:19-cv-10606) of infringing two patents, generally related to wearable devices that can communicate real-time video information. The accused products are the defendants’ augmented reality wearable devices, including the Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLens, Epson Moverio BT (used with Moverio Assist), Sony EyeGlass, and M100 Smart Glasses, respectively, targeting features that allow for video communications with other users.

Red Hat (1:18-cv-02027) has filed an action in the District of Delaware seeking declaratory judgments that neither it nor its customers infringe a patent asserted by Sequoia Technology LLC in earlier cases brought against Dell (EMC), Hitachi, HP Enterprise (HPE), and Super Micro Computer. Red Hat pleads that in its complaints, Sequoia pointed to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) materials to support its infringement allegations against those defendants, giving rise to a reasonable apprehension of suit. Sequoia brought those cases as the exclusive licensee of the patent-in-suit, which generally relates to managing the storage of metadata. USPTO records identify Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) as the patent’s owner.

The second half of 2018 saw a number of NPEs launch US litigation campaigns asserting patents developed by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), a South Korean research institution. In at least two of those campaigns (including one kicked off by Sol IP, LLC last week), the plaintiffs are purported exclusive licensees of the patents-in-suit—an arrangement that has yielded mixed results for ETRI and its licensees.

Sequoia Technology LLC, as exclusive licensee of the patent-in-suit, has launched a litigation campaign, suing Dell (EMC) (1:18-cv-01127), Hitachi (1:18-cv-01129), and HP Enterprise (HPE) (1:18-cv-01128) in Delaware. Currently available USPTO records identify Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) as the assignee of the patent, which is generally related to managing the storage of metadata. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of products and services offering Logical Volume Manager (LVM) dynamic resizing (which allows the dynamic resizing of storage partitions), including certain Linux operating systems and server hardware.