Texas-based NPE SecurityProfiling, LLC has added VMware (6:23-cv-00768) as a defendant in its sole litigation campaign, launched in July 2016 with a suit against Intel and its then-subsidiary McAfee (acquired by an investor group led by Advent International in 2021). In the new Western District of Texas complaint, the plaintiff asserts eight patents broadly directed to anti-malware systems. VMware is accused of infringement through the provision of the VMware Carbon Black Cloud cybersecurity platform.

SecurityProfiling, LLC has filed suit against a defendant other than Cisco, Intel (McAfee), or Trend Micro for the first time, accusing Forcepoint (6:23-cv-00014) of infringing eight anti-malware patents through the provision of computer security software products, including its Forcepoint ONE (with Forcepoint Next-Gen Firewall). Trend Micro was first sued back in September 2016, Western District of Texas Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland recommending a dismissal with prejudice on January 17, 2023 after the parties announced a settlement of the latest suit between them. The other recent case, first filed against Cisco in April 2021, ended in a dismissal with prejudice in light of a settlement this past July. Neither of the cases that have ended in the past six or so months progressed much beyond the pleadings stage; the earliest litigation against Trend Micro did, however.

SecurityProfiling, LLC has dismissed April 2021 cases against Cisco and Trend Micro without prejudice, filing new complaints, again in the Western District of Texas, against the same two defendants (6:21-cv-01106 and 6:21-cv-01105, respectively). This second set of pleadings asserts the same four patents, broadly pertaining to anti-malware systems, and targets the same accused products, Cisco’s Secure Endpoint and the Trend Micro’s Apex Control web console. They come after motions to dismiss claims for indirect and willful infringement were fully briefed, but not decided, in the prior suits.

Last July, the Federal Circuit summarily affirmed the invalidation of claims from one of several anti-malware patents asserted by SecurityProfiling, LLC in litigation against Trend Micro. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) had rejected SecurityProfiling’s claim to an early priority date, converting nearly a decade of references into prior art, dealing a blow to the plaintiff’s campaign: the Northern District of Texas case against Trend Micro was dismissed with prejudice this past October. It appears, however, that that blow was not fatal, as SecurityProfiling has filed another case against Trend Micro (6:21-cv-00330) and a first case against Cisco (6:21-cv-00337), both in the Western District of Texas this time and both asserting patents from the same family.

Texas-based NPE SecurityProfiling, LLC has filed suit against Intel and its subsidiary McAfee (6:16-cv-01016), alleging infringement of six anti-malware patents (8,266,699; 8,984,644; 9,100,431; 9,117,069; 9,118,708; 9,225,686) through McAfee Network Security Platform, a system for preventing network threats and breaches. The NPE pleads that it is the successor-in-interest to SecurityProfiling, Inc., a now-defunct Indiana company that once offered its own suite of anti-vulnerability security software.