Hermes IP Management LLC has become the latest entity tied to Texas monetization firm Longhorn IP LLC to file US litigation. In a new Eastern District of Texas complaint, Hermes IP has accused Samsung (2:24-cv-00540) of infringing three former SK Telecom patents through the provision of mobile devices featuring audio noise cancellation, multiple home screens, and/or image geotagging and navigation features. Longhorn IP has made headlines recently for its appeal to the Federal Circuit of the requirement that it post a bond under Idaho’s “Bad-Faith Patent Assertion” law, in litigation against Micron.

The fight over a set of state laws punishing bad-faith patent assertion is heating up before the Federal Circuit. In June 2023, monetization firm Longhorn IP LLC and affiliate Katana Silicon Technologies LLC filed an appeal over one such law in Idaho, both seeking to overturn an $8M bond imposed against them under that statute in litigation with Micron—apparently the first time such a bond has been ordered—and to invalidate the statute as preempted by federal patent law. Now, as Micron and Idaho lay out their positions in response briefs, they have received additional support: 27 other states and the District of Columbia have sought leave to file an amicus brief in support of upholding Idaho’s law, as have two industry associations.

On January 31, 2024, FG Innovation Company Ltd. (f/k/a FG IP Innovation Company Ltd.) (FGI) divested a portfolio of 35 assets, including 30 issued US patents, to a Texas entity, which moved the portfolio to a second Texas LLC the next day. This FGI divestiture is the sixth to an apparent US NPE since May 2021, to date four of the prior five recipients having launched litigation over the patents received.

Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap has granted a request by L2 Mobile Technologies LLC, a Longhorn IP LLC plaintiff, to file a new complaint against OnePlus (2:23-cv-00087) under seal, a redacted version of that pleading appearing on the docket several days later. The public version reveals some parallels with a sealed complaint that L2 Mobile filed in Delaware against TCL (TCT Mobile) last fall: the assertion of three allegedly standard essential patents (although not the same three patents) together with requests for declaratory judgments that L2 Mobile complied with its commitment to offer a license under fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms and that the defendant “has acted in bad faith, is an unwilling licensee, has breached its obligation to negotiate in a FRAND manner, and has forfeited and exhausted any and all rights as a third-party beneficiary under a FRAND contract and to a FRAND license”.

Delaware District Judge Richard G. Andrews has granted a motion by plaintiff L2 Mobile Technologies LLC to file its latest complaint (and associated exhibits) under seal. The defendant is TCL (TCT Mobile) (1:22-cv-01306), with L2 Mobile contending that the complaint contains information falling under a May 2019 confidentiality agreement between the parties, as it allegedly discloses information related to negotiations over a potential patent license and specific terms from that potential license. Three wireless communications patents are at issue in the case, including patents that L2 Mobile has alleged to be essential to the practice of the 3G standard.

This summer saw the escalation of a long-running fight between Longhorn IP LLC and Micron, with the latter’s July suit accusing the monetization firm of violating a largely untested Idaho law barring bad-faith patent assertion—seeking both damages from Longhorn IP and asking the court to impose a $15M bond against it. Now, as the defendant pushes forward on a motion to dismiss arguing that the law is unconstitutional, the state of Idaho has intervened in the statute’s defense, arguing that the law is narrowly tailored enough to avoid preemption by federal patent law.

The long-running battle between Micron and Longhorn IP LLC has taken a new turn with the semiconductor company’s suit invoking a largely untested Idaho state law barring “bad faith assertion[s] of patent infringement”. That 2014 statute, in part, allows a court to require the patent owner making such an “assertion” to pay a bond that equals the accused infringer’s likely cost of litigation plus related damages for the patent owner’s violation of the statute. Micron has requested $15M for that bond, triggering a fight in the federal District of Idaho—where the case was moved from state court last month—over the underlying facts, timeliness, and the propriety of the law itself. The first ruling on the bond issue did not go in Longhorn IP’s favor: On August 8, the court declined its request to stay the bond proceedings pending the outcome of its related motion to dismiss.

SK hynix (3:22-cv-03915) has filed a single Northern District of California action against monetization firm Longhorn IP LLC and two of its “portfolio” entities, Hamilcar Barca IP LLC and Trenchant Blade Technologies LLC, seeking declaratory judgments of noninfringement of seven patents. The plaintiff alleges receipt of multiple letters from the plaintiffs, beginning in May 2020, giving rise to jurisdiction over the dispute, by which SK hynix seeks to clear a wide array of products, including image sensors, integrated circuit devices, and memory products, from the Longhorn IP accusations of infringement. This litigation was foreshadowed, at least in part, by a letter attached to an earlier DJ complaint against Longhorn IP, revealing its “intent to license the patent portfolio [of Trenchant] to other companies, including Samsung, Micron, SK hynix, Global Foundries, UMC and SMIC”.

PanOptis Patent Management, LLC; Optis Cellular Technology, LLC; Unwired Planet, LLC; and Unwired Planet International Limited (collectively, PanOptis) have sued Ford (2:22-cv-00133) in the Eastern District of Texas, asserting a group of former Ericsson or Panasonic patents and targeting connected vehicles alleged to communicate according to the 4G/LTE cellular network standard. PanOptis appears to be the latest to join a line of Avanci, LLC licensors taking aim at Ford.

L2 Mobile Technologies LLC, an entity under the control of NPE Longhorn IP LLC, has filed a second lawsuit in its sole litigation campaign, accusing Ford (1:21-cv-01409) of infringement through the provision of automobiles and devices that are complaint with the 3G and/or 4G wireless communication standards. The five patents-in-suit, two of which are new to litigation, are broadly directed to wireless communications; in its complaint, L2 Mobile alleges that ASUSTek and/or Innovative Sonic Limited “declared before [the European Telecommunications Standards Institute] ETSI the Patents in Suit as essential to the 3G wireless communications standard”.