Greenthread, LLC has followed up March 2023 suits against Cirrus Logic, Micron Technology, and Western Digital in the District of Delaware with an April case against Texas Instruments (2:23-cv-00157) in the Eastern District of Texas. A wide array of semiconductor products, ranging from amplifiers to digital signal processors, is targeted with six semiconductor fabrication patents naming G.R. Mohan Rao as their sole inventor, all previously asserted in this campaign. Meanwhile, District Judge Alan D. Albright’s March 30 cancellation of an imminent trial between Vervain, LLC and Micron over a different family of Rao patents, and the reset of trial in that campaign as to Western Digital on the same day, has touched off a bit of a scramble in the Western District of Texas.

Greenthread, LLC has filed cases against Cirrus Logic (1:23-cv-00369), Micron Technology (1:23-cv-00333), and Western Digital (1:23-cv-00326) over the provision of certain semiconductor memory products (i.e., dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and/or flash memory products). Six patents naming G.R. Mohan Rao as their sole inventor are asserted in the new District of Delaware cases; Greenthread has been litigating those same patents in a case originally filed in the Western District of Texas, still active there as to defendants Dell and Sony but from which claims against Intel were transferred to the District of Oregon. After transfer, though, a magistrate judge has adopted much of the work that Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright completed—both before and after transfer—including claim construction. Meanwhile, a trial between Vervain, LLC and Micron over a different family of Rao patents, set to begin before Judge Albright next month, was just canceled.

The Federal Circuit has for the first time interpreted a closely watched decision on venue from the Fifth Circuit, the regional circuit that determines the applicable law governing convenience transfers in Texas patent cases. That October 2022 ruling, In re: Planned Parenthood, appeared to depart from the Federal Circuit’s prior take on issues central to the analysis of such transfer motions, including the location of evidence, the cost of attendance for witnesses, and the district judge’s overarching discretion over such matters. However, the Federal Circuit’s precedential In re: Google opinion, issued on February 1, argues that Planned Parenthood does not undercut its current approach. In Google, the court held that a clear showing that a venue is more convenient takes precedence over the district judge’s discretion. Even more significantly, the Federal Circuit determined that NPEs do not have an interest in getting cases to trial quickly—and that a district judge lacks the discretion to give undue weight to his district’s time to trial. The opinion reversed another transfer denial from Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright, and comes months after Judge Albright began attempting to fill the gap with his own reading of Planned Parenthood.

Texas plaintiff Greenthread, LLC has sued Dell and Intel (6:22-cv-00105) in a single suit, targeting the provision of Intel’s 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th generation of semiconductors (Comet Lake, Tiger Lake, and Alder Lake-series devices), alleged to be incorporated in various Dell laptops (Inspiron, New Inspiron, XPS, New XPS, G15, and Alienware-series products). Greenthread asserts five semiconductor fabrication patents, received from sole named inventor G.R. Mohan Rao, one of the plaintiff’s directors. Texas records indicate that this campaign is backed by a funder relatively new to patent monetization.

Various data and news sources are reporting that the US litigation finance sector will finish this year awash in capital. Meanwhile, there is mounting evidence that a growing number of NPEs are looking to third-party litigation funders to back new and existing campaigns. These investors include familiar players in the litigation funding and IP industries, as well as lesser known firms, a few of which are featured in this article.

Samsung (2:19-cv-00147) has been sued by Greenthread, LLC, a Texas NPE, over a four-patent family generally related to CMOS semiconductor devices with “graded dopant regions”. In January 2019, Greenthread granted a security interest in the patents to Patent Capital Funding 2018 – Series 1A, LLC, an entity formed in Delaware last November, years after Greenthread received the family from sole named inventor G.R. Mohan Rao, whose patents have been asserted in litigation by multiple NPEs. Greenthread accuses Samsung of infringement through the provision of various semiconductor products that allegedly contain “graded dopant regions”.