Having settled pre-2021 litigation brought against each of Alphabet (Google), Apple, Samsung, and ZTE, Seven Networks LLC has this year sued LG Electronics (LGE), in March in the Eastern District of Texas, and now Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) (3:21-cv-01036), in the Northern District of Texas. Various smartphones and tablets are targeted in Seven’s most recent case, with nine patents that overlap with the eight asserted against LGE.

Since late 2019, Apple and Intel have pursued claims against Fortress Investment Group LLC and a variety of affiliated NPEs, arguing in part that they have violated antitrust and unfair competition laws by aggregating and asserting a “massive but obscured” patent portfolio in order to charge supracompetitive royalty rates. The plaintiffs have now filed a second amended complaint (SAC) in that case, addressing certain pleading deficiencies flagged earlier this year by Northern District of California Judge Edward Chen but also adding a variety of additional facts providing context for the defendants’ alleged anticompetitive “scheme”. Perhaps the most significant newly disclosed information pertains to the 2018 deal in which Fortress acquired the assets and monetization business of Australian NPE Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited—including key financial terms that Fortress and Uniloc had previously fought to keep under seal in other litigation.

Seven Networks LLC’s campaign respite, triggered by a December 2020 settlement with Apple, has proven brief, as last week litigation resumed, the plaintiff accusing LG Electronics (LGE) (2:21-cv-00088) of infringing eight patents in a new Eastern District of Texas complaint. Various LGE smartphones and tablets are targeted, with the new case initially assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Judge Gilstrap presided over the Apple case, as well as prior litigation against Alphabet (Google), Samsung, and ZTE, the last only briefly, before it was transferred to District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn of the Northern District of Texas. Each of those previous suits also ended in apparent settlement.

The Federal Circuit recently resolved a long-simmering district court split over a controversial venue rule in In re: Google, rejecting a prior decision that the presence of certain Google servers in an ISP data center each qualified as a “regular and established place of business”. Rather, the appeals court held that the “regular, physical presence of an employee or other agent of the defendant conducting the defendant’s business” is required “at the alleged ‘place of business’”—though it clarified that it was not deciding whether a machine could serve as an agent, nor the related question of whether a machine can accept service. NPE Personalized Media Communications, LLC (PMC) has since seized on this language, asserting in another campaign that similarly located Google servers qualify as agents under the Federal Circuit’s holding. Now, both Google and campaign codefendant Netflix have argued to the contrary, countering that machines presently lack the capacity to “consent” to act on behalf of a principal.

The US Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in TC Heartland significantly changed the distribution of patent suits through its ruling that a corporation “resides” for venue purposes in its state of incorporation. However, tension remained over the other, unaffected prong of the patent venue statute, under which venue is proper in part where a defendant “has a regular and established place of business”. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas has since pushed an expansive reading of that prong, holding in 2018 (in Seven Networks v. Google) that certain Google servers maintained in an ISP data center were enough to establish venue. A subsequent decision with the same rationale has now been rejected by the Federal Circuit, which on February 13 held in In re: Google (2019-0126) that the “regular, physical presence of an employee or other agent of the defendant conducting the defendant’s business” is required “at the alleged ‘place of business’”. This decision is not the first in which the Federal Circuit has rebuffed an attempt by Judge Gilstrap to push a broad interpretation of that statutory prong.

Following the withdrawal of its October suit against Fortress Investment Group LLC, Intel has filed a second antitrust case against Fortress, this time joining Apple as a coplaintiff and targeting a wider set of defendants—including, among others, Inventergy Global, Inc.; IXI IP, LLC; and two subsidiaries of Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited. Building on Intel’s original complaint (in-depth coverage of which is available here), the new suit alleges that Fortress reached agreements with various parties that have resulted in inflated royalties, increased prices, and reduced innovation and quality for electronic devices.

Following dismissals in cases against Alphabet (Google) and Samsung, Fortress Investment Group LLC affiliate Seven Networks LLC has added an Eastern District of Texas case against Apple (2:19-cv-00115) to the litigation campaign that it began in May 2017. Sixteen patents are asserted in the new complaint, each with original development work done by Seven Networks Inc. (f/k/a Leap Corporation), a mobile email company that converted to the current Fortress LLC in July 2015. A wide range of Apple products and services are targeted, in various overlapping groups across the allegations of infringement of the 16 patents-in-suit.

The US Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland caused a dramatic realignment in patent venue through its holding that a corporation “resides” for venue purposes in its state of incorporation. However, while TC Heartland provided some much-needed clarity as to that first prong of the patent venue statute (28 USC Section 1400(b)), courts have split as to the statute’s second prong, which provides that venue is proper where a defendant “has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business”. One such ruling applying that prong, handed down last July by District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, has highlighted the tension in this area of venue law. In that order, issued in a case that Fortress Investment Group LLC affiliate Seven Networks LLC brought against Google, Judge Gilstrap denied the defendant’s venue challenge, holding that certain Google servers maintained within third-party facilities in the Eastern District of Texas constituted a “regular and established place of business”. On February 5, the full Federal Circuit declined to revisit that decision for a second time, following its October denial of Google’s petition for mandamus review—once again prompting a sharp rebuke from dissenting Circuit Judge Jimmie Reyna (2018-0152).

Seven Networks LLC, an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC, has refreshed its sole active litigation campaign with a pair of new lawsuits against existing defendants Alphabet (Google) (2:18-cv-00477) and Samsung (2:18-cv-00474), asserting six patents not previously seen in litigation. The NPE accuses the companies of infringement through the provision of certain models of the Google Pixel smartphone and certain Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets. At issue are the devices’ features designed to maintain a network connection; manage apps and processes differently when a device is in use versus idle; enter a power save mode when the device has been idle for a period of time; disable certain network connections when the device is idle; and allow the user to manually enter a power save mode. These new complaints come on the heels of a recent, split Federal Circuit opinion that denied Google’s improper venue challenge in another Seven Networks lawsuit.

Since the US Supreme Court issued its May 2017 decision in TC Heartland, holding that a corporate defendant “resides” for venue purposes only in its state of incorporation, patent litigation has dispersed from its prior epicenter in the Eastern District of Texas. While some defendants have since successfully challenged venue in that district on corporate residence grounds (the first prong of the patent venue statute, 35 USC Section 1400(b)), others have had to litigate the second prong of the statute not addressed in TC Heartland, under which suits can be brought where a defendant “has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business”. One such defendant is Google, which contested venue based on that second prong in litigation brought by Seven Networks LLC, an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC. On October 29, a split Federal Circuit declined on mandamus to overturn District Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s July denial of that motion.