Roughly one week after suing Apple, Broadcom, and Qualcomm in a Western District of Texas complaint and Lenovo (Motorola Mobile Communications), OnePlus, and TSMC in an Eastern District of Texas complaint, IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue) subsidiaries Longitude Licensing Limited and Marlin Semiconductor Limited (f/k/a Sandyford Semiconductor Limited) have filed a complaint before the International Trade Commission (ITC) (337-TA-3809), naming those six defendants as proposed respondents. At issue are the same five semiconductor fabrication patents, with the defendants targeted over non-x86 semiconductor devices (defined as devices “other than those which are made by or for” AMD and Intel), including semiconductor wafers or semiconductor dies manufactured outside the United States using TSMC’s 7 nm and smaller process nodes, as well as products containing such semiconductor devices—including circuit boards, integrated circuits, “network units”, personal computers, smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets.

IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue) subsidiaries Longitude Licensing Limited and Marlin Semiconductor Limited (f/k/a Sandyford Semiconductor Limited) have begun litigating a portfolio of former United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) patents with a pair of complaints: the first, against Apple, Broadcom, and Qualcomm (1:25-cv-00215) in the Western District of Texas; and the second, against Lenovo (Motorola Mobile Communication), OnePlus, and TSMC (2:25-cv-00171) in the Eastern District of Texas. The five patents-in-suit are broadly directed to various aspects of semiconductor fabrication. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision and/or incorporation of semiconductor devices fabricated using “any of TSMC’s 16nm and smaller process nodes”, as well as “downstream products” (e.g., desktop computers, smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, and wearables) that incorporate such semiconductor devices.

In June 2021, Marlin Semiconductor Limited, identified as one of the portfolios of monetization firm IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue), received over 480 US patents from United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC). Earlier this month, according to USPTO assignment records made public, an additional batch of patents followed the same path. While IPValue has yet to litigate its Marlin portfolio in the US, it has sued over patents from several of its other portfolios—one of which led, just last week, to the invalidation of several, but not all, of the patents-in-suit under Alice and another of which has spawned accusations of an “untoward and actionable” provision in a “hidden” license agreement.

According to USPTO records, an Irish NPE received over 480 US patents from United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) in June of this year. Irish corporate records reflect ties between the NPE assignee and the monetization firm IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue), which has over the years acquired thousands of patent assets directly from operating companies—including more than 1,200 assets recently received from the display business unit of Mitsubishi Electric.