Plaintiff Torus Ventures LLC seems determined to find an answer, while this past Friday one of them, Dallas Capital Bank, filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings in the case that Torus Ventures brought against it last July. In it, Dallas Capital Bank argues that the claims of the sole asserted patent in this campaign is patent-ineligibly drawn, under Alice, to the abstract idea of “encrypting data that has already been encrypted”. So far in February 2025, Torus Ventures has asserted the same patent in more that 50 additional Eastern District of Texas complaints, bringing the total filed there to well above 100, a good number, but not all, of them against financial institutions.

This fall, Torus Ventures LLC has fired off a barrage of new cases, hitting Directors Investment (Funeral Directors Life Insurance), EP Loya Group (Fred Loya Insurance Agency), First Texas National Bank, Fort Worth Urban Air, Germania General Agency, Golden Bank National, Gringo’s Mexican Kitchen No. 1, Globe Life, Guaranty Bank & Trust, Gulf States Financial Services, Higginbotham Insurance Group, Hotchkiss Insurance Agency, Incline Insurance Group, Insurance Agents Alliance of Texas, Insurvia (La Familia Agency), Interflex Payments, Invited Foundation, Iscential, Kleberg Bank, Landry’s Payroll, Legend Bank, Liberty Life Group Trust (Liberty Bankers Life Insurance), Lone Star National Bank, State Farm (Gainsco Auto Insurance Agency), and Texas National Holdings (First National Title Insurance), all in the Eastern District of Texas. Separate suits from the last Torus Ventures wave, filed in July in the same district—against Amarillo National Bank, American Bank Holding, American Financial & Automotive Services, Azuma Leasing, Brightline Dealer Advisors, Extraco, First National Bank of Sonora, and Industry Bancshares (First National Bank of Bellville)—have since been transferred elsewhere in Texas, the case against Brightline Dealer Advisors to the Northern District, where the plaintiff has yet to file a certified list of all parties financially interested in the outcome of the suit.

When the litigation campaign of Torus Ventures LLC paused in September 2022, seven defendants had been sued. As of last Friday, though, that number has nearly quintupled, Torus having filed separate Eastern District of Texas complaints against A-Max Auto Insurance Agencies (2:24-cv-00498), AffordaCare Insurance Agency (2:24-cv-00501), AFNB Holdings (American First National Bank) (2:24-cv-00530), Agentra Solutions (2:24-cv-00502), Agility Bank National Association (2:24-cv-00503), Al Boenker Insurance Agency (2:24-cv-00508), AI United (2:24-cv-00506), Aimbridge Hospitality (2:24-cv-00507), Allcat Claims Service (2:24-cv-00509), Amarillo National Bank (2:24-cv-00513), American Bank Holding (2:24-cv-00514), American Contractors Insurance Group (2:24-cv-00516), Anco Insurance Managers (2:24-cv-00519), Association Member Benefits Advisors (2:24-cv-00520), Assurant (American Financial & Automotive Services) (2:24-cv-00517), Austin Bank Texas National Association (2:24-cv-00521), Aspen Insurance Holdings (AgriLogic Consulting) (2:24-cv-00505), Automobile Club of Southern California (AAA Texas) (2:24-cv-00499), Azuma Leasing (2:24-cv-00522), Behringer Harvard Real Estate Services (2:24-cv-00526), Boon-Chapman Benefit Administrators (2:24-cv-00527), Brady, Chapman, Holland & Associates (2:24-cv-00528), Brightline Dealer Advisors (2:24-cv-00529), H.U. Group Holdings (Baylor Miraca Genetics Laboratories) (2:24-cv-00523), and Spend Life Wisely (American National Bank of Texas) (2:24-cv-00518). Each defendant is targeted with a single patent over its website’s support of the TLS 1.3 security protocol.

Delaware NPE Torus Ventures LLC has launched its first litigation, suing Acer (6:21-cv-00857), Microchip Technology (6:21-cv-00856), Oracle (6:21-cv-00854), Panasonic (6:21-cv-00853), and STMicro (6:21-cv-00858) over the provision of products (i.e., laptops, cryptoprocessors, operating systems, rugged laptops, and security integrated circuits, respectively) that support the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) 2.0 security specification. The plaintiff appears to be connected to a set of NPEs that has been growing steadily over the past several years.