Plaintiffs tied to monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited have launched multiple litigation campaigns with cases most often filed in the Western District of Texas. A frequent defendant, Apple, has responded with repeated motions to transfer, for convenience, to the Northern District of California, with various results: several remain in limbo before District Judge Alan D. Albright after the Federal Circuit issued a writ of mandamus requiring that the transfer motions be adjudicated before the end of discovery; another was stricken in its entirety as a discovery sanction; and other such motions have been granted—with a bit of an asterisk, that is, over extensive criticism of a repeat venue declarant. Most recently, Judge Albright has outright denied an Apple motion to transfer in one Atlantic IP-tied suit, and, in an order newly made public, transferred another of those cases—but not to the Northern District of California, as Apple had requested.

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.

So far this year, two plaintiffs associated with Dublin-based Atlantic IP Services Limited, Speir Technologies Limited and Togail Technologies Limited, have filed suit against TCL (together with multiple subsidiaries, including TCT Mobile) (2:23-cv-00027, 2:23-cv-00039) in the Eastern District of Texas. Both plaintiffs assert wireless communications patents, albeit from different sources, targeting the provision of mobile devices (including smartphones and tablets) that support 5G networking capabilities. If past patterns hold, a suit against TCL from fellow Atlantic IP plaintiff Lionra Technologies Limited could follow in the weeks ahead.

Last November, Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright imposed stays in three cases filed against Apple, pending his resolution of the defendant’s trio of motions for convenience transfers to the Northern District of California. Judge Albright did so after the Federal Circuit granted Apple’s petitions for writs of mandamus, ordering the lower court to vacate scheduling orders that had moved consideration of those motions to transfer until after the close of full fact discovery. Judge Albright has yet to weigh in on the motions to transfer the stayed cases, but he has resolved a motion filed by Apple in another suit, handing down an order that might provide clues about the court’s posture with respect to the pending motions.

Speir Technologies Limited has filed the fourth case of its sole litigation campaign in a fourth federal district, suing Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) (1:22-cv-02101) in the Northern District of Illinois. Prior defendants in the campaign include Samsung, sued in December 2021 in the Eastern District of Texas; Apple, in January in the Western District of Texas; and Alphabet (Google), in March in the Southern District of California. Asserted in the newest complaint is the one patent among the four-in-campaign at issue across all four cases, the Atlantic IP Services Limited plaintiff aiming it at each defendant’s provision of 5G mobile devices.

Speir Technologies Limited, a plaintiff associated with monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited, has added a Southern District of California suit against Alphabet (Google) (3:22-cv-00371) to the campaign over former L3Harris patents that it began late last year in Eastern District of Texas against Samsung and then expanded early this year against Apple. In the new complaint, Speir targets smartphones that support 5G networking capabilities, including certain Pixel-series devices, with one of the patents already in suit, the NPE also filing an amended complaint in the Apple case to move the number of patents asserted there from two to four.

At the end of last year, Speir Technologies Limited, a plaintiff associated with Dublin-based monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited, filed its first US litigation, suing Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas over three wireless communications patents recently received from L3Harris. Now, the Irish NPE has hit Apple (6:22-cv-00077) with a Western District of Texas complaint asserting two of those three patents against the provision of mobile devices (including certain iPhones, iPads, and AirTags) that support 5G or UWB (ultra-wideband) functionalities.

Speir Technologies Limited, a plaintiff associated with Dublin-based monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited, has filed its first US litigation, suing Samsung (2:21-cv-00474) over three wireless communications patents received from L3Harris this past September. The accused products include certain mobile devices with either 5G or UWB (ultra-wideband) functionality. The case represents another front in the widening litigation between Atlantic IP entities and Samsung.

In December, RPX noted an assignment directly from Siemens to an Irish NPE associated with the monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited. Since then, another transfer of Siemens patents to the same assignee has appeared among USPTO records—this one having passed through Marathon Patent Group, Inc. and Fortress Investment Group LLC before landing in Atlantic IP’s hands.

Last month, RPX flagged the movement of patents from L3Harris to multiple Irish NPEs associated with the monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited. Now, another divestiture from L3Harris to Atlantic IP has appeared among USPTO records, as well as a recent assignment from Siemens.