Inventor-controlled DiStefano Patent Trust III, LLC (DPT III) has added a case against Microsoft (LinkedIn) (1:17-cv-01798) to the campaign that it began this past March with separate suits filed against Foursquare Labs, TripAdvisor, and Yelp. Each of those cases saw dismissals within months and before any defendant answered, or otherwise responded to the complaint against it. In its new case, DPT III asserts a single patent, broadly concerning the use of reciprocal links on separate web pages, from the same family as the two patents asserted against the prior defendants. The NPE targets LinkedIn’s system of “reciprocal linking arrangements”—i.e., connecting users’ pages through invitation.

Inventor-controlled DiStefano Patent Trust III, LLC (DPT III) has initiated its first litigation campaign, filing three suits, one each against Foursquare Labs (1:17-cv-00255), TripAdvisor (1:17-cv-00256), and Yelp (1:17-cv-00257). The complaints assert two patents (8,335,713; 8,996,398), from a twelve-member family, generally related to website implementation systems and methods that insert reciprocal links on separate constructed web pages. DPT III accused the defendants of infringement through the systems they offer for clients to develop customized web pages on the defendants’ sites.