This summer saw the escalation of a long-running fight between Longhorn IP LLC and Micron, with the latter’s July suit accusing the monetization firm of violating a largely untested Idaho law barring bad-faith patent assertion—seeking both damages from Longhorn IP and asking the court to impose a $15M bond against it. Now, as the defendant pushes forward on a motion to dismiss arguing that the law is unconstitutional, the state of Idaho has intervened in the statute’s defense, arguing that the law is narrowly tailored enough to avoid preemption by federal patent law.

The long-running battle between Micron and Longhorn IP LLC has taken a new turn with the semiconductor company’s suit invoking a largely untested Idaho state law barring “bad faith assertion[s] of patent infringement”. That 2014 statute, in part, allows a court to require the patent owner making such an “assertion” to pay a bond that equals the accused infringer’s likely cost of litigation plus related damages for the patent owner’s violation of the statute. Micron has requested $15M for that bond, triggering a fight in the federal District of Idaho—where the case was moved from state court last month—over the underlying facts, timeliness, and the propriety of the law itself. The first ruling on the bond issue did not go in Longhorn IP’s favor: On August 8, the court declined its request to stay the bond proceedings pending the outcome of its related motion to dismiss.

SK hynix (3:22-cv-03915) has filed a single Northern District of California action against monetization firm Longhorn IP LLC and two of its “portfolio” entities, Hamilcar Barca IP LLC and Trenchant Blade Technologies LLC, seeking declaratory judgments of noninfringement of seven patents. The plaintiff alleges receipt of multiple letters from the plaintiffs, beginning in May 2020, giving rise to jurisdiction over the dispute, by which SK hynix seeks to clear a wide array of products, including image sensors, integrated circuit devices, and memory products, from the Longhorn IP accusations of infringement. This litigation was foreshadowed, at least in part, by a letter attached to an earlier DJ complaint against Longhorn IP, revealing its “intent to license the patent portfolio [of Trenchant] to other companies, including Samsung, Micron, SK hynix, Global Foundries, UMC and SMIC”.