The late 2019 peel off by Intellectual Ventures, LLC (IV) of more than 3,500 US assets to a batch of Georgia NPEs has ousted Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC from its long-held position as the top NPE assignee of IV divestitures. Meanwhile, as discussed in RPX’s Q1 in Review blog post, throughout the first quarter, NPEs continued filing new litigation asserting patents received from IV, hitting a broad range of targets, including over patents developed by major operating companies.

Throughout the last few years, prolific inventor and patent plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild has consistently remained one of the top filers of NPE litigation. 2019 was no different. Last year saw over 160 defendants added to campaigns launched by plaintiffs associated with Rothschild, the campaigns spanning a wide range of technologies and now involving suits filed (and typically litigated in file-and-settle fashion) in myriad districts. A quick glance at the plaintiff’s early 2020 filings suggest that this year will see more of the same.

The second of two QR (Quick Response) Code campaigns litigated by frequent plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild has snagged five more defendants in the early days of 2019. Suits against Delta Electronics (3:19-cv-00067), Driscoll’s (5:19-cv-00069), Hyland’s (2:19-cv-00079), Iconix Ecom (1:19-cv-00118), and TP-Link (8:19-cv-00019) brought the number of defendants hit by Coding Technologies, LLC above 80. As throughout the campaign, the NPE asserts in these new complaints a single patent generally related to information retrieval using a barcode. The number of defendants in the Coding Technologies campaign has yet to overtake the number tagged in Rothschild’s earlier QR code campaign, litigated by affiliates RFID Technology Innovations, LLC and Symbology Innovations, LLC, which neared 135 with the addition of three defendants (Converse, Pilot Corporation of America, and Vital Farms) this past November.

In March 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw petitions for inter partes review (IPR) filed in a variety of notable campaigns, including those waged by publicly traded Quarterhill Inc.; privately held XR Communications, LLC; and inventor Leigh M. Rothschild. The Board also instituted trial throughout March in campaigns brought by Oyster Optics, LLC and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited. In addition, the PTAB granted in March a motion to amend in two IPRs against prolific plaintiff Realtime Data, LLC, also issuing final decisions involving patents asserted by Uniloc; Papst Licensing GmbH & Company Kg; Evolved Wireless LLC; Game and Technology Co., Ltd; and TQ Delta LLC.

In just two months, the number of defendants in the second of named inventor and frequent plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild’s QR (Quick Response) Code campaign has swollen close to 50. Last week, the plaintiff, Coding Technologies, LLC, filed ten new complaints, one each against Acuity Brands, AstraZeneca, Blackboard, Calix, Chevron, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Cypress Semiconductor, DuPont, Digi International, and ITT Manufacturing Enterprises. The defendants are accused of infringing a patent generally related to providing content from a server in response to a photographic image taken of a “code pattern”.

Earlier this year, Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) signaled a move away from the purchase of additional patents, instead refocusing on the monetization of existing assets. A review of IV’s patent assignments over the last 12 months confirms that shift, as do IV’s recent litigation activities, which include an automotive campaign begun in March (its first new campaign since 2015). While there has been much speculation about the effect that IV’s decision to stop buying patents may have on the patent marketplace, just as interesting is what will come of its patent divestitures. RPX has observed the transfer of patent portfolios from IV to multiple other NPEs over the past year, including four of the top ten filers (by defendant count) in 2017: IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal); Leigh M. Rothschild; Monument Patent Holdings, LLC; and Equitable IP Corporation. Each has initiated its own litigation campaigns asserting patents acquired from IV, beginning with Equitable IP back in October 2016, and including three launched by IPVal during the first half of this October alone.

Display Technologies, LLC, one of the numerous NPEs controlled by inventor Leigh M. Rothschild, has filed a new round of cases in its ongoing litigation campaign. The plaintiff’s latest two lawsuits accuse Gibson Brands (Gibson Innovations) (1:17-cv-01426) and Pioneer (1:17-cv-01427) of infringement through the provision of various Bluetooth audio devices. Both are alleged to infringe through the provision of portable Bluetooth speakers, with Philips also alleged to infringe through Bluetooth-enabled home audio devices such as stereos, and Pioneer through Bluetooth-capable home theater systems. These two complaints, filed in Delaware, are the first that Display Technologies has filed outside of the Eastern District of Texas, and the first since its case against HTC was transferred from the latter district in June due to the US Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland.

Leigh M. Rothschild currently has two ongoing litigation campaigns hitting companies over their use of QR (Quick Response) Codes; one begun in February 2015 by Symbology Innovations, LLC, which has since been taken over by another Rothschild-controlled plaintiff, RFID Technology Innovations, LLC, and has hit nearly 100 companies to date; and one started in August, run by Coding Technologies, LLC. This past week, Coding Technologies added 20 new defendants to its campaign, including Arthrex, Delta Airlines, Flipboard, HSN, IBM, Mercedes-Benz, MetLife, and Philip Morris International, bringing its total defendant count to 38 as of the publication date of this report. As in the NPE’s previous complaints, the defendants are accused of infringing a patent generally related to providing content from a server in response to a photographic image taken of a “code pattern”; additionally, two of the newest defendants (FCB Financial Holdings and WZ Franchise) are also accused of infringing a second, related patent. The new lawsuits also continue Rothschild’s recent trend of asserting patents received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV).

Coding Technologies, LLC, a Texas NPE formed by prolific inventor and frequent patent plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild, has filed suit over one of the seven patents that RPX reported in May had been transferred to the new entity from an Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) affiliate. The patent asserted generally relates to providing content from a server in response to a photographic image taken of a “code pattern”. Coding Technologies accuses 17 defendants—American Airlines, Apache, BNSF Railway, Ben E. Keith Company, Cabot Oil & Gas, Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Halliburton, Huntsman, Keller Williams Realty, Mary Kay, MRC Global, Omni Hotels, Powell Industries, Schlumberger Technology, Spectra Energy, and Stewart & Stevenson LLC—of infringement through their delivery of a web page after a user has snapped a picture of a QR code with a “user terminal” (i.e. a smartphone). Nine of the complaints were filed in the Eastern District of Texas; the other seven, in the Southern District.

RPX took note, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the first half of May, of the transfer of patents to frequent plaintiffs Leigh M. Rothschild and IP Valuation Partners (both of which received patents from Intellectual Ventures LLC) and BlackBird Tech LLC. RPX also took note of transfers of patents from multiple assignors to an NPE controlled by patent attorney Brian Yates—a California attorney revealed, by a January sanctions ruling in Texas, as controlling more entities than previously thought. Also among the noted transactions are outbound assignments by Panasonic, Pantech, and ZTE, and a transfer from Allied Security Trust’s Industry Patent Purchase Program involving former IBM and Nokia patents.