In late July, AGIS Holdings Inc. plaintiff AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD) separately sued AT&T (AT&T Mobility), GPSWOX and UAB Mr Digital, L3 Harris Technologies, Motorola Solutions, and RTX (Raytheon Technologies), all in the Eastern District of Texas. Now, ASD has continued this wave of new litigation, adding complaints filed in the same district against Acer (2:24-cv-00660), Dell (2:24-cv-00662), HP and HP Enterprise (HPE) (2:24-cv-00663, sued in a single complaint), and Lenovo (2:24-cv-00666). The five patents-in-suit are familiar; they are among now 13 that have been asserted across the decade that this campaign has been up and running.

AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD), a plaintiff associated with AGIS Holdings Inc., has added suits against AT&T (AT&T Mobility) (2:24-cv-00602), GPSWOX and UAB Mr Digital (2:24-cv-00599), L3 Harris Technologies (2:24-cv-00600), Motorola Solutions (2:24-cv-00601), and RTX (Raytheon Technologies) (2:24-cv-00598), all in the Eastern District of Texas. The asserted patents are broadly directed to various aspects of mobile messaging and location sharing. The defendants are targeted over a wide array of products, ranging from GPS tracking systems to military tactical solutions, with features such as forming groups for controlling and tracking lost or stolen devices, enabling communications (e.g., emails, SMS messages, and voice calls) between users, and displaying map information with symbols corresponding to “users, entities, and locations” at issue.

Alphabet (Google) (3:23-cv-03624) has filed an action in the Northern District of California against AGIS Holdings Inc. and its subsidiaries Advanced Ground Information Systems, Inc. (AGIS) and AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD), seeking declaratory judgments of invalidity, noninfringement, and unenforceability of a single patent generally related to a “forced message alert software application program” which requires participants to respond after receiving an alert. Google alleges that AGIS Holdings—through its two controlled plaintiffs—has asserted the patent against its Find My Device application in multiple cases, two against Google itself as well as several against others (e.g., HTC, Huawei, LG Electronics (LGE), and ZTE).

AGIS Holdings Inc. subsidiary AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD) has filed a third complaint against Alphabet (Google) (6:23-cv-00160) in the campaign that AGIS Holdings—through two controlled plaintiffs—has been litigating since May 2014, this time in the Western District of Texas. The asserted patent generally relates to a “forced message alert software application program” that requires participants to respond after receiving an alert, with Google accused of infringement over the support for location tracking and lost/stolen device management services in its various hardware and software products.

AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD) and Advanced Ground Information Systems, Inc. (AGIS), subsidiaries of AGIS Holdings Inc., have filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC), naming as proposed respondents Alphabet (Google), ASUSTek, BLU Products, Caterpillar, HMD Global, Kyocera, Lenovo (Motorola Mobility), OnePlus Technology, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, TCL, and Xiaomi (337-TA-3655). The ITC complaint targets with five patents the provision of “certain location-sharing systems, related software, components thereof, and products containing same”, including “mobile devices containing location-sharing software, mobile phones and tablets containing location-sharing software, notebook and laptop computers containing location-sharing software, and associated components thereof”. Parallel district court cases followed the ITC filing by a couple of days, one against each of these proposed respondents, the set rounded out by suits previously filed and well underway against Google and Samsung.  

Going into the summer, AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD), a subsidiary of AGIS Holdings Inc., had on its calendar multiple trials in the Eastern District of Texas—one against Samsung and Alphabet (Waze) (scheduled for early June) and one against Alphabet (Google) (in August). That all changed in May, when the Federal Circuit ordered District Judge Rodney Gilstrap to transfer ASD’s cases against the trio to the Northern District of California. Now, ASD has sued Samsung a second time (2:22-cv-00263), again in the Eastern District of Texas, and again asserting the same pair of patents—plus two more—directed to various aspects of messaging between users of mobile devices and the sharing of their location.

AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD), a subsidiary of AGIS Holdings Inc., has sued Verizon (2:22-cv-00185) in the Eastern District of Texas over four patents generally related to messaging and location sharing on cellular communication systems. The defendant is accused of infringement through the provision of a wide array of products and services, ranging from location tracking services to first responder solutions. At issue are features for forming or joining networks and groups, including groups of users’ own devices for remote tracking and monitoring; location sharing and related mapping features; sending text, voice, and multimedia communications; and making voice calls. Since launching its sole litigation campaign in May 2014, AGIS Holdings, through its controlled entities, has sued more than ten defendants over the provision of location sharing, mobile communications, and device tracking features in various hardware and software products.

In conjunction with a motion to dismiss its January 2021 district court case for improper venue, Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp (3:21-cv-03076) has filed a Northern District of California complaint against AGIS Holdings Inc. subsidiary AGIS Software Development LLC (ASD), seeking declaratory judgments of noninfringement for six cellular communications patents through its provision of the WhatsApp Messenger platform. Since launching its sole litigation campaign in May 2014, AGIS Holdings, through its controlled entities, has sued more than ten defendants over various hardware and software products, with features such as location sharing, mobile communications, and lost device tracking at issue.

Last week, District Judge Rodney Gilstrap stayed a set of Eastern District of Texas cases filed in November 2019 by AGIS Software Development LLC against Alphabet (Google, Waze Mobile) and Samsung. The court did so even though the stay “comes late in the progression of this case—with discovery complete, pretrial briefing submitted, and jury selection pending”. Judge Gilstrap ruled that because all the asserted claims of the six patents-in-suit, generally related to mobile messaging, are now subject to granted ex parte reexaminations, the prejudice to the plaintiff inherent in any delay, the maturity of the litigation notwithstanding, “is outweighed by the benefit of such parallel review”. Notably, Google and Samsung filed the requests for ex parte reexam of the last two patents only after the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) exercised discretion under “the NHK-Fintiv rule” to deny institution of inter partes review (IPR)—based on petitions asserting the exact same grounds.

As the last of the suits in its June 2017 wave ends, AGIS Software Development LLC has filed another, accusing Alphabet (Google, Waze Mobile) (2:19-cv-00361, 2:19-cv-00359) and Samsung (2:19-cv-00362) of infringing various members of a family of patents generally related to messaging on mobile devices. The plaintiff appears as committed as ever to litigating in Texas, where it was formed in June 2017, again filing in the Eastern District there. AGIS Software immediately dismissed its first-wave suit against ZTE in the Eastern District of Texas after District Judge Rodney Gilstrap ordered the case transferred to the Northern District of California for improper venue in Texas.