November 2023 saw Musicqubed Innovations, LLC begin its first litigation over a portfolio of former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents. The Ascend Innovation Management, LLC plaintiff started the month by suing Nexstar Media and The CW Network (2:23-cv-00514) and ended it by hitting Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (CSSE) (Redbox Automated Retail) (2:23-cv-00514), both in the Eastern District of Texas and each over its respective mobile app and website. Multiple features are in the crosshairs, including those related to casting media content (e.g., over Chromecast); the use of “content protection and encryption functions”; certain web user interface elements; offline media viewing; media content rental and purchase; and live TV services. While MusicQubed received six of the eight asserted patents from IV, two of them came through an earlier deal, directly from the source of those patents.

An entity created by two Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) alums has received more than 880 US patent assets from IV to date, and as reported by RPX last month, subsets of those patents have been on the move since at least June of this year. A review of USPTO assignment records confirms that even more transfers involving IV divestitures took place over the last few weeks, further spreading patents among a network of Texas NPEs.