Last month’s review of notable patent assignments considered the movement of assets from Avaya to Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC; from Level 3 Communications to Sandpiper CDN, LLC; from Seiko Epson to IPValue’s 138 East LCD Advancements Ltd. and Lumitek Display Technology Ltd.; from Transaction Security to a “BioCrypt Access”; from Fortress Investment Group LLC’s KIP Prod P1 LP to Prodea Automation LLC; from EMM Patents Ltd. to Empire IP LLC; from Siemens and Abdelsalam Helal to Rokiot USA LLC; and from Proxicom Wireless, LLC to Secure Communication Technologies, LLC. While a couple of these entities again feature prominently, this month’s review extends well beyond them to cover the movement of patents away from other operating companies, as well as within several repeat monetization players.

Late last month, two entities associated with Brian Yates—who oversaw NPEs filing more than 500 patent infringement suits in 2015-2017, and who now has ongoing enforcement efforts in China—assigned patent portfolios to an apparent Delaware NPE controlled by an experienced licensing professional. The transacted portfolios include two patents asserted in a Yates campaign that hit McAfee, ForeScout Technologies, Fortinet (Bradford Networks) and Pulse Secure before ending a mere six months after launch.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw activity in August 2018 involving a variety of frequent litigants. This included petitions for inter partes review (IPR) filed against two NPEs controlled by Fortress Investment Group LLC, INVT SPE LLC and Uniloc 2017 LLC, the latter of which has in recent months cofiled a barrage of lawsuits with subsidiaries of Australian NPE Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited (Uniloc). The PTAB also instituted trial in August for IPRs against Uniloc 2017 and some of its campaign coplaintiffs, and in an IPR against an NPE controlled by patent attorney Brian Yates, whose US litigation has waned as he pursues a new patent licensing initiative through his company iPEL, Inc. Finally, the PTAB issued final decisions in August for IPRs against Uniloc, Empire IP LLC, and Quarterhill Inc.

A new NPE affiliated with California attorney Brian Yates, Network Security Technologies, LLC,  has begun a new litigation campaign, filing separate lawsuits against Bradford Networks (1:17-cv-01487), ForeScout Technologies (1:17-cv-01488), McAfee (1:17-cv-01489), and Pulse Secure (1:17-cv-01490). Each complaint asserts two patents from a family of five generally related to protecting a computer network, with the defendants accused of infringement through provision of network security products, including Bradford’s Network Sentry, ForeScout’s CounterACT, Pulse Secure’s Policy Secure, and McAfee’s Network Access Control Solution. The NPE pleads that each defendant allegedly adopted a standard promulgated by the Trusted Network Connect Work Group of the Trusted Computing Group.

RPX noted among the assignment records released by the USPTO during the second week of October transfers to affiliates of IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal) and IP Bridge, Inc. Also during the week, a late September assignment between two NPEs controlled by patent attorney Brian Yates was recorded, as well as a 2016 transfer to Unwired Planet International Ltd.