As the deadline for the “substantial completion of fact discovery” in their prior case has passed, and the Northern District of New York considers a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI, as patent owner) and CF Dynamic Advances LLC (a Fortress Investment Group LLC subsidiary, as exclusive licensee) have filed a second suit against Amazon (1:23-cv-00227) in the same district over the same natural language processing patent. The new complaint contains an appendix with an updated list of accused products.

Briefing has completed in a motion to stay filed by Amazon in a Northern District of New York case brought against it by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and CF Dynamic Advances LLC (a Fortress Investment Group LLC subsidiary). Amazon has asked District Judge Brenda K. Sannes to stop the New York proceedings to await the outcome of a Texas state court action filed to resolve a dispute over the ownership of the asserted patent (as well as several others) between Fortress and prior exclusive licensee Dynamic Advances, LLC, an entity affiliated with Erich Spangenberg. The motion follows Amazon’s answer, filed after denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss or transfer, in which Judge Sannes hinged venue on the presence of Amazon Lockers in the New York district—not on the presence of Whole Foods stores.

The fray between Fortress Investment Group LLC and Erich Spangenberg, over the transfer of a single patent currently active in litigation against Amazon, has now migrated from New York to Texas. The patent-at-issue is one among many assigned by Marathon Patent Group, Inc. to Fortress in 2017 after the NPE failed to repay Fortress $15.99M in debt financing. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) developed the patent, and it was the subject of litigation against Apple that ended in a reported $24.9M settlement in 2016.

A fight between Fortress Investment Group LLC and Erich Spangenberg over the transfer of a single patent already in active litigation has broken out, first into federal court and now into New York state court. The patent is one among many relinquished by Marathon Patent Group, Inc. to Fortress last year after the NPE failed to repay Fortress $15.99M in debt financing. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) developed the patent, which a Fortress entity is currently asserting against Amazon; the patent was also the subject of litigation against Apple that ended in a reported $24.9M settlement in 2016. Court filings in connection with the dispute between Fortress and Spangenberg shed light on the millions of dollars at stake in the monetization of patents that Marathon was forced to hand over.