Longhorn Automotive Group LLC launched its litigation campaign—over a portfolio of former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) received from AI-CORE TECHNOLOGIES, LLC—by suing Nissan in the Eastern District of Texas at the end of May 2024. Now, the funded Alpha Alpha Intellectual Partners LLC plaintiff has filed a second suit in the same district, accusing Hyundai (Kia) (2:24-cv-00554) of infringing six patents, four of which overlap with those already in suit. Longhorn Automotive Group targets a range of features—including driver assistance systems, headlight systems, and internal combustion engines—in various Hyundai and Kia-branded automobiles.

With apparent backing from a prominent litigation funder, Longhorn Automotive Group LLC has filed its first lawsuit over patents from the portfolio received from AI-CORE TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, accusing Nissan (2:24-cv-00397) in a new Eastern District of Texas complaint of infringing five of them. The Alpha Alpha Intellectual Partners LLC plaintiff targets the provision of a wide array of automobile products, ranging from driver assistance systems to headlights, with those five patents, which AI-CORE received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) this past February.

In addition to the announced divestiture of a large tranche of VoIP patents from Avaya to Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, March 2024 saw several other operating companies—including DXC Technology, Huawei, and SOLiD—unload patent assets. Several NPE enterprises also moved patents around, internally or to other NPEs, seemingly in preparation for new assertion campaigns.

Following its case against Samsung last month, Truesight Communications LLC—managed by a familiar patent monetization figure—has expanded its sole litigation with a pair of suits against Lenovo (2:24-cv-00031) and TCL (2:24-cv-00032) in the Western District of Texas. The four patents-in-suit are broadly directed to the “storage and display of digital media”, with infringement allegations targeting devices (i.e., smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs) that support features for implementing “content restriction” via the Google Family Link and Disney+ services, streaming content on the Netflix mobile app, navigating “chapters of video content” through the YouTube mobile app, and the incorporation of a UFS 2.1 memory module.

Truesight Communications LLC has filed its first lawsuit, accusing Samsung (2:23-cv-00643) of infringing four former MOD Systems patents described as generally related to “storage and display of digital media”. The accused products include Samsung smartphones, smart televisions, and tablets, Truesight highlighting in its complaint the provision of the Samsung Galaxy S22, on its own and in conjunction with either the Netflix or YouTube mobile app. Neither mobile app provider is named as a defendant in the new Eastern District of Texas complaint. Truesight is managed by a familiar patent monetization figure, plaintiffs associated with whom have sued Samsung three times before—but this time, there appears to be litigation funding involved.

Over the past month, Elite Gaming Tech, LLC has resuscitated the larger of its two litigation campaigns, suing Inventec (2:23-cv-00186), Pegatron (2:23-cv-00189), Ricoh (2:23-cv-00190), and Wistron (2:23-cv-00191) in April and Wiwynn (2:23-cv-00232) just this past week: Inventec, over the provision of computing products that include hard disk drives, solid-state hybrid drives, and dual-drive hybrid systems manufactured by Western Digital or Hitachi Global Storage Technologies; and for the remaining defendants, over computing products that include hard disk drives manufactured by one of the same two providers. This Alpha Alpha Intellectual Partners LLC campaign, begun in February 2020, had been dormant for roughly a year.

In its second wave of litigation, Lonestar Biometrics LLC asserts the same three patents—described as generally related to “technology involving scanning and image capturing through a display screen in mobile and handheld devices”—this time against ASUSTek (2:23-cv-00015) and Lenovo (2:23-cv-00014). Both complaints were also filed in the Eastern District of Texas. Little has happened in the plaintiff’s prior case against TCL, while litigation against the other three defendants, OnePlus, Samsung, and ZTE, has either ended or is about to end. Fingerprint scanning by mobile devices remains the focus of this campaign.

Omnislash Digital LLC, an entity with familiar connections in patent monetization, has moved separate batches of patents that it picked up from Allied Security Trust (AST) late last year to Haptic Synergy LLC and Modena Navigation LLC. The mid-October assignments suggest that litigation may be coming from each of the recipients, with Haptic Synergy’s new portfolio generally relating to touch sensitive displays; Modena Navigation’s, to tracking and displaying navigation information.

Lonestar Biometrics LLC has filed its first litigation, suing OnePlus (2:22-cv-00239), Samsung (2:22-cv-00240), TCL (2:22-cv-00241), and ZTE (2:22-cv-00242) over the provision of smartphones “with optical fingerprint scanners embedded beneath the display screen”, calling out the OnePlus 10 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, TCL 20 Pro, and ZTE Axon 30 Ultra, respectively. The plaintiff identifies as its corporate parent an entity familiar to patent monetization; however, the source of the three asserted patents suggests that the new Lonestar Biometrics campaign marks a bit of a departure for that corporate parent.

Panasonic (2:22-cv-00183) is the latest defendant to be added to the litigation campaign that NorthStar Systems LLC launched in September 2020 with a suit against Macy’s. In its latest complaint, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, the NPE targets the provision of products for asset tracking and supply chain management, as well as ruggedized laptops with asset tracking systems, digital marketing programs, and personalized advertisement technology.