Three transfers of US patents recently recorded with the USPTO and made public—one from an optoelectronics company to an entity in a growing family of funded plaintiffs, one from an individual inventor who ended a litigation campaign last September, and one of former NEC assets passing through a Singaporean entity to a potential Delaware plaintiff—all bear watching over the coming months.

Last September, individual named inventor Seungman Kim sued Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas, asserting seven patents generally related to bypassing a “security mode” of a mobile device when certain conditions associated with a “safe zone” are met. Kim added an eighth patent to that case by an amended complaint filed in mid-March and has now filed a second case in the same district against Samsung (2:23-cv-00155), this time asserting six more patents, also broadly directing to unlocking mobile devices. The new complaint targets Lift to Wake, Face Unlock, and On-Body Detection functionalities in Samsung smartphones and tablets.

Seungman Kim has filed what appears to be his first litigation, suing Samsung (2:22-cv-00367) in the Eastern District of Texas over seven patents on which he is the sole named inventor. The patents generally relate to bypassing a “security mode” of a mobile device when certain conditions associated with a “safe zone” are met, with Samsung accused of infringement through the provision of the Smart Lock feature of its various smartphones.