Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) has filed a new Eastern District of Texas complaint against Cisco (4:24-cv-00937), this time adding allegations as to a second patent and shifting away from the last highlighted accused product (“the Cisco CATALYST C9200L system board with the Cisco 80-1069-02 semiconductor IC package”) to a different one (“the Cisco 08-1072-03 semiconductor integrated package and the Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card 1457 system board” allegedly containing it). Bell Semic’s widespread litigation, having hit numerous defendants, now remains active only as to Cisco, NXP Semiconductors, and TI, although a stay has been imposed in the case against TI in light of the parties’ representation that they have reached a resolution.

Last week, Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) and Synopsys asked Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly to stay the case between them through December 19, given the parties’ work on a settlement agreement. The court granted the stay, pausing preparation for a January 2024 trial, including taking off calendar a December 20 pretrial hearing. One week earlier, Judge Connolly had ordered the parties to be prepared to discuss his recent grant of partial summary judgment of no indirect infringement—as well as potential attorney fees to be awarded to Synopsys because Bell Semic’s arguments in opposition to the motion for partial summary judgment “were so obviously devoid of merit”.

This past week, Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) sued Cisco (4:23-cv-00971), Fortinet (4:23-cv-00978), Juniper Networks (4:23-cv-00974), and Palo Alto Networks (4:23-cv-00976), each in the Eastern District of Texas. One of the four circuit design patents is now in suit against all four of these defendants, with subsets of three others asserted as well against Fortinet and Juniper. Bell Semic targets Cisco over the provision of networking switch boards; Juniper, of line cards; and Palo Alto Networks, of firewall appliances, each containing certain semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) packages, while Fortinet is targeted over the provision of certain secure processors.

In April 2022, District of Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly posted standing orders requiring certain litigants in his courtroom to provide heightened disclosure about their ownership. A declaratory judgment action filed late last year in Delaware against Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) by design tool providers Cadence and Synopsys was assigned to Judge Connolly, who held a late-April hearing to address other matters but ordered the parties to update their disclosures to comply with his standing orders by May 5. Bell Semic did so, laying out what it knows of its family tree after “obtain[ing] all [the] information that its best efforts can provide”. While since then the docket has been anything but quiet, as a general matter (the parties’ having filed notices of the service of roughly 30 third-party subpoenas, among other things), the docket has been quiet concerning Bell Semic’s May 5 disclosure—perhaps suggesting what compliance by parties with complicated ownership structures might look like.

Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) has filed a third Eastern District of Texas lawsuit against Texas Instruments (TI) (4:23-cv-00609), this one asserting three packaging patents and targeting the provision of certain semiconductor devices, including the TI 66AK2E05XABD and TI 66AK2H05 systems-on-chip (SoCs). Bell Semic sued TI in February 2020 in this same campaign but over different patents; the case was dismissed with prejudice in March 2021 after Bell Semic filed a notice of settlement. This past February, Bell Semic sued TI in its other campaign, the one centered around the use of design tools provided by Cadence, Synopsys, and/or Siemens. There, TI has filed a motion to stay litigation in favor of the declaratory judgment action that Cadence and Synopsys filed against Bell Semic late last year.

An RPX review of public records indicates that the second quarter of 2023 saw at least eight new patent infringement campaigns launched with the backing of third-party litigation funding. Also in Q2, several already existing third-party financed campaigns grew larger, with the plaintiffs hitting new defendants and/or going after familiar targets for a second or even third time.

This past week, Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly heard oral argument related to motions for a preliminary injunction against Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic), which has been filing multiple cases in various districts targeting the provision of semiconductor devices that are manufactured using certain design tools provided by Cadence, Synopsys, and/or Siemens. Cadence and Synopsys together filed a declaratory judgment (DJ) action in Delaware, as Siemens separately has, asking Judge Connolly to stop Bell Semic from pursuing its customer suits, filed both in district court and before the International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC responded to those motions by intervening to oppose any interference with the conduct of its investigations, and Bell Semic responded to the DJ complaints themselves with motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Entries on the case docket provide clues as to how the hearing went.

Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) has filed a second Eastern District of Texas suit against Texas Instruments (4:23-cv-00128), roughly two years after its last one was dismissed with prejudice in light of a noticed settlement. A familiar set of six patents are asserted in the new complaint, with Bell Semic targeting the provision of semiconductor devices that are manufactured using certain design tools provided by Cadence, Synopsys, and/or Siemens. Cadence and Synopsys have together filed a declaratory judgment (DJ) action in the District of Delaware, as Siemens separately has, over those same patents, asking Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly for a preliminary injunction to stop Bell Semic from pursuing its large number of customer suits, filed both in district court and before the International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC has responded to those motions by intervening to oppose any interference with the conduct of its investigations, and Bell Semic has responded to the DJ complaints themselves with motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Recent months have seen Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) file an ongoing flood of litigation targeting chipmakers over semiconductor products made using Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools from Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys, and/or Siemens. Now, Cadence and Synopsys have responded with a jointly filed declaratory judgment complaint against Bell Semic (1:22-cv-01512), seeking a judgment of noninfringement and invalidity for six semiconductor design patents asserted against their customers throughout the plaintiff’s “sprawling” campaign. Meanwhile, Bell Semic has continued to pile up new complaints throughout November since suing Silicon Laboratories on the first, filing additional complaints against Ambarella (3:22-cv-00323), Analog Devices (1:22-cv-11901), Infineon (1:22-cv-11926), Marvell (4:22-cv-11906), NVIDIA (1:22-cv-11933), NXP (3:22-cv-01794), Qualcomm (3:22-cv-01796), Rockchip Electronics (4:22-cv-00962), Socionext (2:22-cv-12749), and Western Digital (8:22-cv-02083)—each of which has been sued by Bell Semic before.

A barrage of litigation by Bell Semiconductor, LLC (Bell Semic) persisted throughout October, the Hilco Inc. (d/b/a Hilco Global) company filing dozens of district court suits as well as two complaints before the International Trade Commission (ITC), all over patents received from Broadcom. Whether that pace will continue in November remains to be seen, although the plaintiff has already opened the month with a new suit against Silicon Laboratories—a defendant against which the NPE now has four open cases, all in the Western District of Texas.