Last September, District Judge Gregory B. Williams took the federal Delaware bench, alongside Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly and Judges Richard G. Andrews and Maryellen Noreika, after Judge Leonard P. Stark left to join the Federal Circuit. Delaware has long been one of the busiest venues for patent litigation; it is therefore no surprise that six months into his tenure Judge Williams has now faced and resolved a good number of issues arising from the patent portion of his docket. In that time, with several trials on the horizon, he has issued multiple claim construction rulings; considered and resolved multiple Alice challenges; addressed discovery related to a third-party litigation funder; navigated, at least initially, a potential standing issue arising from the international source of patents that the plaintiff purportedly acquired through a receivership; and refused to enter a default judgment because the plaintiff’s pleading in the complaint “can charitably be described as sparse”, too sparse to establish infringement even upon default.

Fineur International S.A. subsidiaries Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group), Sisvel S.p.A., and 3G Licensing S.A. (collectively, Sisvel) have added a Delaware case against Ford (1:21-cv-01745) to the networking litigation that began as separate campaigns that have morphed into one since June 2019. Sisvel asserts five of the 21 patents-in-campaign in the new complaint against Ford, three developed by Nokia and one each by BlackBerry and LG Electronics (LGE), all of them generally directed to various aspects of wireless communications. The plaintiff alleges that the patents are essential to either 3G or 4G cellular standards, with infringement allegations targeting the provision of compliant automobile services, including SYNC Connect, FordPass SmartLink, and FordPass Connect.

On the heels of an Alice setback in that District of Delaware cases that it filed in June 2019, Aegis 11 S.A., an affiliate of Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group), has added Northern District of Georgia suits against Funai (1:20-cv-03890) and Hisense (1:20-cv-03891) to the campaign. Last year, Aegis 11 hit Belkin, CommScope (ARRIS, Ruckus Wireless), NETGEAR, Roku, and TCL (TTE Technology) with separate cases targeting devices compatible with the 802.11ac wireless networking standard. The defendants challenged one of the three patents-in-suit as patent-ineligibly directed to the abstract idea of “generating and using random numbers for the purpose of mutual authentication”. Earlier this month, District Judge Richard G. Andrews agreed with a magistrate recommendation that that patent be invalidated. Now, Aegis 11 has asserted the remaining two patents in its Georgia complaints, adding a third, all of them originally sourced from LG Electronics (LGE). The NPE has also moved to amend its June 2019 complaints to assert the new patent.

Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group); Sisvel S.p.A.; and 3G Licensing S.A. (collectively, Sisvel)—all subsidiaries of Fineur International S.A.—have sued BBK Electronics (OnePlus) (1:20-cv-00653), CradlePoint (1:20-cv-00649), Dell (1:20-cv-00651), Honeywell (1:20-cv-00652), TCL (1:20-cv-00654), Tesla (1:20-cv-00655), Tinno Mobile (Wiko) (1:20-cv-00658), VeriFone (1:20-cv-00656), and Xirgo Technologies (1:20-cv-00659) in the District of Delaware and BLU Products (1:20-cv-22050), HMD Global (1:20-cv-22051), and Sun Cupid Technology (Noetic) (1:20-cv-22054) in the Southern District of Florida, all over the provision of automobiles and a variety of devices (e.g., adapters, cellular modems, computers, payment terminals, routers, smartphones, vehicle tracking devices, etc.). At issue are the products’ compliance with the 3G and 4G cellular network standards.

Earlier this month, Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group) added a District of Delaware case against Dell to the networking campaign that it began in that district in June with suits against six other defendants. The original complaints in the June cases asserted five former Nokia patents, but subsequent amended complaints added accusations as to seven former BlackBerry patents (or a subset of those patents) to all prior complaints except the BLU Products complaint. Dell was hit with all 12 patents at once, as is the situation with Sisvel’s new suit against ZTE (3:19-cv-01694), filed in the Northern District of Texas by Sisvel and a sister subsidiary, 3G Licensing S.A., to which Sisvel pleads that it assigned the former BlackBerry patents on July 11, 2019. ZTE is accused of infringement through the provision of the Axon, Blade, Grand, and Nubia series smartphones.

Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group) has added another District of Delaware case, this one against Dell (1:19-cv-01247), to the litigation campaign that it began there with early June suits against AnyDATA, BLU Products, Cradlepoint, Honeywell, Verifone, and Xirgo Technologies. Those cases saw five former Nokia patents asserted, each of which Dell is accused of infringing as well, but the new suit adds accusations as to seven former BlackBerry patents. At issue is Dell’s provision of the 5510 Mobile Broadband Wireless Cellular Modem, Latitude 5000 and 7000 Series computers, the Precision 3520 Workstation laptop, and the Precision 7000 Series computers.

Aegis 11 S.A., an affiliate of Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group), has launched a litigation campaign targeting devices compatible with the 802.11ac wireless networking standard. The defendants are Belkin (1:19-cv-01161), CommScope (ARRIS, Ruckus Wireless) (1:19-cv-01164), NETGEAR (1:19-cv-01162), Roku (1:19-cv-01163), and TCL (TTE Technology) (1:19-cv-01165), each sued in the District of Delaware and against which the NPE asserts the same three former LG Electronics (LGE) patents.

Sisvel International S.A. (d/b/a Sisvel Group) has kicked off a new litigation campaign, suing AnyDATA (1:19-cv-01140), BLU Products (1:19-cv-01141), Cradlepoint (1:19-cv-01142), Honeywell (1:19-cv-01143), Verifone (1:19-cv-01144), and Xirgo Technologies (1:19-cv-01145) in the District of Delaware. The defendants are each accused of infringing the same five wireless communications patents originating with Nokia and acquired in April 2012. Sisvel has targeted the defendants’ provision of certain devices and chipsets that implement cellular networking standards (e.g., 3G modules, credit card readers, modems, routers, trackers, etc.).