The portfolio of patents received by monetization firm IP Edge LLC from Siemens in October 2018 has now given rise to eight campaigns, with the most recent waged by plaintiff Sonohm Licensing LLC. The NPE has accused Best Buy (Great Call) (1:19-cv-01619, 1:19-cv-01620), Fry’s Electronics (2:19-cv-00297), Juniper Systems (1:19-cv-00101), and ROKit (2:19-cv-07569) of infringing up to three wireless communications patents through the provision and/or sale of various devices that use Bluetooth 4.0 technology, including various smartphones, speakers, tablets, and wireless earphones. The retailers, Best Buy and Fry’s, are accused of infringement through the sale of such products made by Amazon, ASUSTek, BLU Products, Caterpillar, CellAllure, DigiLand, Ematic, Lenovo, RugGear, and Visual Land, among others, with Best Buy’s GreatCall tagged over the provision of the Jitterbug Smart2 and Jitterbug Flip “senior cell phones”; Juniper Systems, over its “rugged” mobile devices (i.e., the CT7G, Allegro 3, and Archer 3); and ROKit, over its iO Pro 3D, 3D, Light, and One smartphones.

In late August 2019, while IP Edge LLC dropped four brand new litigation campaigns through litigating entities Aristors Licensing LLC (over a patent received from an inventor-controlled entity), Enchanted IP LLC (over a patent received from Huawei), Sonohm Licensing LLC  (over patents received from Siemens), and Zyrcuits IP LLC (over a patent received from Linex Technologies, Inc.), the Texas monetization firm also added cases across an even broader set of its many campaigns. Altair Logix LLC, Digi Portal LLC, EncodiTech LLC, Saros Licensing LLC, and Wave Linx LLC—each a Texas plaintiff associated with IP Edge—have all filed cases over the past week.

Recently released USPTO records reveal an October 2018 transfer by Siemens to IP Edge LLC, involving 30 US patents and a number of foreign counterparts in Asia and Europe. Included in that transaction was a patent now being litigated by Rainey Circuit LLC, an apparent IP Edge affiliate, in a video messaging campaign launched in late November—the ninth new IP Edge campaign launched in the past six months.

Rainey Circuit LLC, an apparent affiliate of monetization firm IP Edge LLC, has kicked off a new multi-district campaign, suing 8x8 (1:18-cv-01903), Vonage (1:18-cv-01904), and WhatsApp (1:18-cv-01905) in the District of Delaware; BlackBerry (3:18-cv-03156) in the Northern District of Texas; and Twitter (1:18-cv-07905) in the Northern District of Illinois. Each complaint asserts a single patent generally related to transmitting “multimedia” messages, with infringement allegations focused on video messaging features (i.e., messages containing both video and audio components) within the 8x8 Virtual Office app, BBM and the Messenger app on BlackBerry devices, the Vonage Mobile app, the WhatsApp messaging platform and mobile app, and Twitter’s social networking platform.