For several years running, IP Edge LLC has been responsible for the most defendants added to NPE litigation campaigns throughout each calendar year. 2019 was no different. Last year saw roughly 400 defendants added to campaigns launched by plaintiffs associated with the Texas monetization firm, the campaigns spanning a wide range of technologies and now involving suits filed (and typically litigated in file-and-settle fashion) in myriad districts. A quick glance at the NPE’s January filings suggests that 2020 will see more of the same, while a recent Alice ruling may have just ended one of IP Edge’s 2019 campaigns.

Texas monetization firm IP Edge LLC, through plaintiff Blueprint IP Solutions LLC, has added three more cases to the campaign that it began in March 2019 over a network redundancy patent acquired as part of a larger portfolio originating with Siemens. In new complaints, Blueprint IP accuses Disney (6:19-cv-02396) and Publix Asset Management (8:19-cv-03127) in the Middle District of Florida and Citigroup (Citibank) (1:19-cv-25229) in the Southern District of that state of infringing the patent through the use of cloud storage systems based on Hadoop, including its Distributed File System (HDFS). At issue are systems in which one component switches to a redundant, standby component when the first experiences a loss in communications.

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.

RPX completed a number of deals in June 2019 on behalf of its patent risk management network. The acquisitions occurred within the following market sectors: Consumer Electronics and PCs; E-Commerce and Software; Financial Services; and Networking.

Blueprint IP Solutions LLC and Cassiopeia IP LLC have become the latest affiliates of IP Edge LLC to litigate patents that the Texas monetization firm acquired from Siemens last October. Blueprint IP has sued Fortinet (1:19-cv-00577), Hitachi (Hitachi Vantara) (1:19-cv-00579), HP Enterprise (HPE) (1:19-cv-00578), NetApp (1:19-cv-00580), Oracle (1:19-cv-00581), and Talend (1:19-cv-00582) over a former Siemens patent generally related to a redundant and “geographically separate” pair of “switching systems” where a “monitoring unit” keeps one switching system active and the other in a “hot-standby” mode, and switches the latter into active mode when the former loses network communications. Meanwhile, Cassiopeia IP has filed suit against HPE (Aruba Networks) (1:19-cv-00593), China Huaxin Post & Telecommunication Economy Development Center (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise) (1:19-cv-00599), and Western Digital (1:19-cv-00594), also in Delaware, but over a former Siemens patent broadly directed to a system that enables the use of network services by detecting all usable services and entering them on a “blackboard”.