RPX recently noted the transfer of nine US patents from South Korean research institution Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) to KAIFI LLC, a Texas plaintiff that has previously litigated a single patent originating with Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) but received from Intellectual Discovery Co., Ltd. That assignment is now sandwiched between a July 2023 transfer from PowerVoice to KAIFI (three patents) and an April 2024 transfer from Intellectual Discovery (one patent). This past week, KAIFI sued Amazon (2:24-cv-00542) over its received assets, in a new Eastern District of Texas complaint that targets the provision of a wide array of products, including the Alexa voice assistant and related products.

Patent transfers recently made public by the USPTO include multiple assignments between NPEs, several of which have litigated previously received assets, but others of which are new and have yet to file suit. They also include a grant to the US Treasury Department of four assets, one of which was “litigated” through this past July, when Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright, on the court’s own motion, brought the campaign to an end.

In April 2019, Kaifi, LLC, a Texas plaintiff associated with Intellectual Discovery Co., Ltd., launched its Wi-Fi calling campaign with a single case accusing AT&T of infringing a patent generally directed to maintaining connectivity when a user moves from an inside to outside, with the same backend infrastructure managing the handoffs. That case ended in early August 2020 after District Judge Rodney Gilstrap handed down an April 2020 order construing multiple terms from the patent’s claims and while the court was in receipt of a large number of motions for summary judgment and to strike contentions and related expert opinions, as well as an earlier motion to dismiss for lack of standing—the related papers for nearly all of which were filed under seal. Kaifi has now reupped its campaign, accusing Deutsche Telekom (IBSV, Layer3 TV, MetroPCS, Theory Mobile, T-Mobile) (2:20-cv-00281) and Verizon (Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless) (2:20-cv-00280) of infringing the same patent in separate complaints, also filed in the Eastern District of Texas.