In late March, Hydro Net LLC, an IP Edge LLC plaintiff, whipped off another round in one of its litigation campaigns over assets from the 30-patent portfolio that the NPE picked up from Linex Technologies, Inc. in September 2018. The latest defendants are Barracuda Networks (1:21-cv-00478), BlackBerry (1:21-cv-02773), Hon Hai Precision Industry (Sharp) (1:21-cv-02780), KVH Industries (1:21-cv-00480), and Yulong Computer (Coolpad Technologies) (1:21-cv-00481), each accused of infringement through the provision of devices (e.g., firewalls, smartphones, and cellular base stations) that support LTE-FDD cellular networking and wireless tethering capabilities (Coolpad) or certain Wi-Fi protocols (802.11a/b/g/n/ac for Barracuda and 802.11b/g/n for BlackBerry, KVH, and Sharp).

This past April Zyrcuits IP LLC, an entity affiliated with monetization firm IP Edge LLC, picked up a portfolio of 30 US patents, generally related to spread-spectrum wireless data transmission, from NPE Linex Technologies, Inc. In the months since then, that portfolio has given rise to four litigation campaigns: the first by Zyrcuits IP itself (at the end of August), the second by Aperture Net LLC (at the end of September), and two more, by Hydro Net LLC and by Stormborn Technologies LLC, respectively (at the end of October). On October 24, a subset of those former Linex patents were transferred from Zyrcuits IP to new IP Edge entity Pinnacle Licensing LLC, raising the possibility that the end of November might bring yet more litigation over this portfolio.

Monetization firm IP Edge LLC has filed a third litigation campaign over a patent from among those received in a 30-asset transaction in April 2019 with former litigating NPE Linex Technologies, Inc. Beijer Electronics (Westermo Data Communication) (1:19-cv-07059), Casa Systems (Netcomm Wireless) (1:19-cv-02070), CradlePoint (1:19-cv-02071), and UNICOM Global (US Robotics) (1:19-cv-07058) have been accused by plaintiff Hydro Net LLC of infringing a single spread-spectrum wireless data transmission patent through the provision of certain networking devices, naming Netcomm’s NWL-25-02 4G LTE Light Industrial M2M Router, CradlePoint’s COR IBR600C Series IoT routers, the USR3513 Cellular Gateway, and Westermo’s 4G LTE Gateway/Router MRD-405, respectively.

Monetization firm IP Edge LLC has begun farming out the portfolio of former Linex Technologies, Inc. patents that it acquired this past April—to LLCs that presumably will soon be litigating them. Generally, the portfolio relates to various aspects of spread-spectrum wireless data transmission, with litigation already begun by Zyrcuits IP LLC, the IP Edge entity to take possession of the 30 patents. Zyrcuits IP recently launched litigation of its own from the portfolio—IP Edge’s fifteenth known campaign of 2019—by hitting Samsung, Signify, Spectrum Brands, Wink Labs, and Wirepath Home Systems (Control4). More campaigns may be coming: from Aperture Net LLC, Hydro Net LLC, and/or Stormborn Technologies LLC, each of which received at least two former Linex patents from Zyrcuits IP on September 18, 2019.