Texas-based NPE Far North Patents, LLC has revived its first litigation campaign, begun in December 2019, with a suit against Avaya (1:21-cv-00688) in the Middle District of North Carolina. The NPE asserts five patents—each received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)—broadly directed to various aspects of Internet-based telecommunications. Avaya is targeted over “advanced quality monitoring capabilities” in its Avaya Diagnostic Server with SLA Monitor and “advanced presence information capabilities” in its Avaya One-X Communicator and Avaya Aura Presence Services platforms. The case against the most recent defendant, NXP, which saw five different patents asserted, ended in a November 2020 dismissal with prejudice (in light of settlement).

Texas-based NPE Far North Patents, LLC has launched its second litigation campaign, suing CenturyLink (4:20-cv-00821), Consolidated Communications (4:20-cv-00822), Dasan Networks (Dasan Zhone Solutions) (4:20-cv-00823), Frontier Communications (4:20-cv-00824), Technicolor (4:20-cv-00826), Unizyx (ZyXEL) (4:20-cv-00829), and Windstream (4:20-cv-00828), all in the Eastern District of Texas. Two patents, received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) in December 2018 and generally related to “transporting Ethernet frames” over Very High-Speed Digital Subscriber Lines (VDSL), are asserted in each complaint. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of networking hardware and services that feature VDSL2 capabilities. The new suits follow Far North’s motion to dismiss the last remaining active case in its first litigation campaign, launched in December 2019.

The late 2019 peel off by Intellectual Ventures, LLC (IV) of more than 3,500 US assets to a batch of Georgia NPEs has ousted Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC from its long-held position as the top NPE assignee of IV divestitures. Meanwhile, as discussed in RPX’s Q1 in Review blog post, throughout the first quarter, NPEs continued filing new litigation asserting patents received from IV, hitting a broad range of targets, including over patents developed by major operating companies.

Far North Patents, LLC has added four Western District of Texas cases—against ADVA Optical Networking (6:20-cv-00218), Analog Devices (6:20-cv-00219), Microchip (6:20-cv-00221), and ZTE (6:20-cv-00222)—to the eight that it filed in the Eastern District of Texas this past December. A dozen networking patents, received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) in December 2018, are at issue in the campaign, with each of the new complaints asserting the same five. ADVA, Analog Devices, Microchip, and ZTE have been accused of infringement through the provision of networking hardware and systems that feature “advanced quality of service [QoS] capabilities”.

In late October, RPX reported the recordation of the December 2018 assignment of over 50 US patents, together with multiple foreign counterparts, out of Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) to Far North Patents, LLC. Over the holidays, the recipient began litigating them, suing Broadcom (CA Technologies) (4:19-cv-00939), IBM (4:19-cv-00940), Marvell (4:19-cv-00941), Mitel Networks (4:19-cv-00942), NEC (4:19-cv-00943), NXP Semiconductors (4:19-cv-00944), Ribbon Communications (4:19-cv-00945), and TI (4:19-cv-00946) in the Eastern District of Texas. The NPE accuses Mitel, NEC, and Ribbon each of infringing the same ten patents from the transferred IV assets, with subsets of those patents asserted against the remaining defendants; Far North’s infringement allegations target networking equipment and unified/integrated network management systems.

Two late 2018 divestitures by Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) were recorded with the USPTO this past week. One of those transactions has already resulted in a new campaign, launched by an associate of IPValuation Partners (d/b/a IPVal) on October 14. Meanwhile, patents from the second IV divestiture—which include assets originating from major operating companies, and which were received by an apparent newcomer to patent assertion—look likely to appear in litigation soon.