RPX’s last look at notable patent assignments considered the movement of assets to Ueran Technology LLC from Huawei; to AX Wireless, LLC from SOLiD; to VideoLabs, Inc. from DCX US Agility Platform LLC, a subsidiary of DXC Technology; to Flash Uplink LLC from its publicly traded parent Quest Patent Research Corporation (QPRC); to various entities from Ascend Innovation Management, LLC entities; and to Nera Innovations Limited from multiple entities associated with Atlantic IP Services. It is time for a review of additional notable transfers recorded since then.

Monterey Research, LLC has brought four more patents into the litigation campaign that it began back in November 2019. It has done so through a new Eastern District of Texas suit filed against both DENSO and Renesas Electronics (2:24-cv-00238), DENSO as the alleged customer of the wide array of accused semiconductor devices and integrated circuits, including certain embedded flash memory devices, as well as microcontrollers. Past defendants in this campaign include AMD, Broadcom, Marvell, and Qualcomm, as well as Nanya Technology and STMicro, the cases against which are on the verge of closure after extensive activity before the USPTO over the patents asserted there.

Recently recorded patent assignments made public by the USPTO contain noteworthy transfers to multiple plaintiffs now in litigation, including a new source of patents for Apex Beam Technologies LLC, a new source of patents for Pantech Corporation, and a familiar source of patent rights for Crystal Leap Zrt, this time assigning patents directly, though. Movement can also be seen from troubled patent monetization firm IP Edge LLC, as well as movement from various sources to patent broker Allied Security Trust. Take a look.

The case that Longitude Licensing Limited filed this past April against Hon Hai Precision Industry (Sharp) (2:23-cv-00165) over the provision of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) lasted about three months. It was dismissed without prejudice in July. Now, Longitude has asserted an overlapping set of former Seiko Epson patents against BOE Technology (2:23-cv-00515), targeting the provision of certain LCD panels and modules, which are alleged to be incorporated in third party devices such as “smartphones, tablet PCs, laptops, monitors, TVs, and vehicle infotainment displays” from HP and LG.

Longitude Licensing Limited has added suits against Acer (8:23-cv-00036), Amazon (8:23-cv-00039), ASUSTek (8:23-cv-00033), HP (8:23-cv-00038), and Lenovo (8:23-cv-00035) in the Central District of California to the case that Longitude filed last month against Dell in the same district. Each targets the provision or sale of Western Digital-branded memory components (e.g., flash memory, solid state drives, and memory chips), as well as products (e.g., computers, laptops, streaming devices, and tablets) incorporating such devices. In its complaints, the plaintiff pleads that in light of failed attempts to engage Western Digital in licensing negotiations, it began “contacting Western Digital customers who are selling products that infringe Longitude patents”.

In a new complaint filed in the Central District of California against Dell (8:22-cv-02312), Longitude Licensing Limited pleads a series of attempts to engage third party Western Digital in licensing negotiations. After a related arbitration proceeding “was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds”, the plaintiff turned to Dell, Longitude Licensing indicating that it sent a September 2022 letter representing that its “normal approach” would be to “engage with, and license, suppliers such as Western Digital rather than their customers” but because “Western Digital has refused to engage in any licensing discussions”, it began “contacting Western Digital customers who are selling products that infringe Longitude patents”. The new complaint has now followed, Longitude alleging infringement of three patents through the provision of laptops and tablets that incorporate certain Western Digital-branded memory devices (i.e., solid state drives and memory chips).

Recent months have seen a number of patent divestments by operating companies made public, with a range of assignees including frequent filers, publicly traded patent assertion entities, third-party funded plaintiffs, and newly formed NPEs. Divestment size has also varied widely—from a single transacted patent to thousands.

Monterey Research, LLC has filed two additional suits against AMD (6:21-cv-00839, 6:21-cv-00840), one in each of the IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue) plaintiff’s litigation campaigns. The complaints target a wide spectrum of Athlon, EPYC, Radeon, Ryzen, and/or Zen-branded products, including various chipsets, integrated circuits, semiconductor devices, and more. These cases—the second and third filed by Monterey Research against AMD—follow a similar pair of suits filed against Broadcom earlier this summer.

Over three years after its litigation against Intel ended, Future Link Systems, LLC has filed suit against AMD (6:20-cv-01176), targeting the provision of various processors and graphics/video cards. Only one of three patents asserted in the new case, generally related to interconnect testing, appeared in the prior litigation; the other two broadly concern PCI communications and memory control, respectively. Future Link Systems is identified as one of the portfolios of IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue), a company now held by private equity firm Vector Capital.

The deadline for four Marvell entities to answer, or otherwise respond to, the Delaware complaint filed against them in January 2020 by Monterey Research, LLC, a subsidiary of IP advisory firm IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue), has been extended to May 19; however, late last week, Marvell perhaps previewed its response: in a Northern District of California complaint, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.—the only domestic defendant (formed in California) named in Delaware—filed a complaint seeking declaratory judgments of noninfringement of the same five Monterey Research patents at issue in Delaware. The other three Marvell entities, two allegedly formed in Bermuda, the other in Singapore, do not appear as plaintiffs on the California complaint. Monterey Research’s campaign concerns a set of semiconductor patents developed by Cypress Semiconductor, with other cases active in Delaware against AMD, Nanya, STMicro, and Qualcomm.