An Eastern District of Texas jury has returned a verdict for defendant LG Electronics (LGE) in a case filed against it by Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd. in December 2022. Six claims from five former Flex (f/k/a Flextronics) patents were found not infringed and proven invalid during the course of last week’s trial, presided over by District Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Multimedia Technologies, backed by a litigation funder, had targeted the provision of a variety of features—remote control functionalities, navigation bar tools, and media content formatting and delivery, among others—within smart TVs that incorporate LG webOS. VIZIO is the other defendant in this campaign, with pretrial rulings indicating that Apple and Samsung are already licensed under Multimedia’s received portfolio.

Patent assignments recently made public by the USPTO suggest that Acacia Research Corporation has returned to a familiar well, possibly for more litigation; that an entity tied to a familiar patent pool is collecting assets from various sources; and that there may be simple logic behind the name of a fruity new entrant.

Recorded assignments recently made public by the USPTO reveal batches of US patents, one generally related to multi-display devices and another to drug delivery devices, on the move, to entities tied to experienced monetization teams—teams that have apparently secured the backing of the same prominent litigation funder. One of those entities is already in litigation, over previously received patents from the same source, while the other appears headed in that direction.

Recorded patent assignments recently made public reveal patents on the move, to an NPE that appears to be collecting assets from a familiar source as prior litigated patents run into PTAB trouble; to an entity managed by what appears to be a relatively new monetization operation standing up; to a recent entrant into the litigation funding space; to entities associated with a frequent plaintiff-side law firm in Texas; and to a host of other plaintiffs recently filing suit.

Singaporean plaintiff Procomm International Pte. Ltd. has begun litigating the portfolio of former CommScope patents that it received from Bison Patent Licensing, LLC in May 2023. In a new Eastern District of Texas complaint, Procomm has accused Ericsson and Verizon (Verizon Wireless) (2:24-cv-00009) of infringing five of those patents, broadly directed to telecommunications equipment, through the provision of Verizon’s 5G and other cellular networks, alleged to incorporate Ericsson’s Macro, Massive MIMO, Street Macro, and Small Cell products. If recent patterns hold, third-party litigation funding may eventually surface here.

The deadline for Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) to respond to the October 2023 complaint that Multifold International Incorporated Pte. Ltd. (MII) filed against it in Delaware has been set for December 8. Meanwhile, the plaintiff has filed a second case in the same district, accusing Alphabet (Google) (1:23-cv-01323) of infringing the same 16 patents already in suit. The former Flex patents generally relate to multi-display devices, including certain user interface functionalities and hinge connector assemblies, with infringement allegations centering on various “foldable” and “non-foldable” Pixel-series smartphones.

Singaporean plaintiff Multifold International Incorporated Pte. Ltd. (MII) has returned to US patent litigation, accusing Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) (1:23-cv-01173) of infringing 16 patents broadly directed to multi-display devices, including certain user interface functionalities and hinge connector assemblies. All 16 patents, with one more, were asserted in MII’s 2021 suit against Samsung, which ended last year after a confidential settlement agreement was inked, a few months after the pleadings stage.

In early April, RPX noted the January 2023 transfer of a ten-patent portfolio from Constellation Software subsidiary N. Harris Computer to Video Solutions Pte. Ltd., suggesting that litigation over the received assets looked imminent. Now, Video Solutions, an entity formed in Singapore in June 2022 “for the protection and licensing of these inventions and intellectual property”, has indeed filed suit, accusing Cisco (2:23-cv-00222) of infringing two of the received assets. Targeted in the new Eastern District of Texas complaint are “Cisco’s virtual collaboration products such as Webex, Jabber, Unified Communications Manager, and TelePresence Systems, and any other Cisco products, either alone or in combination, that operate in a reasonably similar manner”.

Late last year, Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd. opened up new litigation over a portfolio of patents received from Flex (f/k/a Flextronics) by suing LG Electronics (LGE) in the Eastern District of Texas. Now, the plaintiff, which is backed by a third-party litigation funder, has sued a second defendant in the same venue, accusing VIZIO (2:23-cv-00124) of infringing an overlapping set of ten patents from that portfolio through the provision of a variety of features—remote control functionalities, navigation bar tools, and media content formatting and delivery, among others—within smart TVs that incorporate SmartCast.

Operating company patents continued to spread among NPEs throughout 2022, including to familiar faces in patent monetization. While a number of those recipients have yet to file any litigation, several did launch new campaigns during the fourth quarter—some with the backing of third-party litigation funding.