Among the assignments recorded with the USPTO in the first half of February was a transfer from Avago (now Broadcom, after their merger) to Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. Patents included in that transaction, which was executed in July 2012, are currently being asserted in litigation by Document Security Systems, Inc.

In September 2017, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw more than ten petitions filed in NPE campaigns involving networking and related technologies such as cybersecurity, including those waged by publicly traded Finjan Holdings, Inc.; prolific private litigant Realtime Data LLC; and Oyster Optics, LLC. Trial was instituted in September for an inter partes review (IPR) against Finjan and in IPRs against other frequent plaintiffs, including MyMail, Ltd. and Sound View Innovations, LLC. The Board issued final decisions in two covered business method (CBM) reviews against Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited, the first AIA reviews against the NPE to reach final decisions since March 2016, and only the fourth to date. The PTAB also issued final decisions in IPRs against publicly traded Document Security Systems, Inc. as well as Acceleration Bay, LLC; Mobile Telecommunications Technologies, LLC; and Personalized Media Communications, LLC; among other NPEs.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw petitions for AIA review filed against a variety of prolific litigants in June 2017, including General Patent Corporation, Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), Quarterhill Inc. (f/k/a Wi-LAN Inc.), Realtime Data LLC, Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited, and Xperi Corporation (f/k/a Tessera Holding Corporation). Also in June, the PTAB instituted trial for petitions brought against patents asserted in a variety of sprawling campaigns, including some waged by Acacia Research Corporation, IV, Papst Licensing, Quarterhill, and VirnetX Inc. The Board further issued final decisions throughout June in AIA reviews against patents involved in several notable campaigns, including some waged by Document Security Systems, Inc., Elm 3DS Innovations LLC, Empire IP LLC, and Quarterhill.

RPX continues to observe NPEs dropping suits in one venue, only to refile them in another, on the heels of the Supreme Court’s TC Heartland decision. Publicly traded NPE Document Security Systems, Inc. (DSS) did just that on June 7-8, voluntarily dismissing its April 2017 cases filed against Cree, Everlight, and Seoul Semiconductor in the Eastern District of Texas, and re-filing against the companies in the Central District of California. DSS’s new complaints assert various combinations of a group of five patents originating with either Agilent or Avago (now Broadcom, after their merger), and allege infringement through various products containing LEDs.

RPX took note, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the first half of May, of the transfer of patents to frequent plaintiffs Leigh M. Rothschild and IP Valuation Partners (both of which received patents from Intellectual Ventures LLC) and BlackBird Tech LLC. RPX also took note of transfers of patents from multiple assignors to an NPE controlled by patent attorney Brian Yates—a California attorney revealed, by a January sanctions ruling in Texas, as controlling more entities than previously thought. Also among the noted transactions are outbound assignments by Panasonic, Pantech, and ZTE, and a transfer from Allied Security Trust’s Industry Patent Purchase Program involving former IBM and Nokia patents.

The sole litigation campaign waged by South Korea’s SungKyunKwan University Research and Business Foundation (SKK) ground to a halt on May 3, when District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that the asserted claim from the 3D sensor patent (7,957,639) at issue is invalid under Alice. In an order granting a motion to dismiss filed by LMI Technologies (3:16-cv-06966), Judge Chhabria held that claim 1 from the ‘639 patent fails the first step of Alice, as it is purportedly directed to a solution for “optimizing exposure on a structured-light 3D camera” but contains no information on an actual method for doing so beyond a description of prior art. The dismissal marks the putative end of the second campaign launched by a Korean university in the past few months, with another having been launched by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in January, and comes after ID Ventures, the venture capital arm of South Korea’s sovereign patent fund, Intellectual Discovery Co., Ltd. (ID), announced plans to expand beyond technology IP investment.

Wi-LAN Inc. (WiLAN) has announced a seismic restructuring of its business model, de-emphasizing patent licensing and refocusing on the acquisition of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) businesses. Monday’s announcement follows a year in which WiLAN actively acquired patent portfolios from operating companies, including Eastman Kodak, GlobalFoundries, and Panasonic, boosting its patent portfolio to over 11,000 assets. It also comes after several other public NPEs, including Acacia Research Corporation and Unwired Planet (now Great Elm Capital Corp.) have made similar moves to diversify their activities.

Document Security Systems, Inc. (DSS) has launched a new litigation campaign with suits against Cree (2:17-cv-00309), Everlight (2:17-cv-00310), and Seoul Semiconductor (2:17-cv-00308). The defendants are accused of infringing a group of semiconductor patents originating with Agilent or Avago (now Broadcom, after their merger) through provision of various products containing LEDs, including light bulbs, displays, and fixtures. DSS’s latest campaign, which was foreshadowed by an SEC filing late last year, follows a history of troubled litigation.

Express Mobile, Inc. has added a case against Jiva Infotech (d/b/a I95DEV) (2:16-cv-00775) to its sputtering litigation campaign. The complaint asserts a family of two patents (6,546,397; 7,594,168) generally related to website generation against the defendant for provision of its web page authoring tool. One of three other cases in this campaign, filed in May 2016 against another web building company, WEBS, is also active. A suit filed against Alibaba in April 2015 and a suit filed against BigCommerce in April 2016 were both dismissed without prejudice within months of filing.

DSS Technology Management, a subsidiary of Document Security Systems, named Apple as the defendant in the entity’s first lawsuit (5,699,357; 6,128,290). The case asserts two patents that have not been previously seen in litigation. Both patents relate to a network system for coordinating a plurality of electronic devices on a single system. In the complaint, Apple’s computers are accused of infringing the patent for providing wireless Bluetooth connectivity to a multiple peripheral devices, such as a mouse and keyboard. The patents-in-suit originated with BBN Corporation and were eventually assigned to Stragent in 2008. RPX reviewed the asserted patents as part of an open market opportunity offered by Stragent in February 2013. They were then transferred to Lexington Technology Group in July of this year and a month later, assigned to DSS Technology Management. The entity publicized this acquisition in late November. At the time, it also mentioned acquisition of a second portfolio related to semiconductor manufacture. Those patents have not yet been seen in litigation. Document Security Systems has a number of subsidiaries but DSS Tech is only the second to file patent assertion litigation. The other is Bascom Research, an entity that filed a number of suits in late 2012, most of which have since ended. 11/26, Eastern District of Texas, 6:13cv00919