On May 10, 2024, Orange (f/k/a France Telecom) assigned five US patents to IP monetization firm Transpacific IP Group Limited. This divestiture echoes a fateful acquisition by Transpacific IP from Orange back in 2017—an acquisition that led to a failed deal with monetization shop Slingshot Technologies LLC, a completed deal with publicly traded Acacia Research Corporation, a litigation campaign from Acacia’s Monarch Networking Solutions LLC that remains active today, and Delaware state court litigation between Slingshot and Acacia that has persisted in parallel, through the present day. In June 2024, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis denied Acacia’s motion for summary judgment in its entirety, with the presence of a prominent figure in litigation funding on Acacia’s board figuring in the disputed factual predicate for Slingshot’s persistent trade secret misappropriation and companion tort claims.

Stingray IP Solutions, LLC, a subsidiary of publicly traded Acacia Research Corporation, has filed an Eastern District of Texas suit against ASSA ABLOY (2:24-cv-00159), targeting the support of certain wireless communications standards (i.e., Wi-Fi and ZigBee) within a wide array of devices, including bridges, card readers, gateways, modules, and smart locks, as well as related software products. After multiple strategic shifts, Acacia—in partnership with its majority shareholder Starboard Value—now characterizes itself as “an opportunistic capital platform that purchases businesses based on the differentials between public and private market valuations” but maintains a legacy “Patent Licensing, Enforcement and Technologies Business” that has not “obtain[ed] control of any new patent portfolios” since 2021.

Acacia Research Corporation released its second quarter financials on August 16, reporting higher year-over-year licensing revenue and a number of settlements across multiple enforcement campaigns. While Acacia has completed fewer patent acquisitions so far this year (as compared to the six months ended June 30, 2020), a Q2 transaction has already given way to a new litigation campaign, begun earlier this month.

In January 2020, Acacia Research Corporation subsidiary Monarch Networking Solutions LLC kicked off a new networking campaign, suing Charter Communications and Cisco in the Eastern District of Texas—litigation that now faces trouble due to a dispute over the ownership of the asserted patents. In late 2019, Slingshot Technologies LLC sued Acacia, one of its directors, and Transpacific IP Group Limited, from which Acacia acquired the patents, alleging before the Delaware Court of Chancery that the parties improperly prevented Slingshot from acquiring the patents despite holding an option to purchase them. Among other claims for relief, Slingshot seeks to rescind the sale to Acacia and allow Slingshot to purchase the patents itself, prompting Acacia to seek dismissal of that cause of action. That battle still hangs over the Texas litigation, as Cisco has now renewed a motion to stay the case, arguing that the Delaware action could deprive Monarch of standing. While the NPE has previously countered that rescission is impossible under Delaware law, a recent decision by the state court indicates otherwise.

Monarch Networking Solutions LLC has filed a new suit against Cisco, together with its subsidiaries Duo Security (acquired in 2018) and Meraki (acquired in 2012) (6:20-cv-00381), over the provision of network devices that use Cisco’s Meraki Cloud Hosted Authentication or Duo Security platforms. The Acacia subsidiary asserts a single patent, sourced from Siemens and generally related to accessing a network through communication between an authenticating device and station. The new case, initially assigned to Judge Alan D. Albright in the Western District of Texas, comes as Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas considers a motion by Charter Communications and Cisco to stay a January 2020 case to await the outcome of a dispute over the ownership of the patents that Monarch Networking has asserted there.

Acacia Research Corporation has initiated its first litigation campaign of 2020 with an Eastern District of Texas complaint filed by subsidiary Monarch Networking Solutions LLC against Charter Communications and Cisco (2:20-cv-00015). The NPE accuses Cisco of infringing four networking patents, developed at France Telecom, through the provision of certain switches, routers, and gateways, with additional infringement allegations as to Charter over two of those patents. Monarch discloses in the new complaint—“out of an abundance of caution”—that its ownership of the portfolio has been disputed, in a case before the Delaware Chancery Court, by Slingshot Technologies LLC.