RPX took notice, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the latter half of May, of the transfer of patents from operating companies HP Enterprise, Panasonic, and Qisda to various NPEs. Two of those NPEs (Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. and Deshodax LLC) have already launched campaigns asserting some of the transacted patents. RPX also saw during this time the recordation of assignments to Brian Yates; Fortress Investment Group LLC; Intellectual Ventures LLC; Blackbird Tech LLC; and IP Bridge, Inc., among others.

VOIT Technologies, LLC, a Florida NPE under the control of named inventor Barry Schwab, has added three more cases to its sole litigation campaign, one each against The Guitar Sanctuary (4:17-cv-00343), Medusa Skates (1:17-cv-00473), and World of Organics (4:17-cv-00344). A single patent (6,226,412), generally related to product tracking in an e-commerce platform, has been asserted against the defendants in the campaign, all of which have been accused of infringement through the operation of their websites. Schwab’s patents have been asserted in litigation by other NPEs, some under his control and some apparently independent.

Lightside Technologies, LLC has filed its first litigation, accusing VIZIO (2:16-cv-01250) of infringing two patents (6,370,198; 8,842,727) generally related to upscaling video content and providing video frame-rate conversion. Accused of infringement are the motion- and picture-processing engines used in certain VIZIO HDTVs and ultra-high-definition TVs (UHDTVs) that allegedly provide the claimed upscaling and conversion features.

Inventor-controlled Hawk Technology Systems LLC filed four new cases in October, bringing its campaign defendant count to 178. Each of this month’s suits, filed against Cinemark (2:16-cv-13817), Goodwill of Silicon Valley (5:16-cv-06213), the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky (2:16-cv-00186), and the Louisville Arena Authority (3:16-cv-00678), asserts a video monitoring and conversion patent (RE43,462) that expired in April 2014, according to the complaints. As in all of Hawk Technology’s cases, which have primarily targeted retailers, universities, municipalities, restaurants, and banks, the NPE’s latest suits focus on the defendants’ onsite security systems.

Another apparent affiliate of IP Edge LLC, Bartonfalls LLC, has initiated a litigation campaign with a flurry of lawsuits against Advance Publications, Bloomberg, CBS, Comcast (NBC), Consumers Union of United States, Discovery Communications, Disney (ABC), Forbes, Meredith (Allrecipes.com), New York Times, Scripps Networks Interactive, Time Warner (TBS), Viacom, and Ziff-Davis. The new complaints assert a single patent (7,917,922), which relates generally to automatically changing the channel on a television. Bartonfalls accuses the defendants of infringement through mechanisms for automatically changing channels or programs in video platforms available on their websites. For example, the NPE alleges that Viacom infringes when the video player on the MTV website switches from, e.g., Rihanna’s live performance of “Stay / Love on the Brain / Diamonds” to The Chainsmokers’s live performance of “Closer”.

Hawk Technology Systems, LLC continues to target retailers with two new suits, filed against Barnes & Noble (2:15-cv-10426) and Retail Services & Systems (1:15-cv-20386). Both complaints assert two patents that have been used previously in the campaign (5,625,410; RE43,462). The patents in Hawk’s campaign relate generally to video capture, management, and storage. Hawk began its litigation campaign in 2012 but filed most of its cases in 2014. It targets retailers over their video systems, in particular security cameras used in defendants’ stores. Those same products are at issue in the recent suits.