RPX noted, among the patent transfer records released during the first half of September, a number of patent transactions that suggest that new litigation campaigns will soon follow. Assignees in this week’s report include affiliates of IP Valuation Partners LLC and Monument Patent Holdings, LLC, with assignors ranging from small operating companies to tech giants.

European NPE litigation has begun to see a shift toward the UK for litigation of standard essential patents (SEPs) and fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing disputes in the wake of the UK High Court of Justice’s decision in Unwired Planet v. Huawei. Meanwhile, NPEs litigating in Germany have seen mixed success in their pursuit of injunctive relief, against frequent defendants, in recent weeks, with multiple German NPE suits also ending in settlement in campaigns waged by publicly traded American NPEs.

RPX took notice, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the latter half of April, of the transfer of patents to a number of frequent plaintiffs in patent litigation, including BlackBird Tech LLC; Intellectual Ventures LLC; IP Valuation Partners LLC; Unwired Planet International Limited, and Wi-LAN Inc. Assignors included Cypress Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, Panasonic, ROY-G-BIV, Samsung, and Sharp.

Publicly traded NPE Finjan Holdings, Inc. has announced a product partnership with German security software provider Avira, the same day that the two companies entered into an apparently separate $4.9M patent license agreement. Under the terms of the partnership, formed on April 21 and revealed in an April 26 press release, Finjan subsidiary Finjan Mobile, Inc. will integrate Avira’s Virtual Private Network (VPN) platform into its own VitalSecurity mobile browser suite. This deal is the first of its kind for Finjan, which continues to wage a decade-long litigation campaign that has seen multiple trials and settlements, and comes as other publicly traded NPEs have signaled that they intend to diversify their activities and move beyond patent assertion alone.

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.

The Federal Circuit has rejected the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) standard for what constitutes a “covered business method” (CBM) patent as overly broad (2015-1812). In an opinion issued on November 21, the court ruled that the PTAB had exceeded its authority by implementing a definition of a CBM patent that exceeds the statutory requirements established by the America Invents Act (AIA). By allowing CBM review of patents with subject matter “incidental to” or “complementary to” a financial activity, the court held, the Board has “render[ed] superfluous the limits” set by Congress. The Federal Circuit’s opinion stemmed from Unwired Planet LLC’s appeal of a final decision in a CBM review filed by Google (CBM2014-00006) against a location services patent (7,203,752).

The Federal Circuit has affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) cancellation of a location-based services patent (7,024,205) asserted in district court by Unwired Planet LLC against Google (2015-1810). In an opinion issued on November 15, the court held that the PTAB had correctly found that all six claims from the ‘205 patent are invalid as obvious over prior art in an inter partes review filed by Google (IPR2014-00036). In light of that decision, the court also dismissed as moot an appeal of the Board’s final ruling in a Google covered business method (CBM) review (CBM2014-00005) against the ‘205 patent (2015-1811). Unwired Planet’s sole lawsuit against Google (3:12-cv-00504) remains stayed pending the outcome of the PTAB proceedings against the ‘205 patent here resolved by the Federal Circuit, with the other nine patents-in-suit already dropped from the case.

Lenovo has agreed to purchase a portfolio of 21 patent families from Unwired Planet (UPIP). UPIP describes the portfolio as comprising 104 patents and 38 applications that are not currently involved in litigation. It reportedly includes patents related to 3G and LTE mobile technology, and according to a UPIP executive, most of the patents sold to Lenovo derive from UPIP’s January 2013 deal with Ericsson. UPIP says the 142 patent assets make up approximately five percent of the entity’s US and international patent assets and about a third of its standard essential patent assets. The entity maintains that it will own approximately 2,500 patents following the Lenovo transaction.

Square is the newest target of Unwired Planet in a suit asserting three patents. The patents-in-suit generally relate to wireless device notifications and location-based services  (7,376,433; 7,711,100; 8,275,359). While the asserted-patents cover similar technology areas to those previously used in litigation by Unwired, these specific patents have not been used in prior lawsuits. The litigated patents were developed by Openwave, the predecessor of Unwired. Square’s app is accused of infringement, both the financial transactions aspect of the app and its local search function. Unwired has targeted Apple, Google, and RIM in previous suits. 10/20, District of Nevada, 3:13cv00579