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Sampo Campaign Shifts Focus to Online Notification and Communication Systems
The latest suits filed in a campaign by Sampo IP, a subsidiary of Marathon Patent Group (MPG), target Twitter and TIBCO applications that provide online notification and communication services. In separate suits Sampo alleges the defendants infringe two patents related to facilitating communication and collaboration over a network between members of a group (6,161,149, 6,772,229). Since March 2013 Sampo has filed over ten cases suing more than 30 companies, mostly end users of Jive, Rally, and HyperOffice software products, although those software makers have not been sued. Suits have been filed against a wide range of companies including Amazon, Blackboard, Dell, eBay, Facebook, HP, HomeAway, Juniper, LinkedIn, and Salesforce. All the lawsuits involve ‘149 and/or ‘229 and some include a third, related patent (8,015,495). In most cases defendants have been dismissed with prejudice within three months after the case is initiated. The campaign’s patents originate from GroupServe, who assigned the patents to LVL Patent Group, an IPNav subsidiary, in June 2012. MPG announced a “strategic partnership” with IPNav in 2013 and took ownership of the ‘149 patent family in March 2013. RPX reviewed ’149, ’229, and ’495 as an open market opportunity in December 2012 (GroupServe-OMA) and obtained sublicense rights to the patents for clients in March 2014. 4/7, Delaware District Court, 1:14cv00428, 1:14cv00429
April 10, 2014
Client-to-Client Communication Systems under Fire in Sampo Campaign
Sampo IP’s campaign has more than doubled after its recent filings against Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Intuit, and LinkedIn. The subsidiary of Marathon Patent Group (MPG) is asserting the same three patents used in its previous litigation that relate to facilitating communication and collaboration over a network between members of a group (6,161,149, 6,772,229, 8,015,495). All three patents originated with GroupServe and were transferred to LVL Patent Group in June 2012. Sampo acquired the patents from LVL, an entity controlled by IPNav, in March 2013, the same month that it began asserting the patents in litigation. The majority of the patents owned by MPG and its subsidiaries have come from IPNav companies, which is likely related to the “strategic partnership” between the entities. The complaints state that defendants all provide messaging systems that allow users to interact and allege that those services infringe the patents-in-suit. Two of the cases, those against eBay and LinkedIn, only assert the ‘229 and ‘495 patents but the allegations are similar to the other cases in the campaign. 2/7, District of Delaware, 1:14cv00171, 1:14cv00172, 1:14cv00173, 1:14cv00174, 1:14cv00175
February 13, 2014
Sampo IP Sues Blackboard and Salesforce
Sampo IP’s ongoing campaign now includes Blackboard and Salesforce after the Marathon Patent Group-subsidiary filed a single suit against the two companies, joining them as co-defendants. The complaint accuses the “Blackboard Learn for Salesforce” product, developed by Blackboard but run on Salesforce, of infringing the three patents-in-suit (6,161,149; 6,772,229; 8,015,495). The asserted patents relate to communcation and collaboration across computer channels, something the Blackboard product allegedly provides by linking users’ computing devices to a central Salesforce agent. The asserted patents originated with GroupServe and were assigned to an IPNav subsidiary in June 2012 before being transferred to Sampo in March 2013. Sampo’s patent company is involved in an ongoing “strategic partnership” with IPNav. 11/7, Eastern District of Virginia, 2:13cv00601
November 14, 2013