Bumble (6:23-cv-00675) is the latest defendant to be added to the sole litigation campaign of Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA), which launched in March 2022 with a suit against Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook). In the new Western District of Texas complaint, the plaintiff asserts three patents generally related to an “electronic media submissions database”, with infringement allegations targeting “personalized profile feeds” on Bumble’s dating platform.

Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has filed a Northern District of Illinois case against Snap (1:23-cv-04862), targeting the provision of “personalized discovery feeds” on the Snapchat platform. Since launching its sole litigation campaign in March 2022, the plaintiff has asserted the three patents-in-suit—generally related to an “electronic media submissions database”—in overlapping sets against six other defendants: Alphabet (Google), Liberty Media (Pandora), Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook), Microsoft (LinkedIn), Pinterest, and X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter).

Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has filed a case against Pinterest (1:23-cv-04238) in the Northern District of Illinois, after June dismissals with prejudice in cases that the plaintiff has filed separately against Alphabet (Google), in the Western District of Texas, and Liberty Media (Pandora), also in the Northern District of Illinois. Three patents generally related to an “electronic media submissions database”—including the one for which the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial this past March (IPR2022-01263)—are asserted in this latest complaint. Before the case against it was dismissed, Google had filed a motion to dismiss the other two patents-in-campaign as ineligibly directed to the abstract idea of “soliciting ideas from individuals and allowing people to vote on them”.

Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has followed its late-April suit against Liberty Media (Pandora) with a complaint against Microsoft (LinkedIn) (1:23-cv-03172) in the Northern District of Illinois. The two patents-in-suit, among three that have been asserted throughout VCA’s sole litigation campaign, generally relate to an “electronic media submissions database”. LinkedIn is accused of infringement through the implementation of the Open19 server technology—described as made up of “systems comprised of standard server chassis dimensions, cages for those servers to slide into, power and data cables, a power shelf, and a network switch”—in connection with its eponymous website.

Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has added a Northern District of Illinois case against Liberty Media (Pandora) (1:23-cv-02671) to the litigation campaign that it began last March. VCA asserts two of the three patents appearing in previous complaints, apparently avoiding the one for which trial has been instituted at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The patents generally relate to an “electronic media submissions database”, with infringement allegations focused on the Pandora website and Internet radio platform, targeting the alleged use of F5 Networks application delivery controllers for its server infrastructure and service features including some related to user submissions, user content ratings, and personalization.

Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has filed a new complaint against Alphabet (Google) (6:23-cv-00197), asserting two patents described as generally related to “creating and distributing media content”. The case, filed in the Western District of Texas, targets the provision of Google Photos. A March 2022 suit in the same campaign filed in the same district against Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook) ended last December after a noticed settlement, while a complaint filed earlier that month against Twitter remains pending, in the earliest stages, in the Northern District of Illinois.

A stay in the March 2022 case that Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) filed against Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook), to facilitate a noticed settlement, has been extended through mid-December. Meanwhile, the same plaintiff has turned to Twitter (1:22-cv-06890), filing a second complaint, this one in the Northern District of Illinois rather than in the Western District of Texas. The new complaint also swaps out one of the two patents asserted in the Meta case, leaving unasserted the one that is the subject of a petition for inter partes review (IPR) awaiting an institution decision before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). VCA targets the “Twitter website and platform” as allegedly using a “computer-based system . . . to enable integration with web-based and app-based user interfaces”.

In a new Western District of Texas complaint, Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has accused Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook) (6:22-cv-00265) of infringing, through the provision of www.facebook.com, two members of a six-patent family generally related, per the plaintiff, to “creating and distributing media content”. The plaintiff cites liberally from materials submitted in connection with litigation brought by Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC (a subsidiary of publicly traded Network-1 Technologies, Inc.) against Facebook, including diagrams purportedly submitted and statements allegedly made by an expert that Facebook hired in that case. Just last week, the campaign of Mirror Worlds ended, when Southern District of New York Judge John G. Koeltl granted Facebook summary judgment of noninfringement.