After roughly a year hiatus, Alert Signal Intellectual Property, LLC (Alert Signal IP) has revived its sole litigation campaign, filing suit in the Western District of Texas against Alphabet (Google) (6:20-cv-00644) over four patents generally related to managing alerts based on a device’s velocity. Alert Signal IP targets the provision of certain Pixel series smartphones, with features for prioritizing or disabling notifications in different environments (e.g., while driving). The case against the most recent defendant, Apple, which saw the same four patents asserted, ended in an April 2019 dismissal with prejudice shortly after an unopposed transfer from the Eastern District of Texas to the Northern District of California.

Technical LED Intellectual Property, LLC (Technical LED IP), an apparent affiliate of inventor Fred DuFresne and/or his monetization firms Cerinet USA Inc. and ipCapital Licensing Company I, LLC (d/b/a Cerinet IP Licensing), has added seven cases so far in 2019 to the campaign that it began in August 2017. The new defendants are Aduro Technologies (2:19-cv-00480), BVGA Mipow (3:19-cv-00393), Culver LED Lighting Solutions (8:19-cv-00120), Feit Electric (2:19-cv-00485), Home Controls (3:19-cv-00144), Lifi Labs (5:19-cv-00392), and NORA Lighting (2:19-cv-00488), each accused of infringing a single LED lighting patent acquired from Honeywell. Technical LED IP has now filed almost 20 cases in this campaign, across various districts, all of these most recent cases in California district courts. Its disclosures there identify both Cerinet USA and Honeywell as nonparties having an interest in the outcome of the litigation.

Alert Signal Intellectual Property, LLC (Alert Signal IP), an apparent affiliate of inventor Fred DuFresne and/or his monetization firms Cerinet USA Inc. and ipCapital Licensing Company (d/b/a Cerinet IP Licensing), has filed suit in the Eastern District of Texas against Apple (2:18-cv-00177). All members of a four-patent family are asserted in the new complaint, which targets iPhones running iOS 11 or above, alleging infringement through aspects of its Do Not Disturb feature that disable alerts when the user is driving by detecting the phone’s physical velocity (“Do Not Disturb While Driving” mode) and that allow priority messages to trigger alerts.

RPX took notice, among the assignment records published by the USPTO during the latter half of June, of the transfer of patents to several repeat players in patent litigation, including IP Edge LLC and Cerinet USA Inc. Also of note were two NPE-to-NPE transactions, from Intellectual Ventures LLC to IQ Holdings, LLC, and between M2M Solutions LLC and Blackbird Tech LLC.

RPX took note, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the second half of March 2017, of the transfer of hundreds of patents to two Wi-LAN Inc. subsidiaries, one of which has not yet filed suit. Also noted are assignments of patents to Monument Patent Holdings, LLC, to Intellectual Ventures LLC, and to Xperi Corporation, among others.

Checkerboard Intellectual Property, LLC has initiated a new litigation campaign, asserting a single patent (6,529,214) generally related to previewing customized print jobs. The defendants are Cafepress.com (1:17-cv-00219), Cimpress (1:17-cv-00220), CustomInk (1:17-cv-00221), and Office Depot (1:17-cv-00222), and the accused products are the functionality on those companies’ websites that permit users to view how an article will look after a customized image has been printed on it.

In the second half of May 2016, RPX saw five patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO. One of those transactions involved a patent that has already been asserted in litigation.

Inventor Fred DuFresne (either individually or though his patent monetization firm Cerinet IP Licensing) created five new NPEs in October-November 2015, which have filed a total of 19 cases to date. This week, DuFresne’s newest NPEs, Naraka Intellectual Property, LLC and Positron Intellectual Property, LLC, each launched their first litigation campaigns.