The three sons of late inventor Charles C. Freeny, Jr. have added seven new suits to their wireless hotspot campaign. Six of the latest complaints filed by Bryan E. Freeny, Charles C. Freeny III, and James P. Freeny allege infringement of four wireless communication patents (6,490,443; 6,806,977; 7,110,744; 7,301,664) through the provision of multi-function wireless printers made and sold by Brother (2:17-cv-00183), Konica Minolta (2:17-cv-00184), Lexmark (2:17-cv-00185), Oki Group (Oki Data) (2:17-cv-00186), Ricoh (2:17-cv-00187), and Xerox (2:17-cv-00188). Disney (2:17-cv-00155) is also accused of infringing the ‘443 patent alone through its MagicBand wireless wristbands, which are used for authenticating guests at Walt Disney World.

Individual plaintiffs Bryan E. Freeny, Charles C. Freeny III, and James P. Freeny have added Sears (2:16-cv-01052) as the latest defendant in their price management campaign, accusing the retailer of infringing two patents (6,076,071; 6,513,016) generally related to a central price storage system that communicates with local stores, where the local stores can also have site-specific prices. The named inventor for the ‘071 and ‘016 patents is Charles C. Freeny, Jr., the plaintiffs’ father, an electrical engineer who passed away in 2003. Sears is accused of infringing the two patents through use of digital price signs at its stores.

After a nearly two-year hiatus, three individual plaintiffs—Bryan E. Freeny, Charles C. Freeny III, and James P. Freeny—have resumed their wireless hotspot campaign, asserting a single patent (6,490,443) generally related to a method of authenticating a wireless device using authorization codes sent from the wireless device to a hotspot device. The sole named inventor for the ‘443 patent is Charles C. Freeny, Jr., the plaintiffs’ father, an electrical engineer who passed away in 2003. Defendants in this latest wave of litigation are AliphCom (2:16-cv-00674), Bose (2:16-cv-00668), Creative Technology (2:16-cv-00669), Fitbit (2:16-cv-00670), Garmin (2:16-cv-00671), GoPro (2:16-cv-00672), and Harman (2:16-cv-00673). The companies are accused of infringement through various types of devices (including fitness trackers, cameras, wireless speakers, and GPS navigators) that communicate wirelessly with other nearby devices using authentication codes.