In the first half of May 2016, RPX saw nine patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO. At least three of those transactions involved patents that have already been asserted in litigation against operating companies.

Inventor Holdings continued its campaign asserting former Walker Digital patents. In two recent filings, Inventor Holdings alleges that Sam’s West and Target are infringing a patent related to the sale and distribution of products in accordance to purchase agreements (5,970,470). The complaints accuse defendants’ online subscriptions services of infringing the patent-in-suit. The ‘470 patent has been asserted in litigation once before, by Walker Digital against Amazon in April 2011; the case remains open in initial pleadings. Inventor Holdings, a subsidiary of Patent Properties, acquired at least 22 patents from Walker Digital in November 2013, including the ‘470 patent. 6/19, Delaware District Court, 1:14cv00783, 1:14cv00784

Inventor Holdings’s campaign is growing steadily since the entity took on several cases from Walker Digital earlier this year. The Patent Properties subsidiary most recently sued Microsoft asserting a patent that it has used in only one previous case, against Google (8,558,921). In the complaint Microsoft’s photo gallery service is accused of infringing the asserted patent.The patent-in-suit relates to facilitating tagging people in photos by referencing a database of stored images, and was developed by Walker Digital. Inventor Holdings acquired the patent via assignment in November 2013 and first asserted it in litigation in February of this year. Walker Digital transferred the patent to Inventor Holdings as part of a group of 16 patents and Inventor Holdings was substituted as the plaintiff in two cases that involved patents transferred in that group. The entity has filed an additional four suits including this filing. 6/6, District of Delaware, 1:14cv00720

Former operating company Capella Photonics filed its first suits against defendants Ciena, Cisco, Fujitsu, and Tellabs. Each case asserts two patents related to fiber optics (RE42,368, RE42,678). The defendants’ optical switches are accused of infringement. Founded in 2000, Capella was a provider of wavelength switch devices. The ‘368 patent was reviewed as an open market opportunity by RPX in 2012. 2/12, Southern District of Florida, 1:14cv20529, 1:14cv20530, 1:14cv20531, 0:14cv60350

Inventor Holdings filed suits against Google and Kmart, asserting two different patents from Walker Digital (6,381,582, 8,558,921). Kmart’s “Pay in Store” service is accused of infringing the ‘582 patent, relating to processing payment for a remote or local order, while Google’s image sharing services are accused of infringing the ‘921 patent that relates to digital image analysis. Inventor Holdings is a subsidiary of Patent Properties Incorporated, an entity created in 2013 through a reverse merger between public company GlobalOptions Group and patent assertion entity Walker Digital Holdings.  2/12, District of Delaware, 1:14cv00185, 1:14cv00186