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Zipit’s Litigation Gins Back Up, Two Reexams and Three Rounds of IPR Later
New Patent Litigation
The litigation campaign of Zipit Wireless, Inc., begun roughly ten years ago, has come back to life after years of post-issuance activity before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) regarding the plaintiff’s two most recent patents-in-suit. Those patents generally concern sending and receiving messages that include text or graphical symbols over Wi-Fi. In a new Delaware complaint, Zipit accuses Alphabet (Google) (1:23-cv-01183) of infringing one of those patents, while activity in an affirmative New Jersey case against LG Electronics (LGE) and in a declaratory judgment action filed by Apple in the Northern District of California resumes with reduced scope.
October 22, 2023
Letter-Writing NPEs May Face Trouble from Recent Federal Circuit Caselaw
In Case You Missed It
Patent-holding plaintiffs have limited ways to get the attention of parties that they believe have infringed their patents—primarily, sending demand letters and filing complaints. Any such plaintiff concerned about where any future litigation might occur will have to think twice about the former, given several recent Federal Circuit rulings.
April 29, 2022
No “Bright-Line Rule” Bars Personal Jurisdiction Based on Demand Letters, Reaffirms Federal Circuit
Patent Litigation Feature
The Federal Circuit has overturned a Northern District of California judge’s dismissal of an Apple declaratory judgment action filed against Zipit Wireless, Inc. for lack of jurisdiction. At issue was whether demand letters sent by Zipit and related communications could form the basis for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over ZipIt in that district. While District Judge Edward J. Davila held that it would be unreasonable to subject ZipIt to jurisdiction there based on those contacts, the Federal Circuit disagreed in an April 18 precedential decision—holding that the lower court was wrong to apply a “bright-line rule” that such letters and communications “can never form the basis for personal jurisdiction”. This is the second time in the past year that the Federal Circuit has reached this same conclusion, potentially exposing letter-writing NPEs to greater risk of declaratory judgment actions.
April 22, 2022
Apple Files DJ Action in Wake of Zipit Dismissals
In Case You Missed It
The expansion of Zipit Wireless, Inc.’s litigation has abruptly reversed. Earlier in 2020, the plaintiff had sued LG Electronics (LGE), a case that was stayed in mid-May to await the outcome of trials instituted by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) over petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of the two patents-in-suit. Undeterred, Zipit hit Alphabet (Google), Apple, BLU Products, HTC, Lenovo (Motorola Mobility), Microsoft, Nokia, Panasonic, Sony, TCL (TTE Technology), and ZTE in multiple districts last month. However, in the last week of June, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed, without prejudice, each of those new complaints. One of the prior defendants, Apple, has responded by filing a complaint of its own (3:20-cv-04448), in the Northern District of California this time, seeking declaratory judgments that it does not infringe either patent asserted in the dismissed complaint.
July 4, 2020
Zipit Wireless Unloads Against Multiple Defendants over the “Single Most Important Smartphone Feature”
New Patent Litigation
So far in June, Zipit Wireless, Inc. has widely expanded its litigation over two homegrown patents, suing Alphabet (Google), BLU Products, Lenovo (Motorola Mobility), Nokia, Panasonic, Sony, and TCL (TTE Technology) (1:20-cv-00756) in a single District of Delaware complaint, HTC and ZTE (1:20-cv-02489) together in a Northern District of Georgia complaint, and Apple (1:20-cv-02488) and Microsoft (1:20-cv-02487) in separate, stand-alone complaints also filed in the Northern District of Georgia. Throughout this campaign, begun in October 2013 against BlackBerry, Zipit has targeted the provision of mobile devices capable of sending messages containing an “emoji/graphical symbol” over a Wi-Fi application.
June 11, 2020