In the past two months, three NPEs with ties to Robert A. Westerland—IP Communication Solutions, LLC, Content Aggregation Solutions LLC, and Nova Intellectual Solutions, LLC—have filed nearly 20 cases against a total of 18 operating companies, including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Huawei, HTC, LG Electronics, Sharp, Sony, and ZTE. These NPEs’ principal place of business, according to their complaints, is a luxury condominium in Dallas, Texas owned by Westerlund—a well-known patent attorney, patent broker, and inventor connected to NPEs that have litigated both patents issuing to Westerlund and patents issuing to others but subsequently acquired for assertion.

New NPE Optical Storage Solutions LLC filed suit (2:14-cv-00264) against ASUS, Dell, HP and Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions (PLDS). The patent-in-suit relates to a compact disc player that reads compressed digital audio data (6,215,754). Optical Storage accuses disc drives manufactured by PLDS and personal computers manufactured by ASUS, Dell, and HP that incorporate those drives of infringement.