Sonraí Memory Limited has sued Kingston Technology (8:21-cv-01039) and Western Digital (8:21-cv-01040) over the provision of devices that contain “SanDisk/Toshiba 64L 3D NAND flash chips”, as well as solid state drives (SSDs) that include Silicon Motion SSD controllers (Kingston) or Marvell SSD controllers (Western Digital). These new suits expand a campaign that started in February of this year with Western District of Texas cases against Alphabet (Google), LG Electronics (LGE), and Samsung and that proceeded with separate additional suits filed against Apple, Dell, and Kioxia in April, also in West Texas. The new litigation, by contrast, has been filed in the Central District of California.

The Supreme Court’s Alice decision is widely considered to be difficult for courts to apply consistently, a notion regularly acknowledged by judges working through that case’s two-step eligibility test. But as the Federal Circuit recently held, neither the complexity of Alice nor the fact that Section 101 decisions are reviewed de novo on appeal provide an excuse for district courts to skimp on their written analyses. On October 23, the appeals court reversed and remanded an Alice decision by Delaware District Judge Colm Connolly that invalidated five data compression patents asserted by Realtime Data LLC, holding that “this case presents one of those rare circumstances in which a district court’s treatment of a complex and close legal issue is too cursory to allow for meaningful appellate review”.

RPX completed a number of acquisitions in September 2018 on behalf of its patent risk management network. The acquisitions occurred within the following market sectors: E-Commerce and Software; and Networking.

Prolific litigant Realtime Data LLC (RTD) saw its long-running litigation campaign splinter off into a variety of new districts in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland, both through transfers (typically from Texas to California) and through new filings. The campaign’s defendant count now tops 110, with court disclosures revealing that the NPE has received funding from public litigation fund Juridica Investment Limited and Brickell Key Investments LP (which is handling Juridica’s run-off). Amidst that expansion, RTD subsidiary Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC (RTAS)—which joined the campaign in September 2017, asserting a family of homegrown video compression patents—moved in April 2018 to consolidate various pending lawsuits in either Texas or Colorado, the latter of which has in particular seen many new filings by RTD and RTAS since TC Heartland. However, that effort hit a wall earlier this month, when the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) denied the motion. Meanwhile, RTD has filed eight new suits in Delaware throughout early August, asserting a well-worn set of data compression and storage acceleration patents against Hitachi, Nutanix, and SoftNAS, among others.

In June 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw petitioners wage validity challenges against a variety of prominent NPEs. Among those hit by petitions for AIA review in June was Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), which has not filed any new litigation in the US since October 2017, but continues to assert patents overseas; and NPEs affiliated with Fortress Investment Group LLC and Industrial Technology Research Institute. Also in June, the PTAB instituted trial for two IPRs against affiliates of top litigant IP Edge LLC, which remains the most prolific patent plaintiff of the past 18 years by the number of defendants added to US patent suits. In addition, the Board issued final decisions in IPRs against IV, the California Institute of Technology, inventor Daniel L. Flamm, and frequent litigants Realtime Data LLC and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited.

Both Realtime Data LLC (RTD) and its subsidiary Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC (RAS) recently added cases to their respective wings of what has become one of the longest-running, widest-ranging active litigation campaigns. RTD asserted three familiar data compression patents against Facebook (1:18-cv-01373), targeting its Zstandard compression algorithm, as well as products and services “that incorporate the algorithm”. Meanwhile, RAS tagged Charter Communications (1:18-cv-01345), Comcast (1:18-cv-01446), and Cox Communications (8:18-cv-00942), asserting three equally familiar video compression patents against the companies’ respective broadcasting services, training infringement allegations—as it has in most of its cases in this campaign—on the use of the H.264 video compression to standard “to deliver HD video broadcasting products/services” to customers.

Throughout May 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw activity in multiple long-running campaigns, including challenges brought against patents and plaintiffs with colorful and tangled litigation histories. The Board saw petitions for AIA review brought in May against Publishing Technologies LLC, an NPE controlled by patent attorney and frequent litigant Bradley D. Liddle; in the mobile devices campaign waged by AGIS Software Development LLC; and in the networking campaign brought by XR Communications, LLC. Also in May, the Board instituted trial for inter partes reviews (IPRs) against Iridescent Networks, Inc. and Oyster Optics, LLC. Final decisions issued in May include three against prolific plaintiff Realtime Data LLC, which saw claims cancelled from one of its data compression patents while another two survived unscathed, as well as final decisions cancelling claims from patents held by General Patent Corporation and VirnetX Holding Corporation.

The number of defendants in the sprawling litigation campaign of Realtime Data LLC (RTD) and its subsidiary Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC (RAS) has now topped 100, with the latter entity’s new suits against AMD (1:18-cv-01173), Intel (1:18-cv-01175), LG Electronics (LGE) (6:18-cv-00215), and Mitel Networks (1:18-cv-01177), filed last week. RAS accuses the defendants of infringement through the provision of products that support the H.264 video compression standard, including its Scalable Video Coding feature/extension (which allows a video bitstream to contain a subset bitstream that can comprise a lower-resolution or lower-quality version of the video). The accused AMD products include GPUs and APUs incorporating its Video Coding Engine; the accused Intel products, QuickSync Video implemented in Intel Core I9-8950HK, Intel Core i7-8850H, Intel Core i7-8750H, Intel Core I5- 8500B, and Intel Core i3-8300T processors; LGE, smartphones, hybrid recording DVRs, video servers, and surveillance systems; Mitel, video communications products and routers.

Last week saw a barrage of new complaints filed in the long-running campaign litigated by Realtime Data LLC (RTD) and its subsidiary Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC (RAS). RTD asserted overlapping subsets of patents from its data compression portfolio in new cases against Cloudera (1:18-cv-00653), Huawei (6:18-cv-00182), and IBM (6:18-cv-00188). Meanwhile, RAS filed complaints asserting overlapping subsets of patents from its video compression portfolio against Alphabet (Google) (2:18-cv-03629), Avaya (1:18-cv-01046), Broadcom (1:18-cv-01048), and Wowza Media (1:18-cv-00927). With these new cases, the number of defendants in this sprawling litigation campaign now approaches 100, with the number of patents asserted holding steady at just shy of 40 and the number of petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of various of those patents topping 50.

In March 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw petitions for inter partes review (IPR) filed in a variety of notable campaigns, including those waged by publicly traded Quarterhill Inc.; privately held XR Communications, LLC; and inventor Leigh M. Rothschild. The Board also instituted trial throughout March in campaigns brought by Oyster Optics, LLC and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited. In addition, the PTAB granted in March a motion to amend in two IPRs against prolific plaintiff Realtime Data, LLC, also issuing final decisions involving patents asserted by Uniloc; Papst Licensing GmbH & Company Kg; Evolved Wireless LLC; Game and Technology Co., Ltd; and TQ Delta LLC.