In March 2022, the Middle District of Florida dismissed the second of two cases filed by ParkerVision, Inc. against Qualcomm, ruling in part that certain infringement claims were barred due to collateral estoppel because the patents were too similar to others that Qualcomm was found not to infringe in a first suit. However, the Federal Circuit has now reversed and remanded this and other holdings by the lower court in a September 6 precedential decision, concluding that the district judge erred by failing to adequately compare the language of the claims at issue in the two actions. Among other issues, the appellate court also tackled a previously unresolved question over collateral estoppel based on Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions where the challenged claims survived review.

“We are not prepared to say that the district court clearly abused its discretion in making what here was a case-specific assessment of the record that it was uniquely well-positioned to do”. So ruled the Federal Circuit last week in denying an Apple petition for a writ of mandamus that would have required Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright to transfer for convenience a case filed by Resonant Systems, Inc. (d/b/a RevelHMI) to the Northern District of California. Observers have noted greater recent deference from the appeals court concerning Judge Albright’s denials of motions for convenience transfers, the reason for which deference might be the simplest one, observable simply by considering the heart of Judge Albright’s denial of Apple’s motion here.

This past week, the Federal Circuit denied a petition for a writ of mandamus sought by RingCentral after Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright rejected its renewed motion to dismiss for improper venue. RingCentral had argued that plaintiff Marble VOIP Partners LLC could not fix a venue flaw by filing an amended complaint identifying for the first time a lease for an in-district property that RingCentral signed after the date of the original complaint. The appeals court turned RingCentral away, as it has two other recent mandamus petitioners: Apple, in a case filed by Lionra Technologies Limited (involving a transfer for convenience); and Realtek Semiconductor, in one filed by ParkerVision, Inc. (involving alternative means of service).

ParkerVision, Inc. has whipped off yet another round of cases in its long-running electromagnetic signal conversion litigation, suing NXP Semiconductors (6:23-cv-00389) and Texas Instruments (6:23-cv-00384) for the first time and MediaTek (6:23-cv-00375) and Realtek Semiconductor (6:23-cv-00374), each for the second time, all of the new complaints filed in the Western District of Texas. Multiple prior defendants continue to await the outcome of ParkerVision’s appeal of a Middle District of Florida ruling in Qualcomm’s favor, but activity in West Texas has proceeded. In a prior case, Realtek has taken a fight over alternative service to the Federal Circuit, while earlier this year, ParkerVision and Intel settled a set of West Texas suits to a $25M tune—an amount that, per the funded plaintiff’s SEC filings, is “expected to be used entirely for the payment of contingent legal fees and expenses and the repayment of principal on [its] secured contingent debt obligation”.

So far this month, ­­ParkerVision, Inc. has filed three new cases, one against each of MediaTek (6:22-cv-01163), Realtek Semiconductor (6:22-cv-01162), and TCL (6:22-cv-01158), all in the Western District of Texas. The suits fall within ParkerVision’s sole litigation campaign, running since 2011 over the same large family of patents generally related to electromagnetic signal conversion, most of the rest of which campaign has been awaiting the outcome of what has been the central case for years: litigation against Qualcomm before Middle District of Florida Judge Paul G. Byron. This past March, Judge Byron entered final judgment in favor of Qualcomm in a ruling that ParkerVision has since appealed. The publicly traded NPE suggests in its appellate brief that the court ruled in Qualcomm’s favor before trial was set to begin because, as ParkerVision quotes, “We all know the jury isn’t going to follow 99 percent of what you are talking about in this trial. Right? We all know that”.

Last week, Middle District of Florida Judge Paul G. Byron entered final judgment in favor of Qualcomm and against publicly traded NPE ParkerVision, Inc. The court did so after a grant of summary judgment of noninfringement of the last three patents in suit there (in an order that remains under seal). Also last week, ParkerVision updated its investors on its 2021 financials, responding to this ruling from Judge Byron—which is just the most recent setback in its now deeply leveraged litigation campaign.

ParkerVision, Inc. has filed a second suit against LG Electronics (LGE) (6:21-cv-00520), this one in the Western District of Texas targeting with ten wireless networking patents the incorporation of certain MediaTek or Realtek Wi-Fi chips in its various wireless modules and TVs. A 2017 case against LGE—targeting products containing Qualcomm chips—remains stayed in the District of New Jersey to await the outcome of the litigation at the core of this campaign: a suit filed directly against Qualcomm in the Middle District of Florida, where the presiding judge, in receipt of a flurry of motions for summary judgment and motions challenging expert opinions, has just postponed trial beyond July.

ParkerVision, Inc. has continued the 2020 expansion of its long-running wireless communications campaign, this past week adding Western District of Texas suits against Melco Holdings (Buffalo) (6:20-cv-01009) and ZyXEL Communications (6:20-cv-01010). The publicly traded NPE targets the provision of Wi-Fi routers incorporating wireless networking modules with certain chips from MediaTek and Realtek. These latest cases follow earlier 2020 suits filed separately against Hisense, Intel, and TCL Technology, all as ParkerVision continues litigating a 2014 case in the Middle District of Florida against Qualcomm and its customer HTC, in light of which additional suits, against Apple and LG Electronics (LGE) have been stayed.

Backed by litigation funder Brickell Key and undeterred by a litigation storm in multiple districts, publicly traded ParkerVision, Inc. has sued Hisense (6:20-cv-00870) in the Western District of Texas over the provision of Sharp-branded TVs, with the incorporation of certain Wi-Fi chips provided by MediaTek and Realtek at issue. Core in this campaign is a 2014 case, active in the Middle District of Florida before Judge Paul G. Byron, against Qualcomm and its customer HTC, in light of which suits against Apple (also in the Middle District of Florida) and LG Electronics (LGE) (in the District of New Jersey) have been stayed. It does not stop there, however; 2020 cases against Intel (two in the Western District of Texas) and TCL (one in the Central District of California) continue, albeit in early stages.

2020 has seen the first new cases filed by ParkerVision, Inc. in years, the publicly traded NPE suing Intel (6:20-cv-00108) in the Western District of Texas in early February and TCL (TCL Technology, TTE Technology) (5:20-cv-01030) in the Central District of California in mid-May. Nearly all of the asserted patents belong to the plaintiff’s 100-plus member family, the bulk of which is generally related to “down-converting” electromagnetic signals based on “energy sampling” rather than voltage sampling. Qualcomm has been in suit against ParkerVision over the provision of its baseband processors since 2011, with an Apple case stayed to await the outcome of that litigation, which resumed after a Florida judge set aside a $175M verdict in ParkerVision’s favor—a decision upheld on appeal to the Federal Circuit. The NPE has just dismissed one patent from its February case against Intel in favor of refiling a standalone suit in the same venue (6:20-cv-00562), with ParkerVision targeting Intel cellular modems incorporated into certain iPhone models and the litigation against TCL targeting Wi-Fi modules and chips and television models incorporating them.