HFT Solutions, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of publicly traded Network-1 Technologies, Inc., has filed separate Northern District of Illinois complaints against Citadel Securities (1:24-cv-13213) and Jump Trading (1:24-cv-13214) in which it alleges infringement of three patents generally related to processing data streams using a certain field programmable gate array system. Targeted is the provision or use of field programmable gate array “systems and platforms”, as well as trading systems and platforms that include FPGA boards (including those manufactured by AMD (Xilinx)).

Network-1 Technologies, Inc. has added cases against three more defendants to its oldest litigation campaign, suing Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology (Hikvision) (2:22-cv-08050) and TP-Link (8:22-cv-01980) in separate Central District of California complaints, as well as Panasonic (2:22-cv-00430) in the Eastern District of Texas. These cases join four that the publicly traded plaintiff filed in early October in the District of Delaware, one against each of Arista Networks, Fortinet, Honeywell, and Ubiquiti. A single expired PoE patent has been asserted throughout, with infringement allegations targeting the provision of products that “distribute[] or use[] power transferred through Ethernet cables (‘Power over Ethernet’ or ‘PoE’), including Power Sourcing Equipment (‘PSEs’) and Powered Devices (‘PDs’) that are compliant with the IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at standards.

Network-1 Technologies, Inc. has filed its first new litigation since 2018, suing Arista Networks (1:22-cv-01318), Fortinet (1:22-cv-01319), Honeywell (1:22-cv-01320), and Ubiquiti (1:22-cv-01321) over the provision of products that “distribute[] or use[] power transferred through Ethernet cables (‘Power over Ethernet’ or ‘PoE’), including Power Sourcing Equipment (‘PSEs’) and Powered Devices (‘PDs’) that are compliant with the IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at standards”. The publicly traded plaintiff asserts a single patent generally related to detecting PoE compatibility of networked devices via current probes and voltage sensing. The patent has been in suit since 2004 and is characterized in the new complaints as “the most important patent covering products that comply with the 802.3af standard” and as having generated more than $187M in licensing revenue over the years.

In a new Western District of Texas complaint, Virtual Creative Artists, LLC (VCA) has accused Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook) (6:22-cv-00265) of infringing, through the provision of www.facebook.com, two members of a six-patent family generally related, per the plaintiff, to “creating and distributing media content”. The plaintiff cites liberally from materials submitted in connection with litigation brought by Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC (a subsidiary of publicly traded Network-1 Technologies, Inc.) against Facebook, including diagrams purportedly submitted and statements allegedly made by an expert that Facebook hired in that case. Just last week, the campaign of Mirror Worlds ended, when Southern District of New York Judge John G. Koeltl granted Facebook summary judgment of noninfringement.

The Federal Circuit has overturned a noninfringement verdict for HP and HP Enterprise (HPE) against Network-1 Technologies, Inc., ruling on September 24 that a Texas jury’s finding on that issue depended on an erroneous claim construction and remanding for further proceedings. However, the appeals court also reversed and remanded a ruling by District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III that the defendants were estopped from challenging the validity of the asserted Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) patent due to the defendant’s joinder to another company’s inter partes review (IPR), a decision that had resulted in the reversal of that same jury’s finding that the patent was invalid. Rather, the Federal Circuit ruled that HP and HPE could not “reasonably . . . have raised” their district court invalidity arguments—which were different than the grounds raised in the IPR—under its recent decision in Facebook v. Windy City Innovations, which in part bars the joinder of new issues to an already instituted IPR.

A Texas judge has upheld a noninfringement verdict for HP and HP Enterprise (HPE) in a Network-1 Technologies, Inc. lawsuit but overturned the jury’s finding of invalidity as to the asserted Power-over- Ethernet (PoE) patent (6:13-cv-00072). In a sealed August 29 order addressing a variety of post-trial motions, as well as issues from a May 2018 bench trial, District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III denied Network-1’s motion for a new trial on infringement yet granted judgment as a matter of law of validity, ruling that the patent is not invalid as obvious as found by the jury. Publicly traded Network-1 previously disclosed to investors that the newly revived patent-in-suit had been responsible for the majority of its licensing revenue prior to the invalidation of the claims asserted against HP and HPE.

A New York judge has dismissed Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC’s (MWT’s) suit against Facebook. On August 11, District Judge John G. Koeltl granted summary judgment for the defendant, ruling that it had not infringed three document streaming patents through certain features of the Facebook platform, including the Timeline and News Feed features. The ruling comes as the plaintiff’s parent, publicly traded NPE Network-1 Technologies, Inc., reported a net loss and a drop in revenue for Q2 2018 as the result of an adverse ruling last year in the NPE’s Power over Ethernet campaign.

Publicly traded Network-1 Technologies, Inc. has seen another setback after reporting mixed financial results for the first quarter, as the Federal Circuit has just declined to overturn an adverse appeal ruling in favor of Google and subsidiary YouTube. On July 10, the Federal Circuit summarily declined to grant an en banc or panel rehearing of its March opinion that reversed a series of final decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in four inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed by Google and YouTube. In that upheld opinion, the court ruled that the Board had erred in declining to cancel claims from four of the NPE’s content identification patents due to an improper claim construction. The holding comes as Network-1 contends with the partial invalidation, late last year, of a patent from another portfolio that has been responsible for the majority of its licensing revenue.

The Federal Circuit has reversed a series of final decisions that mostly upheld the validity of four patents held by Network-1 Technologies, Inc. in four inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed by Google. In a March 26 opinion, the appeals court held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred in its construction of a key claim term upon which those June 2016 decisions had turned, remanding for further proceedings consistent with Google’s preferred construction.

The Federal Circuit has upheld a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision that a media content identification patent held by publicly traded Network-1 Technologies, Inc. is not invalid over certain prior art (2017-1379). In a two-page order issued on January 23, the court affirmed the PTAB’s October 2016 holding in a covered business method (CBM) review filed by Google (CBM2015-00113) that the patent at issue is not invalid as obvious, ruling that the Board did not err in its construction of a key claim term.