Recent European litigation activity has included several developments in German cases brought by subsidiaries of American NPEs, with a stay entered in two lawsuits brought by ParkerVision, Inc. and the affirmance of an injunction for Xperi Corporation. Meanwhile, plaintiffs originating in Europe have varied widely in size, financial resources, and level of activity, with one of Europe’s most persistent litigants (IPCom GmbH & Co KG) backed by financing from the US-based Fortress Investment Group LLC.

RPX took notice, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the latter part of February, of the transfer of patents from operating companies Dongbu, Eastman Kodak, Honeywell, IBM, and Koninklijke Philips to various NPEs. One of those NPEs (Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited) has already launched a campaign asserting the patents that it received (from IBM). RPX also saw during this time the recordation of the assignment of one two-way radio patent from one litigating NPE to another (the second, an affiliate of IP Edge LLC) and the assignment of two database management patents from a Daniel F. Perez entity that asserted them in litigation back to the Georgia patent monetization firm from which that NPE acquired them.

Audio MPEG, Inc., the US subsidiary of international patent licensing company Sisvel International S.A., has filed yet another lawsuit in its long-running MPEG audio compression campaign. The case (1:15-cv-1674), filed against Dell, is the second that Audio MPEG has initiated this year. The first case (2:15-cv-00073), filed against HP, has been stayed pending resolution of three petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of the three patents at issue in both suits (5,323,396; 5,777,992; 5,539,829). The NPE did not serve its February 2015 complaint against HP until June; HP filed its petitions for IPR within a week of service (IPR2015-01505, IPR2015-01506, IPR2015-01507). An institution decision is due by statute at the end of January.