Juries returned a series of sizable damages awards in patent infringement suits this past year. However, subsequent developments in some of the cases with 2024’s largest verdicts underscore how a jury verdict is frequently not the final word on damages—with the year’s top verdict, an $847M award in East Texas, falling apart entirely due to a post-trial ruling; four others increased at final judgment with the addition of interest, in one case this past week; and another trimmed by a posttrial noninfringement ruling. Here, RPX takes a look back at these and the other top ten verdicts of 2024.

Early this past September, AlmondNet, Inc. and its subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC amended their March 2023 complaint against Comcast (FreeWheel Media (Beeswax.io)) to assert a fifth patent—one for which the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) had twice refused to institute trial in response to an inter partes review (IPR) petition. PTAB trials have been instituted with respect to the other four patents, and the defendants have asked Delaware District Judge Maryellen Noreika to impose a stay. Now, the coplaintiffs have filed a second complaint against FreeWheel and Beeswax.io (1:24-cv-01259), again in Delaware, this one asserting four additional patents, each of which has been unsuccessfully challenged before the PTAB. They have also hit JWP Connatix (Connatix Native Exchange) (1:24-cv-01296) with a complaint in the same district.

A Western District of Texas jury has returned a verdict for AlmondNet, Inc. in a suit that it filed with its subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC against Amazon (Amazon.com Services, Amazon Web Services) in August 2021. The jury found two claims, one from each of two tried patents, infringed and not proven invalid, awarding $121.95M in damages, well below the plaintiffs’ reported ask. Presiding Judge Alan D. Albright also submitted to the jury the “issue as to conventionality” of the asserted claim of one of the patents, which patent claim the court had ruled in pretrial proceedings is directed to an abstract idea.

Trial is set to begin on June 10, 2024 in the Western District of Texas courtroom of Judge Alan D. Albright in a case that AlmondNet, Inc. filed, with its subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC, against Amazon (Amazon.com Services, Amazon Web Services) back in August 2021. In an April 2024 “Omnibus Order Regarding Pretrial Motions”, the court denied an Amazon motion challenging one asserted patent under Alice (because, per the court, its asserted claims are not directed to an abstract idea) and will now send to the jury the “issue as to conventionality” of the asserted claim of another patent. Meanwhile, in a new complaint filed in the same venue, AlmondNet and Intent IQ have accused Oracle (6:24-cv-00303) of infringing two other targeted advertisement patents. The accused products are Oracle’s BlueKai Data Management Platform, Oracle Data Cloud, Oracle ID Graph, and Oracle Marketing Cloud.

AlmondNet, Inc.—this time with its subsidiary Datonics, LLC as a coplaintiff—has filed a third suit against Amazon (Amazon.com Services, Amazon Web Services) (6:24-cv-00234) in the Western District of Texas. The plaintiff asserts two patents broadly directed to using profiles of “Internet-using entities” to distribute targeted electronic advertisements, with Amazon again accused of infringement through the provision of its advertisement platform and services. At issue are features related to data collection and targeted advertisements.

As part of its targeted advertising campaign, AlmondNet, Inc. and its subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC sued Microsoft in August 2021 in the Western District of Texas, adding a case there against Microsoft and its subsidiary Xandr in November 2022. Earlier this year, the court consolidated the two actions in response to an agreement by which the number of asserted patents across the combined action would be reduced to four. Now, the plaintiff pair has accused Microsoft subsidiary LinkedIn (1:23-cv-01373) of infringing 11 patents, including the same four remaining in suit against Microsoft and Xandr, but doing so in Delaware.

Following a February suit against Viant Technology, AlmondNet, Inc. and its subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC have sued Comcast (Beeswax.io, FreeWheel Media) (1:23-cv-00220) in the District of Delaware. The four asserted patents are broadly directed to targeted advertisements, with the defendants accused of infringement through the provision of the FreeWheel advertisement platform. At issue are features related to data collection and ad personalization.

The Federal Circuit has for the first time interpreted a closely watched decision on venue from the Fifth Circuit, the regional circuit that determines the applicable law governing convenience transfers in Texas patent cases. That October 2022 ruling, In re: Planned Parenthood, appeared to depart from the Federal Circuit’s prior take on issues central to the analysis of such transfer motions, including the location of evidence, the cost of attendance for witnesses, and the district judge’s overarching discretion over such matters. However, the Federal Circuit’s precedential In re: Google opinion, issued on February 1, argues that Planned Parenthood does not undercut its current approach. In Google, the court held that a clear showing that a venue is more convenient takes precedence over the district judge’s discretion. Even more significantly, the Federal Circuit determined that NPEs do not have an interest in getting cases to trial quickly—and that a district judge lacks the discretion to give undue weight to his district’s time to trial. The opinion reversed another transfer denial from Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright, and comes months after Judge Albright began attempting to fill the gap with his own reading of Planned Parenthood.

In its targeted advertising campaign, AlmondNet, Inc. and its subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC have filed a new trio of cases against existing defendants Amazon (6:22-cv-01204), Meta Platforms (Facebook) (6:22-cv-01205), and Microsoft (6:22-cv-01206), together with an amended complaint in each of the cases filed against those defendants in August 2021, all in the Western District of Texas. The amended complaints drop patents on the eve of a claim construction hearing set for November 30 before District Judge Alan D. Albright, while the new original complaints add some of those patents back into the litigation, together with others. Litigation against Samsung (AdGear Technologies) is also proceeding in West Texas, while the dispute with Roku has moved forward in the District of Delaware in response to a declaratory judgment action filed there.

The targeted advertising campaign of AlmondNet, Inc. and its subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC ballooned this past week, the plaintiffs filing separate suits against new defendants Amazon (6:21-cv-00898), Facebook (6:21-cv-00896), and Samsung (AdGear Technologies) (6:21-cv-00891), as well as additional suits against repeat defendants Microsoft (6:21-cv-00897) and Roku (6:21-cv-00876), the latter focusing on Roku’s acquisition of Dataxu (in late 2019). Nearly 20 patents have now been asserted in this campaign—not AlmondNet’s first—since its launch in 2016.