Inventor Leigh M. Rothschild has continued his streak of conceding to venue challenges in Texas, less than a year after largely consolidating his litigation in that state. On July 18 and 24, dockets were opened in the Central District of California and Delaware, respectively, for the cases against ShopStyle (1:17-cv-00978) and Clique Media (2:17-cv-05463) brought by the Rothschild-controlled Product Association Technologies, LLC after the defendants filed motions to dismiss due to improper venue in the Eastern District of Texas cases against them (2:17-cv-00270, 2:17-cv-00265). Product Association also dismissed cases against IAC Search & Media (2:17-cv-00269) and Verizon (Altaba (f/k/a Yahoo), Polyvore, Yahoo Holding) (2:17-cv-00272, 2:17-cv-00268) with prejudice on July 20 after the defendants filed motions to dismiss for improper venue or, in the alternative, to dismiss due to the alleged invalidity of the asserted patent (6,154,738) under Alice. Each of those virtually identical motions was filed on June 26 and alleged that the ‘738 patent is impermissibly directed to the abstract idea of “locating and sending product information in response to a request”.

Frequent plaintiff Leigh M. Rothschild has transferred one patent (7,456,872) asserted by one of his Florida entities, Rothschild Mobile Imaging Innovation LLC (RMII), to one of his new Texas entities, Rothschild Digital Confirmation, LLC for further assertion in that state. The new owner of the ‘872 patent has filed separate lawsuits against Oracle, FieldOne Systems, Fleetmatic, Intuit, Reachlocal (Kickserv), ServiceMax, Telogis, Verizon (Cellco), and WorkWave. The ‘872 patent generally relates to mobile image capture, transmission, and storage, and the accused products are the defendants’ field service management applications that include image capture. This new phase of the campaign follows a first that saw significant setbacks before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

The number of infringement suits filed by NPEs controlled by inventor Leigh M. Rothschild sharply increased last year, with over 140 patent cases filed in 2015 compared to just 35 in 2014. In fact, according to RPX’s 2015 NPE Activity: Highlights report published on January 4, 2016, Rothschild ranked first among the top ten NPEs by campaign defendants added in 2015.

Rothschild Mobile Imaging Innovation LLC (RMII), an entity controlled by inventor Leigh M. Rothschild, continues to target financial services companies with suits against Bank of America (along with Mitek and NCR) (1:14-cv-01142), Citigroup (along with Mitek and NCR) (1:14-cv-01143), and Wells Fargo (along with Fiserv and Mitek) (1:14-cv-01144). The cases are part of a campaign begun in May of this year when RMII filed suit against JP Morgan Chase and Mitek. The patents-in-suit (7,450,163; 7,456,872; 7,991,792; 7,995,118) relate to capture, transmission, and storage of digital images and name Rothschild as the sole inventor. RPX reviewed the patents-in-suit in April 2010 as part of a larger portfolio presented in an acquisition opportunity (Rothschild Symbology). Defendants’ mobile banking products and services that use digital images to complete a transaction are accused of infringing the asserted patents.