Think Products Inc. has voluntarily dismissed, without prejudice, a case that it filed last December against Microsoft, in apparent favor of a new complaint (1:22-cv-05313) in the same district. The old case saw one Think Products patent asserted, while in the new one, Think Products adds allegations concerning a more recent member of the same family, both generally related to laptop computer locking assemblies. These cases are part of a larger litigation effort aimed at ACCO Brands, with Northern District of Illinois Judge Mary M. Rowland having stayed the now-dismissed suit to await the outcome of at least one case between Think Products and ACCO; Think, however, has pleaded in its new complaint a set of allegations concerning an agreement between ACCO and Microsoft that suggest it will try to avoid such a stay this time around.

After years of litigating members of the same 16-patent family, broadly directed to laptop computer locking assemblies, against ACCO Brands, Think Products Inc. has asserted one of them against Microsoft (1:21-cv-06757) in a new Northern District of Illinois case. The same patent is already in suit in one of three actions filed in the same district against ACCO; that litigation has been stayed to await the outcome of reexaminations before the USPTO. Think Products indicates in the new complaint that the asserted patent has just emerged from those proceedings.