In the past two months, three NPEs with ties to Robert A. Westerland—IP Communication Solutions, LLC, Content Aggregation Solutions LLC, and Nova Intellectual Solutions, LLC—have filed nearly 20 cases against a total of 18 operating companies, including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Huawei, HTC, LG Electronics, Sharp, Sony, and ZTE. These NPEs’ principal place of business, according to their complaints, is a luxury condominium in Dallas, Texas owned by Westerlund—a well-known patent attorney, patent broker, and inventor connected to NPEs that have litigated both patents issuing to Westerlund and patents issuing to others but subsequently acquired for assertion.

Nova Intellectual Solutions LLC added three suits to its campaign, with filings against BlackBerry (3:15-cv-01299), Sharp (3:15-cv-01300) , and Sony (3:15-cv-01302). The suits assert a single patent (8,208,517) that generally relates to communication over a mobile hotspot. The patent-in-suit was previously asserted against ZTE in April of this year. It is also in the same family as a patent Nova began asserting in 2010 (7,319,715). Several other patents that concern communication over a wireless modem are asserted in Nova’s campaign.

Nova Intellectual Solutions, LLC (NIS) files its first patent assertion suits as a solo plaintiff, suing Franklin Wireless (3:15-cv-00912) and ZTE (3:15-cv-00911). Both cases assert the 7,944,901 patent, and the suit against ZTE asserts an additional patent, 8,208,517. The patents-in-suit concern communication over a mobile hotspot. At issue in the lawsuits are modems and data hotspots made by defendants.