Add to the list of portfolio pickups by the same Korean monetization firm, which already includes batches of US patents from SKhynix and SOLiD, a set of assets more recently acquired from Suzhou Lekin Semiconductor Co. Ltd. (d/b/a LEKIN). Assignments recently made public by the USPTO also reveal bursts of activity from two monetization professionals, both suggesting possible strategy shifts going forward.

Another plaintiff appears poised to litigate mobile device patents originally developed years ago at Wildseed Ltd., a “venture-funded mobile technology startup” acquired by AOL a decade before its own acquisition by Verizon. A November 2021 transfer of three such patents joins a half dozen patents moved into the hands of Wildseed Mobile LLC this past August. If the new owner does sue, it will join several other recent plaintiffs that, according to public records, have received funding from the same third party.

Smart Skins LLC sued Microsoft (1:14-cv-10149) for alleged infringement of patents developed by mobile software company Wildseed, Ltd. (acquired by AOL in 2005). The complaint accuses Microsoft’s Surface and Lumia tablets, as well as keyboard covers especially made for those products, of infringing two patents that relate to interchangeable covers with complementary electronics for mobile devices (6,920,338, 7,079,864). Both patents originated with Wildseed, which in 2007 assigned the patents to Varia Holdings LLC, an NPE. In October 2012, Varia assigned the patents to Smart Skins along with five other patents in the same family. This appears to be the first time that the former Wildseed patents have been asserted in litigation, and the first patent infringement suit filed by Smart Skins.