The Federal Circuit has upheld a May 2019 judgment of noninfringement for Microsoft in litigation brought by Improved Search LLC, a subsidiary of Quarterhill Inc. That newly upheld ruling stemmed from an August 2018 Markman order from Delaware District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon that resolved a claim construction dispute in Microsoft’s favor, which led the plaintiff to concede the issue of infringement as to both of the two asserted patents. However, the court had also declined to address a pending validity defense against the asserted patents, holding that it was precluded from doing so as a result of its ruling on infringement. Quarterhill appears poised to launch additional litigation despite this latest setback, having disclosed the acquisition of multiple new patent portfolios earlier this year.

In the third quarter of last year, Wi-LAN, Inc. joined Acacia Research Corporation to become one of the two most active publicly traded NPEs in patent litigation (among the over 20 publicly traded NPEs that RPX monitors). But while Acacia and WiLAN have continued to share that distinction over the past year, according to the NPEs’ recent earnings reports, they ended Q3 2016 with markedly different overall results.

Its patents-in-suit (6,604,101; 7,516,154) having survived a district court Alice challenge, Wi-LAN Inc. subsidiary Improved Search LLC has added a suit against Microsoft (1:16-cv-00650) to the first case in the campaign, filed in March 2015 against Verizon (AOL). The patents generally relate to returning search results (the ‘101 patent) and ads (the ‘154 patent) in a language different from the language of the query. Microsoft’s Bing Search and Bing Ads are the accused products.

Wi-LAN Inc. subsidiary Improved Search LLC filed suit against AOL (1:15-cv-00262), asserting two patents (6,604,101; 7,516,154) that it recently acquired from qNaturally. The patents relate to contextual search and cross language advertising in a network. AOL’s search service is accused of infringing the asserted patents.

For the second half of March, RPX saw 19 transfers of patents recorded with the USPTO.