Last month’s review of notable patent assignments considered the movement of assets from Avaya to Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC; from Level 3 Communications to Sandpiper CDN, LLC; from Seiko Epson to IPValue’s 138 East LCD Advancements Ltd. and Lumitek Display Technology Ltd.; from Transaction Security to a “BioCrypt Access”; from Fortress Investment Group LLC’s KIP Prod P1 LP to Prodea Automation LLC; from EMM Patents Ltd. to Empire IP LLC; from Siemens and Abdelsalam Helal to Rokiot USA LLC; and from Proxicom Wireless, LLC to Secure Communication Technologies, LLC. While a couple of these entities again feature prominently, this month’s review extends well beyond them to cover the movement of patents away from other operating companies, as well as within several repeat monetization players.

IP Bridge, Inc. subsidiary Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 has sued Western Digital (1:24-cv-00342) and Seagate Technology (1:24-cv-00341) in separate District of Delaware complaints. Three patents generally related to a “magnetoresistive device comprising a magnetic tunnel junction structure”, based on a magnesium oxide layer, are aimed at the provision of a wide array of memory devices, including “read/write heads” for hard disk drives (HDDs), as well as HDDs incorporating such read/write heads. IP Bridge pleads that Seagate is familiar with the asserted portfolio based on prior litigation in Japan.

PanOptis Patent Management, LLC; Optis Cellular Technology, LLC; Unwired Planet, LLC; and Unwired Planet International Limited (collectively, PanOptis) have sued Ford (2:22-cv-00133) in the Eastern District of Texas, asserting a group of former Ericsson or Panasonic patents and targeting connected vehicles alleged to communicate according to the 4G/LTE cellular network standard. PanOptis appears to be the latest to join a line of Avanci, LLC licensors taking aim at Ford.

Last August, the Federal Circuit rejected an appeal filed by TCL (TCT Mobile) from a judgment based on a jury verdict against it—and in favor of Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1, a subsidiary of Japanese firm IP Bridge, Inc.—finding no error in the Delaware trial judge’s submission to the jury of questions whether the asserted patent claims are “essential to mandatory aspects of the Long-Term Evolution (‘LTE’) standard” and whether the accused products practice that standard. Further appeals exhausted, that $950K verdict stands. The same plaintiff has now sued Ericsson (2:21-cv-00213) and Nokia (2:21-cv-00215) under similar theories, this time in the Eastern District of Texas.

RPX ended its 2020 Patent Watch coverage with articles featuring the role that operating company patents play in fueling NPE litigation, the run of third-party litigation finance into the patent space, and the rise in the number of cases focused on companies doing business in the Automotive market sector. A review of assignments of US patents recently made public identifies multiple transactions falling into that first category—i.e., patent divestments by operating companies.

As the COVID-19 pandemic forces California into a second lockdown, courts in two of the state’s federal districts have pushed back scheduled patent trials. On December 14, District Judge James V. Selna of the Central District of California vacated a jury trial previously scheduled for April in litigation between TCL and Ericsson over a standard essential patent (SEP) licensing dispute. Two days later, District Judge Beth Labson Freeman postponed a Northern District of California trial from January to June in litigation filed by NPE Finjan Holdings, Inc. against Cisco following a series of prior continuances entered due to the pandemic. These delays come as other top patent venues contend with the impact of the novel coronavirus: while Chief District Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas recently halted all jury trials before him after an outbreak in a nearby division, District Judge Alan D. Albright of the Western District of Texas has indicated that he may still continue to hold trials.

The first half of 2020 saw prolific NPE IP Edge LLC file over 240 patent infringement suits and also acquire new portfolios from an increasingly wide range of sources, including Empire Technology Development LLC, a subsidiary of Allied Inventors Management, LLC (AIM); Huawei; and a litigating subsidiary of IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue). While additional patent assignments to IP Edge continue to surface, details of a 2019 transaction involving the Japanese monetization firm IP Bridge, Inc. and patents originating with Panasonic and Seiko Epson have recently become available.

In November 2018, Fortress Investment Group, LLC subsidiary Uniloc 2017 LLC was hit by a series of inter partes review (IPR) petitions filed by Apple as the two parties continue to brief a contentious dispute over standing in related district court litigation. November also saw the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) institute trial in IPRs involving Japanese patent monetization firm IP Bridge, Inc. and issue final decisions in IPRs against Quarterhill Inc. and Alacritech, Inc., the latter an operating company-turned-NPE formed by SCSI inventor Larry Boucher.

On November 8, a jury in the District of Delaware handed down a verdict in favor of Japanese monetization firm IP Bridge, Inc., finding that certain TCL smartphones, sold under the Alcatel OneTouch brand, have infringed two patents developed by Panasonic. IP Bridge (as Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1) sued TCL in July 2015, opening up its first of three litigation campaigns in the US—each currently involving between one and 25 patents originating with Panasonic (with one campaign also asserting patents developed by NEC). Active defendants in IP Bridge’s US campaigns include Intel, OmniVision, Qualcomm, and Xilinx.

Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 (IP Bridge 1), a subsidiary of Japanese patent monetization firm IP Bridge, Inc., has filed suit against Qualcomm (1:18-cv-00485), alleging infringement of seven former Panasonic patents generally related to various aspects of semiconductor fabrication. Qualcomm is accused of infringement through the manufacture and sale of certain semiconductors made with its 40 or 45 nm process (e.g., MSM8660 Snapdragon S3) and its 28 nm process (e.g., MSM8960 Snapdragon S4, MSM8916 Snapdragon 410, MSM8974 Snapdragon 800). Each of the patents has been asserted in this campaign against one or more of previous defendants Broadcom, Intel, OmniVision, and Xilinx.