District Judge Alan D. Albright has made no secret of plans to make the Western District of Texas the new hotbed for patent litigation following his confirmation there in September 2018. Since then, he has taken steps to make the district more attractive to patent litigants, including a standing order implementing rules designed to appeal to both plaintiffs and defendants. The apparent result has been an uptick in NPE litigation in the Western District. Now, Judge Albright has issued what seems to be his first Alice ruling in one such NPE case, denying an eligibility challenge brought by HomeGoods against IPValuation Partners, LLC (d/b/a IPVal) affiliate eCeipt LLC. Judge Albright held that the challenged patent is directed to a technological improvement, and thus not to an abstract idea, for reasons similar to the Federal Circuit’s holdings in Enfish v. Microsoft and Finjan v. Blue Coat Systems. Dismissal would also be precluded at Alice step two under Berkheimer and Aatrix, held Judge Albright, finding that the plaintiff had raised a material dispute of fact as to whether the claims contain an inventive concept.

eCeipt LLC, a Texas NPE affiliated with IP Valuation Partners LLC (IPVal), has resumed its retail receipt campaign, filing four new lawsuits against Ann (2:16-cv-01105), Best Buy (2:16-cv-01106), Caleres (2:16-cv-01111), and Recreational Equipment (2:16-cv-01112). These latest cases are eCeipt’s first new litigation since the August dismissal of its case against GNC Holdings (2:16-cv-00419), which followed the dismissal of all other suits in the campaign in January-March. The plaintiff’s newest complaints assert the same, single patent-in-campaign (8,643,875), which generally relates to point-of-sale (POS) kiosks that allow a customer to select a printed or emailed store receipt. Defendants are each accused of infringement through POS systems that offer both types of receipt.

Since April 2015, seven NPEs managed by two partners at IP Valuation Partners LLC have collectively filed over 30 patent infringement suits against operating companies. Six of these NPEs were incorporated in Texas in 2015. (Gene Reader LLC was incorporated in Texas in 2014.) Each NPE is managed by IP Valuation’s Jason Bourgeois (a former patent agent trained in biomedical engineering) or Jonathan Szarzynski (a former patent licensing director at IPNav). Spangler Law P.C. represents all seven of the NPEs in litigation.

In the second half of October 2015, RPX saw five patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO (roughly half the number observed in the first half of the month). One of those recently recorded transactions has already resulted in new litigation filed by an NPE affiliated with IP Valuation Partners LLC.

Newly formed eCeipt LLC filed its third case in a litigation campaign it initiated in August 2015, its first and only campaign to date. As in its initial suits, filed against Dick’s Sporting Goods (2:15-cv-01423) and Macy’s (2:15-cv-01425), this week’s filing against The Home Depot (2:15-cv-01672) asserts a single patent (8,643,875) that originated with TransactionTree, Inc. The patent generally concerns capturing, generating, and providing digital receipts from a point-of-sale (POS) system. eCeipt’s infringement allegations focus on payment processes that offer the option to print receipts or e-mail them to customers.