Last week, RPX noted the December 2024 transfer of a portfolio of patent assets, broadly directed to semiconductor fabrication and/or circuit configuration, from Acorn Semi, LLC, a subsidiary of Acorn Technologies, to an entity tied to Texas monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC. That transfer followed by one week an earlier pickup for Dominion, this one of a portfolio of gaming device patents.

As the calendar turned, several notable patent assignments appeared in publicly available USPTO assignment records, including a batch of semiconductor patents and a batch of networking assets separately moved to two well-established monetization firms and transfers from two individual inventors to entities—one formed in Texas; the other, in Delaware—that appear poised for assertion.

Its trio of cases against HP headed for the exits, Sovereign Peak Ventures, LLC (SPV) has filed suit against HP Enterprise (HPE) (2:23-cv-00009). All four wireless communications patents asserted against HPE in the new Eastern District of Texas complaint have appeared previously in this campaign, which began back in April 2020 over a large portfolio of assets acquired from Panasonic. Infringement allegations target networking equipment, including access points offered through HPE subsidiary Aruba Networks.

A joint motion to stay and notice of settlement has stopped activity in the case filed in September 2021 by Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (MPV) against Xerox in the Eastern District of Texas. MPV has now sued Vivint (6:22-cv-00635) in the Western District of Texas, where a February 2022 case against Acer remains active and headed toward an October claim construction hearing. Since March 2018, the plaintiff (across multiple campaigns, as a formal matter) has been asserting patents from a large portfolio of former Eastman Kodak patents, four of which are asserted in the newest complaint, against Vivint’s provision of certain surveillance cameras, smart home hubs, and related software products.

The last couple of years have seen Texas monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC shift away from the acquisition of smaller families of patents from various sources toward the acquisition of large portfolios of assets—of former Kodak patents in March 2017, of former NEC patents in February 2018, and of former American Express patents in March 2018, all from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), as well as a large portfolio of assets acquired directly from Panasonic beginning in October 2018. Dominion (through subsidiaries of its litigation arm Monument Patent Holdings, LLC) has asserted patents from those large-portfolio acquisitions in litigation, and while it has continued litigating assets acquired prior to this strategy shift, that activity has dropped off. Assignment records recently made public by the USPTO suggest that, in addition, Dominion has begun to shed some of the smaller families that it had acquired under its earlier model.

Mobile Networking Solutions, LLC (MNS), an affiliate of Texas monetization and advisory firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, has revived a sleeping campaign over a family of physical computer storage patents. This past week MNS sued Alibaba (3:19-cv-00217) and Uber (3:19-cv-00219), training its infringement allegations on the use of cloud storage systems based on Hadoop, including its Distributed File System (HDFS), YARN, and MapReduce. MNS asserted patents from this family in a case brought in 2017 against Experian and MapR Distribution; the family was previously at issue in a much larger campaign litigated by Parallel Iron LLC (a subsidiary of IP Navigation Group, LLC d/b/a IPNav), which hit nearly 50 defendants between 2011 and 2014.

Two new campaigns have arisen out of the recent large-portfolio acquisitions of Dominion Harbor Enterprises LLC. In an Eastern District of Texas complaint, Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (MPV) has tagged HMD Global (2:18-cv-00521) with three of its former Kodak patents over the provision of smartphones with dual rear cameras, as used to capture depth information and provide features like dynamic depth of field, as well as smartphones that disable certain camera features (e.g., the flash) when power is low. Meanwhile, Sovereign Peak Ventures, LLC (SPV) has filed its first litigation over patents originating with Panasonic, hitting Feit Electric (2:18-cv-10069). The accused products include LED light bulbs capable of adjusting their output to produce different colors and/or different temperatures of white light. MPV’s and SPV’s campaigns join prior litigation over former NEC patents by Dominion affiliate Vista Peak Ventures, LLC (VPV); Liberty Peak Ventures, LLC (LPV), the Dominion affiliate taking ownership of a former American Express portfolio, has yet to launch litigation.

In early July, Vista Peak Ventures, LLC, an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, filed its first cases asserting patents from a large portfolio of former NEC patents that it acquired from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) earlier in 2018. The plaintiff targeted flat panel displays sold by either AU Optronics or Innolux, both Taiwanese manufacturers, in multiple suits filed in the Eastern District of Texas. AU Optronics has responded with a Northern District of California complaint (3:18-cv-04638) filed by AU Optronics Corporation America (AUO USA), contending that Vista Peak identified California entity AUO USA as having committed acts of infringement while naming the Chinese parent company as the suit’s defendant to “manufacture personal jurisdiction” in Texas.

Vista Peak Ventures, LLC, an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, has filed its first cases asserting patents from a large portfolio of former NEC patents that it acquired from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) earlier this year. The plaintiff has targeted flat panel displays sold by Taiwanese manufacturers AU Optronics, spread across three cases (2:18-cv-00276, -00278, -00279), or Innolux (2:18-cv-00280, -00281, -00282, -00283), spread across four cases, all filed in the Eastern District of Texas. The seven new complaints together assert 21 patents from the former NEC portfolio—a total of 13 against AU Optronics and a total of 20 against Innolux.

Clean Energy Management Solutions, LLC, an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, has filed another case in its litigation campaign over a single patent generally related to a mesh network door locking mechanism. The newest defendant is Verizon (Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless) (2:18-cv-00267), accused of infringement through provision of its SmartHub product, which the plaintiff describes as a “home control system that integrates door locks and garage door openers using mesh network connectivity”. Verizon Wireless joins Creston Electronics and United Technologies as defendants with open cases in the campaign, which has hit over a dozen companies since July 2015.