During the first half of October 2016, RPX took note of five patent transfers to NPEs. Two of those NPEs, Forward Thinking Tracking LLC and Guada Technologies LLC, have already launched new campaigns asserting recently received patents, collectively filing nearly 30 cases so far this month.

Texas NPE Forward Thinking Tracking LLC has kicked off its first litigation campaign with a series of lawsuits filed over the last week targeting the real time location systems and asset tracking products of multiple defendants. The new complaints hit AeroScout (with alleged partners and distributors Extronics, Exloc Instruments, IoEworx, Stanley Black & Decker, and Vizzia Technologies) (2:16-cv-01172), AiRISTA Flow (with the alleged former owner of the accused system, Ekahau) (2:16-cv-01141), CenTrak (with Vizzia) (2:16-cv-01125), Elpas (with Sensormatic Electronics d/b/a Tyco Security Products) (2:16-cv-01143), RF Code (2:16-cv-01168), Savi Technology (2:16-cv-01169), TeleTracking Technologies (2:16-cv-01173), Vestac (2:16-cv-01174), and Zebra Technologies (ZIH) (2:16-cv-01175). Each complaint asserts a single patent (6,989,741) generally related to object tracking.

During the second half of September 2016, RPX took note of five patent transfers to NPEs. Assignees included Core Wireless Licensing S.a.r.l.; a recently created NPE controlled by the manager of St. Luke Technologies, LLC, Multiplayer Network Innovations, LLC, and Marking Object Virtualization Intelligence, LLC; and an NPE managed by the CEO and general counsel of Personal Audio LLC. One of the transferred patents has already been asserted in a litigation campaign initiated in late September by Listou Search Technologies LLC (a newly formed affiliate of Empire IP LLC), and what has become reliably predictable NPE behavior suggests that the remaining assignees will soon file new patent litigation involving other patents discussed in this report.

Texas NPE Marking Object Virtualization Intelligence, LLC (MOVI) has continued to expand its new digital rights management (DRM) campaign, filing five new lawsuits against Dell, F5 Networks, and SAP (2:16-cv-01066); First Data (2:16-cv-01062); Hitachi (2:16-cv-01055); Koninklijke Philips (2:16-cv-01061); and Symantec (2:16-cv-01056). MOVI first began filing litigation last week and has asserted various combinations of nine patents from a group of over fifteen patents that the NPE acquired from Rovi Corporation in July, prior to that company’s name change to TiVo Corporation. Others hit by MOVI’s initial wave of filings include Arista (2:16-cv-01042), ARRIS (2:16-cv-01045), Barracuda Networks (2:16-cv-01038), Cisco (2:16-cv-01040), Fujitsu (2:16-cv-01046), and SAP (also sued in the same complaint as Fujitsu). All seven new defendants have been accused of infringement through products related to enterprise networking, as in previous complaints, while First Data is also alleged to infringe through its payment terminals, Koninklijke Philips through the provision of smart TVs, and Symantec through its disk imaging software.

In July 2016, Rovi Corporation (before its name change to TiVo Corporation) assigned over 15 US patents to a new, perhaps aptly named Texas NPE Marking Object Virtualization Intelligence, LLC (MOVI), which has now filed suit. MOVI’s new complaints assert five of the assigned patents against Arista (2:16-cv-01042); five against ARRIS (2:16-cv-01045); three against Barracuda Networks (2:16-cv-01038); seven against Cisco (2:16-cv-01040); five against Fujitsu (2:16-cv-01046); and one against SAP (sued in the same complaint as Fujitsu). MOVI broadly characterizes the patents as related to digital rights management and digital watermarking, using a thesaurus of impressive adjectives (“foundational”, “breakthrough”, “fundamental”, “landmark”, “industry-leading”, “groundbreaking”, “trailblazing”, “innovative”, etc.) to describe their alleged contributions to those fields throughout the complaints, which detail the development work of Rovi’s predecessor, Macrovision. Various networking products and services offered by the defendants are the accused products.

St. Luke Technologies, LLC has filed a new wave of cases in its secure cloud computing campaign, suing AT&T (2:16-cv-00976), Blue Coat Systems and Symantec (2:16-cv-00977), CA (d/b/a CA Technologies) (2:16-cv-00978), Check Point Software (2:16-cv-00961), CipherCloud (2:16-cv-00979), Epic Systems (2:16-cv-00963), Gemalto (2:16-cv-00962), Hitachi (2:16-cv-00975), Syncplicity (2:16-cv-00960), and Venafi (2:16-cv-00965) in the Eastern District of Texas. The NPE’s latest complaints assert multiple combinations (up to seven per complaint) from ten asserted throughout the campaign, which the plaintiff has divided into two categories: Secure Third-Party Communications (STPC) (7,181,017; 7,869,591; 8,904,181; 8,316,237; 8,566,247) and Information Record Infrastructure (IRI) (7,587,368; 8,498,941; 8,380,630; 8,600,895; 7,805,377). As in previous filings, a variety of products and services that operate via or provide secure communications over the Internet are accused of infringement.

St. Luke Technologies, LLC has filed a round of new cases in its secure cloud computing campaign in the Eastern District of Texas, hitting AthenaHealth (2:16-cv-00478), Cerner (2:16-cv-00485), MobileIron (2:16-cv-00430), Thales e-Security (Vormetric) (2:16-cv-00428), and Trend Micro (2:16-cv-00427). The new complaints assert between three and six patents from the ten at issue in the overall campaign. St. Luke organizes those ten patents, which generally relate to stored information access and protection, into two categories: the Secure Third-Party Communications (STPC) patents (7,181,017; 7,869,591; 8,904,181; 8,316,237; 8,566,247) and the Information Record Infrastructure (IRI) patents (7,587,368; 8,498,941; 8,380,630; 8,600,895; 7,805,377). Each of the complaints accuses of infringement a variety of products and services that operate via or provide secure communications over the Internet.

This week St. Luke Technologies, LLC added Google (2:15-cv-01670) and Oracle (2:15-cv-01671) to its secure cloud computing campaign in the Eastern District of Texas, bringing the total number of defendants to eleven: Amazon, Apple, Box, Dell, HP, HyTrust, Intuit, Microsoft, and Verizon.  Each of the complaints accuses of infringement a variety of products and services that operate via or provide secure communications over the Internet.

St. Luke Technologies, LLC added yet another new case, this one against Verizon (2:15-cv-01653), to its growing secure cloud computing campaign in the Eastern District of Texas. Verizon is the ninth defendant targeted after Amazon (2:15-cv-01564), Apple (2:15-cv-01547), Box (2:15-cv-01647), Dell (2:15-cv-01617), HP (2:15-cv-01545), HyTrust (2:15-cv-01639), Intuit (2:15-cv-01571), and Microsoft (2:15-cv-01558).  Each of the complaints accuses of infringement a variety of products and services that operate via or provide secure communications over the Internet.

St. Luke Technologies, LLC added new cases against Amazon (2:15-cv-01564), Dell (2:15-cv-01617), HyTrust (2:15-cv-01639), Intuit (2:15-cv-01571), and Microsoft (2:15-cv-01558) to the litigation campaign that it initiated last week with suits against HP (2:15-cv-01545) and Apple (2:15-cv-01547) in the Eastern District of Texas. This week’s complaints, like last week’s, accuse of infringement a variety of products and services that operate via or provide secure communications over the Internet.