Publicly traded Quest Patent Research Corporation (QPRC) subsidiary Harbor Island Dynamic LLC (HID) has filed a second case, accusing NXP Semiconductors (2:24-cv-00717) of infringing two of the four patents already in suit, since February 2024, against Samsung. In its latest 10-Q, QPRC indicates that the seven patents acquired in March 2023 from Newfort Fab, LLC (d/b/a Tower Semiconductor Newport Beach, Inc.) were picked up “for a purchase price of $3,300,000 pursuant to which [QPRC] retains an amount equal to the purchase price plus a negotiated return and any fees out of net proceeds, as defined in the agreement, after which Tower in entitled to a percentage of further net proceeds realized, if any”.

In addition to the announced divestiture of a large tranche of VoIP patents from Avaya to Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, March 2024 saw several other operating companies—including DXC Technology, Huawei, and SOLiD—unload patent assets. Several NPE enterprises also moved patents around, internally or to other NPEs, seemingly in preparation for new assertion campaigns.

Harbor Island Dynamic LLC (HID), a subsidiary of Quest Patent Research Corporation (QPRC), has filed its first litigation, suing Samsung (2:24-cv-00140) in the Eastern District of Texas. The defendant is alleged to infringe four patents through the provision of products, including “smartphones, tablets, and other similar devices”, that incorporate certain Samsung image sensors (including some integrated into downstream products from Samsung customers Alphabet (Google), Lenovo (Motorola Mobility), and Leopard Imaging) and switching circuits.

The Federal Circuit has turned away appeals from the final judgment of Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright based on a June 2021 jury verdict of noninfringement and a subsequent bench trial finding no inequitable conduct. The plaintiffs here are Freshub Ltd. and its US subsidiary Freshub, Inc.; found not to have infringed is Amazon, as well as several subsidiaries, including Whole Foods Market. In the district court’s denial of Freshub’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial, Judge Albright ordered three attorneys from Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP and one from Naman Howell Smith & Lee PLLC to “complete thirty (30) hours of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) of legal ethics and shall certify his/her completion of the CLE hours to the Court within six months from the date of this Order”.

Western District of Texas Judge Xavier Rodriguez has stayed consideration of a Microsoft motion for sanctions against Ramey LLP, frequent plaintiff-side counsel in NPE patent cases, after CTD Networks LLC appealed Judge Rogriguez’s judgment against it. Among other things, CTD Networks and Ramey LLP, its counsel, filed amended pleadings that failed to address the court’s repeated, fatal pleading inadequacy concerns. Now, Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright has dismissed a case that mCom IP, LLC filed against it after mCom IP, represented by Ramey LLP, failed to appear at a hearing to address Cisco’s motion to dismiss with prejudice an amended complaint there. Meanwhile, Western District of Texas Judge Robert L. Pitman has denied a request by LS Cloud Storage Technologies, LLC to revive a suit against Amazon, that suit having been dismissed with prejudice after the plaintiff, represented by Ramey LLP, failed even to meet a deadline by which to file an amended complaint.

Deepwell IP LLC, a subsidiary of publicly traded Quest Patent Research Corporation (QPRC), has filed suit against MediaTek (2:23-cv-00429), targeting the provision of systems-on-chip (SoCs) with ARM cores, including the MT8186 and Dimensity 1060 SoCs, as well as products incorporating them, including the Lenovo Chromebook and Motorola Edge smartphone. Deepwell IP’s is the second litigation campaign to arise from a January 2022 deal—the price tag for which was $1.06M—with Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV). QPRC has reported subsequent patent acquisitions, including portfolios picked up from Edward D. Ioli Trust (in July 2022), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) (also in July 2022), Tower Semiconductor (in March 2023), and an individual inventor (in August 2023), each of which has yet to spawn litigation.

Taasera Licensing LLC, a subsidiary of publicly traded Quest Patent Research Corporation (QPRC), is litigating a cybersecurity campaign against six defendants: Check Point Software, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, Trellix, and Trend Micro. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) moved all cases in the campaign for pretrial purposes to the Eastern District of Texas, where Judge Rodney Gilstrap has just ruled on multiple motions filed in the earliest three cases. One of those rulings dismissed the declaratory judgment action filed by Palo Alto Networks in the Southern District of New York, for lack of personal jurisdiction over Taasera Licensing and for lack of subject matter jurisdiction as to QPRC. That same day, March 15, Taasera Licensing immediately filed an affirmative case over the same nine patents against Palo Alto Networks (2:23-cv-00113) in the Eastern District of Texas, ensuring that that dispute will now remain there through any trial.

Multimodal Media LLC has expanded its sole litigation campaign, launched with suits against OPPO and ZTE in November 2021. The subsidiary of publicly traded Quest Patent Research Corporation (QPRC) has now sued Samsung (2:22-cv-00462) and TCL (2:22-cv-00463) in separate Eastern District of Texas cases. The four asserted patents—originally developed at Kirusa, a telecommunications company founded in 2001 by “a handful of technocrats from AT&T Bell Labs”—are broadly directed to various mobile communications technologies. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of smartphones and tablets that support certain calling and messaging capabilities.

Musarubra (d/b/a Trellix) (2:22-cv-00427) is the latest defendant to be added to the litigation campaign that Taasera Licensing LLC, a subsidiary of publicly traded Quest Patent Research Corporation, launched in November 2021 with a suit against Trend Micro. The nine asserted patents are broadly directed to various aspects of cybersecurity, with Trellix accused of infringement through the provision of certain network security software products and services. In August, the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) consolidated the campaign in the Eastern District of Texas before District Judge Rodney Gilstrap. There, Judge Gilstrap has handed down an order deferring consideration of all Rule 12 motions, of which several are pending, until trial, jury selection for which is set in an initial scheduling order for February 2024.

This past March, LS Cloud Storage Technologies, LLC kicked off its sole litigation campaign, accusing Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Cisco, and Microsoft in separate Western District of Texas complaints of infringing overlapping subsets of “cached data storage” patents. The cases were assigned to District Judge Alan D. Albright, who still presides over three of those suits; however, a disagreement about the timing for the service of infringement contentions has apparently prompted LS Cloud Storage to dismiss (without prejudice) its first complaint against Cisco and to refile that same complaint—now under a new judge assignment rubric in the same district.