After roughly a year hiatus, Alert Signal Intellectual Property, LLC (Alert Signal IP) has revived its sole litigation campaign, filing suit in the Western District of Texas against Alphabet (Google) (6:20-cv-00644) over four patents generally related to managing alerts based on a device’s velocity. Alert Signal IP targets the provision of certain Pixel series smartphones, with features for prioritizing or disabling notifications in different environments (e.g., while driving). The case against the most recent defendant, Apple, which saw the same four patents asserted, ended in an April 2019 dismissal with prejudice shortly after an unopposed transfer from the Eastern District of Texas to the Northern District of California.

Technical LED Intellectual Property, LLC (Technical LED IP), an apparent affiliate of inventor Fred DuFresne and/or his monetization firms Cerinet USA Inc. and ipCapital Licensing Company I, LLC (d/b/a Cerinet IP Licensing), has added seven cases so far in 2019 to the campaign that it began in August 2017. The new defendants are Aduro Technologies (2:19-cv-00480), BVGA Mipow (3:19-cv-00393), Culver LED Lighting Solutions (8:19-cv-00120), Feit Electric (2:19-cv-00485), Home Controls (3:19-cv-00144), Lifi Labs (5:19-cv-00392), and NORA Lighting (2:19-cv-00488), each accused of infringing a single LED lighting patent acquired from Honeywell. Technical LED IP has now filed almost 20 cases in this campaign, across various districts, all of these most recent cases in California district courts. Its disclosures there identify both Cerinet USA and Honeywell as nonparties having an interest in the outcome of the litigation.

RPX took notice, among the assignment records published by the USPTO during the latter half of June, of the transfer of patents to several repeat players in patent litigation, including IP Edge LLC and Cerinet USA Inc. Also of note were two NPE-to-NPE transactions, from Intellectual Ventures LLC to IQ Holdings, LLC, and between M2M Solutions LLC and Blackbird Tech LLC.

RPX took note, among the USPTO assignment records made available during the second half of March 2017, of the transfer of hundreds of patents to two Wi-LAN Inc. subsidiaries, one of which has not yet filed suit. Also noted are assignments of patents to Monument Patent Holdings, LLC, to Intellectual Ventures LLC, and to Xperi Corporation, among others.

Checkerboard Intellectual Property, LLC has initiated a new litigation campaign, asserting a single patent (6,529,214) generally related to previewing customized print jobs. The defendants are Cafepress.com (1:17-cv-00219), Cimpress (1:17-cv-00220), CustomInk (1:17-cv-00221), and Office Depot (1:17-cv-00222), and the accused products are the functionality on those companies’ websites that permit users to view how an article will look after a customized image has been printed on it.

During the first half of April 2016, RPX saw eleven patent transfers to known NPEs recorded with the USPTO. One of those transactions involved a patent that has already been asserted in litigation against operating companies.