Network System Technologies LLC (NST) has launched its inaugural litigation campaign with three district court cases filed in Texas on December 19: the first, against Arteris and Qualcomm in the Western District (1:22-cv-01331); the second, against Ford, TI, and Volkswagen (including Audi) in the Eastern District (2:22-cv-00482); and the third, against Lenovo, OnePlus, and Samsung, also in the Eastern District (2:22-cv-00481). A group of six former Philips patents—from a portfolio of nearly 50—are asserted across all three cases, with infringement allegations trained on certain Systems-on-Chip (SoC) products and automobile infotainment systems or mobile devices that allegedly include such SOCs. Public records indicate that NST has at its helm patent monetization veterans associated with multiple prior campaigns asserting former operating company patents—and they also point to the involvement of third-party litigation funding in this latest endeavor.

Earlier this month, Advanced Silicon Technologies LLC (AST) resumed its litigation campaign, suing NXP Semiconductors (6:22-cv-00466) over two former ATI Technologies patents, one generally related to a “video decoder” and another, to a “graphics processing unit”. Targeted in the Western District of Texas complaint is the provision of certain processors, including its i.MX-series applications processors. AST’s last open case, against Sigma Designs, ended in a quick, voluntary dismissal without prejudice in early 2019.

In the third quarter of 2016, RPX completed 23 patent acquisitions on behalf of its membership. Eleven of those deals involved litigated patents and resulted in the dismissal of 42 member defendants. Additional details about third quarter acquisition activities can be found in RPX’s Patent Risk Reduction Quarterly Report: Q3 2016. To obtain a copy, go to My Reports on RPX Insight.

Advanced Silicon Technologies LLC (AST) launched its first litigation campaign on December 21, 2015, accusing BMW (1:15-cv-1178), Honda (1:15-cv-1179), Toyota (1:15-cv-1180), and Volkswagen (1:15-cv-1181) of infringing several patents through the sale of infotainment systems within their vehicles. AST also filed separate suits against companies that supply allegedly infringing components for inclusion in those on-board infotainment systems: Fujitsu (1:15-cv-01174), Harman (1:15-cv-01173), NVIDIA (1:15-cv-01177), Texas Instruments (1:15-cv-01175), and Renesas (1:15-cv-01176). The complaints attach multiple claim charts, identifying exemplar chips sold by, e.g., Harman and TI for inclusion by BMW, NVIDIA for inclusion by BMW and Volkswagen (Audi), Renesas for inclusion by Honda and Volkswagen (Golf), and Fujitsu for inclusion by Toyota.