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BMW Tries to Enter the Arigna-Susman-Longford “Tripartite” Fray
Patent Market, Patent Watch, TPLF
Briefing is now complete on a motion to intervene brought by BMW in the District of Delaware case that Arigna Technology Limited, a plaintiff operating under the umbrella of Dublin-based monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited, filed against Longford Capital Fund III, LP (“LCF”), an entity controlled by Chicago-based litigation finance firm Longford Capital, this past December. Arigna and Longford dispute the extent to which the latter is owed proceeds from a “global settlement” with an unnamed defendant sued across litigation run by multiple Atlantic IP-tied plaintiffs, not just Arigna. BMW has jumped in based on allegations that a “German court will be expected to award BMW from Arigna . . . between $380,000 and $1.1 million” in costs and fees there and that “Arigna has demonstrated an ability and willingness to reduce its capital abroad to insulate itself from paying fees to BMW in Germany”. BMW further argues that its involvement in this case is necessary because it is “the only party interested in shedding light on the possible violation of Irish champerty litigation financing laws” here.
March 24, 2024
VLSI Turns to the Courts for PTAB Fees Denied by Vidal
Patent Litigation Feature
The ongoing saga over misconduct at the Patent Trial and Appeal (PTAB) has taken a new turn. In late 2022, USPTO Director Kathi Vidal ruled that two third-party petitioners, OpenSky Industries and Patent Quality Assurance (PQA), had abused the inter partes review (IPR) process by filing petitions that were designed to extract rent-seeking payments from patent owner VLSI Technology LLC. However, while Vidal found OpenSky’s behavior to be so egregious that she ordered it to pay $413K in attorney fees to VLSI, upholding that order earlier this month, she did not award fees against PQA. Now, VLSI has turned to the courts in an attempt to win fees from PQA as well, asserting claims of “abuse of process, fraud, and civil conspiracy” in a recent Virginia state court complaint against PQA and an individual acting as its “authorized representative” that seeks $3.2M in attorney fees stemming from their alleged actions. On March 20, the defendants removed VLSI’s suit to the federal Eastern District of Virginia, in the process identifying a kitchen sink of purported grounds for the complaint’s dismissal.
March 24, 2024
Lenovo and ZTE Snagged in ServStor’s Third Round
New Patent Litigation
ServStor Technologies, LLC, an IPInvestments Group LLC (d/b/a IPinvestments Group) plaintiff, has filed a third round of litigation in its sole campaign, accusing Lenovo (2:24-cv-00204) and ZTE (2:24-cv-00205) of infringing a familiar set of five former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents in separate Eastern District of Texas complaints. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of certain computer servers and racks, as well as related hardware and software products.
March 23, 2024
Biometric Authentication Campaign Turns to Apple
New Patent Litigation
On the same day this past January, Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright both denied a motion to transfer a May 2023 case that Proxense, LLC filed against Alphabet (Google) to the Northern District of California and docketed a claim construction order in the case. Google has filed a petition for mandamus review by the Federal Circuit of that decision. Meanwhile, Microsoft, also sued by Proxense last May, has moved Judge Albright for a stay pending the resolution of its own motion to transfer, to the Western District of Washington. Against this backdrop, inventor-controlled Proxense has now sued Apple (6:24-cv-00143), also in West Texas.
March 23, 2024
Another Court-Congestion-Within-a-Convenience-Transfer-Analysis Fix Provided Here
In Case You Missed It
Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright recently authorized inventor-controlled plaintiff Red Rock Analytics, LLC to file a fourth supplemental brief in opposition to a motion to transfer to the Northern District of California from defendants Apple and Qualcomm. The August 2021 motion itself was long ago briefed through sur-sur-reply, with three prior sets of supplementals going in. Red Rock filed the fourth supplemental because in its last update, it had represented that as of June 2023, “[o]ther than In re Google, no decision from the Fifth Circuit, the Federal Circuit, or any Federal court of appeals has ever held that ‘product competition’ should be considered under the court congestion factor”—a characterization of the convenience transfer landscape that is no longer true.
March 23, 2024
New Eastern District of Virginia Case Targets Audiobook Services
New Patent Litigation, TPLF
Audio Pod IP, LLC has filed its first case, suing Amazon (Amazon Web Services, Audible) (2:24-cv-00185) in the Eastern District of Virginia. Asserted are five patents that generally relate to the online playback of audiobooks as represented by multiple digital audio files with associated timestamps and other data, as well as related features like bookmarking and storage allocation. The new complaint targets the provision of the Audible and Audible Library audiobook services, along with other “current and legacy services” that use or have used those Audible services, including Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading.
March 23, 2024
Atlantic IP Moves Over 200 Patents to a New Home
Patent Market, Patent Watch
Separate assignments of patent assets from five entities operating under the umbrella of Dublin-based patent monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited to a sixth such entity were recently recorded and made public by the USPTO. The transfers leave each of those divestors without any US patent holdings, at least according to currently available assignment records. Two Atlantic IP plaintiffs have notified the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the change in real party-in-interest in proceedings before it.
March 23, 2024
Inventor-Controlled Canadian Plaintiff Launches Litigation Against the Big Three US Wireless Carriers
New Patent Litigation
Smart RF Inc. has filed separate Eastern District of Texas complaints against AT&T (AT&T Mobility) (2:24-cv-00195), Deutsche Telekom (Sprint, T-Mobile) (2:24-cv-00197), and Verizon (Verizon Wireless) (2:24-cv-00196). The Canadian plaintiff alleges infringement by each carrier of five patents broadly directed to wireless signal modulation through the provision of cellular services using their respective cellular networks, including certain base stations.
March 22, 2024
IP Bridge Returns to US Litigation
New Patent Litigation
IP Bridge, Inc. subsidiary Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 has sued Western Digital (1:24-cv-00342) and Seagate Technology (1:24-cv-00341) in separate District of Delaware complaints. Three patents generally related to a “magnetoresistive device comprising a magnetic tunnel junction structure”, based on a magnesium oxide layer, are aimed at the provision of a wide array of memory devices, including “read/write heads” for hard disk drives (HDDs), as well as HDDs incorporating such read/write heads. IP Bridge pleads that Seagate is familiar with the asserted portfolio based on prior litigation in Japan.
March 22, 2024
Minotaur Systems Files Third Round of Suits in Vehicle Networking Campaign
New Patent Litigation
Following a dismissal of its last active case in early January, Minotaur Systems LLC has filed a new round of complaints in its sole litigation campaign, suing AnyConnect Private (2:24-cv-00201) in the Eastern District of Texas; Motive Technologies (1:24-cv-00349), Nauto (1:24-cv-00351), Netradyne (1:24-cv-00352), and Samsara (1:24-cv-00353) in the District of Delaware; Safe Fleet Holdings (1:24-cv-02062) in the Eastern District of New York; and Trimble (1:24-cv-00789) in the District of Colorado. Two patents are asserted in overlapping sets, with the defendants accused of infringement through the provision of vehicle-related networking products, including dash cams (or systems incorporating them) and/or fleet management solutions.
March 22, 2024