Patent Filings Roundup: Realtor Files IP Edge Declaratory Judgment in Hawaii After Demand Letter; Dog Collar IPR Instituted Over Lengthy Fintiv Arguments; IP Edge Files Another 25+

It was a banner district court week, with 104 patent filings and 64 cases terminated, mostly file-and-settle non-practicing entity (NPE) litigation, and 26 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) cases, including Nokia challenging NPE TQ Delta, LLC; Dexcom, Inc. filing against Abbot Diabetes Care Inc.; and Samsung filing against the Fortress IP-funded Netlist, Inc.

Hawaiian Realtor Company’s DJ Livin’ on the IP Edge: In a week where IP Edge filed almost 30 new district court cases, one letter recipient filed a declaratory judgment (DJ) action. What is interesting is the detail that Hawaiian Realtor goes into as to licensing communications and the attached demand letter there, and communications with IP Edge’s principal (and apparent in-house negotiator) and their lawyer, but coming from IP Edge itself as “licensing advisor,” starting on September 27  with follow-up communications on October 15 and 26; November 16 and 17; December 7 and 8; January 12, 14, 25, 27; and then February 15. The letter filed in the DJ is generally nearly identical to most IP Edge opening salvos, with generic statements as to a broad product (here, the company’s entire website), including a claim chart.

This isn’t the first time this year a party has DJ’d IP Edge (a relative rarity given how small the sums involved are), suggesting either that smaller companies are getting fed up or that their campaigns have been broadly applied.

Claim 1 of the patent, for what it’s worth, in its entirety, has a 2010 priority date and reads:

1. 1. A method comprising:

determining, in response to a user command, regions of interest within each of a plurality of cards by searching information indicating previous user preferences; and

updating for display the plurality of cards to visibly show in a display area of a display device the at least one region of interest of multiple cards included in a first group of the plurality of cards, wherein said updating includes repositioning the plurality of cards to remove cards not included in the first group from the display area and to visibly display the at least one region of interest within all of the multiple cards included in the first group within the display area of the display device.

Fintiv is for the Dogs: In an electronic dog-collar dispute between smaller companies, Protect Animals With Satellites (PAWS) filed an inter partes review (IPR) against Onpoint Systems, LLC after Onpoint sued PAWS in Texas over electronic dog collar and fencing technology. The case is interesting, both from the subject matter perspective and form the Fintiv perspective—the Board instituted, but only after the now-typical 10-page analysis of the litigation and the factors. Hard to see how that’s in any way efficient for small companies trying to use the system as Congress intended.  The case is IPR2021-01483.

PTAB

DISTRICT COURT

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