Posts Tagged: "patent filings roundup"

A normal (statistically) patent filings week saw 29 new Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings (including a pair of post grant reviews) and 67 district court patent complaints, with another 76 terminations. Among those cases, note: Peter Pedersen has continued to add defendants to what promises to be a wide-ranging assertion campaign based on a single patent covering organizing email lists; Samsung has settled a tranche of IPRs against Trenchant Blade Technologies (associated with Tanit Ventures, Inc., with old patents, presumably with a backend, from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC); Google filed more inter partes reviews (IPRs) against Jawbone (the failed company “zombie” NPE now controlled by Fortress); Samsung filed a PGR on the single design patent that has been asserted repeatedly by WePay Global Payments against generic graphical user interfaces (D930702); and various highlights, below.

It was a slow week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and a fast one in the district court, with 82 new patent complaints and 85 terminations, but just 18 patent filings at the PTAB. Those few filings were mostly a battery company challenging Maxell patents, a few bigger NPE cases, and Apple and Samsung filing against assertor Smart Mobile Technologies from the middle of last year. Askeladden had a petition denied on the merits, Microchip Technology had a petition denied on General Plastics, and The Hillman Group got four inter partes reviews (IPRs) denied under Fintiv, guaranteeing they will head to trial in the Eastern District of Texas; more below.

This week saw 60 district court patent complaints, 76 terminations, 26 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitions (some post grant reviews [PGRs] in there), and two new Fintiv denials—one PGR and one inter partes review (IPR). Gesture Technology had a handful of IPRs instituted against its asserted portfolio; lots of dismissals from relatively high-profile semiconductor cases suggest either a group or cheap RPX settlement; and a number of older assertion campaigns seemed to wrap up with terminations.

My 40th birthday this week brought another litigation explosion (I assume no causation), with 120 new suits, double the average, though a spike is common at the ends of months and quarters; the new filings are dominated by filings by IP Edge, DynaIP, IP Valuation, and to a far lesser extent, Leigh Rothschild’s subsidiaries. There were a typical 30 inter partes reviews (IPRs) and no discretionary denials last week, coupled with an average 79 terminations in district court. A new abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) Paragraph IV suit was launched—GE Healthcare challenging the three remaining patents over their ANDA application to bring a generic Lexiscan® drug to market, against brand Astellas and Gilead. New funded semiconductor litigation and further trial postponements in VLSI rounded out this week.

With an average 33 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings (one post grant review, the rest inter partes reviews[IPRs]), a relatively high number (89) of district court terminations (including some high-profile settlements), and a somewhat low number (63) of suits this week, we are rolling into May. Chief Judge Connolly of the U.S. District Court for the District Court of Delaware  filed a standing order in all of his cases requiring litigation funding disclosures; there were more filings by more Magentar entities (who, by last count, are up to 15 high-profile litigation funded campaigns), and more IPR counters; and still more IPRs (22 or 23) in the Israeli-based Bright Data assertion campaign. The patents there are a range, but are based, broadly, on Internet connectivity.

Patent filings were average this week, with 21 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitions and 77 district court patent complaints filed (and 67 terminated). In the district courts, Joao, Cedar Lane, and DynaIP campaigns added a fair number of defendants, some interesting competitor-competitor cases cropped up, and Wepay Global Payments LLC continued its single-design-patent campaign, adding Wells Fargo. This week also saw a few discretionary denials, as detailed below.

A light district court week saw just 37 new patent complaints filed (I believe, the lowest week of the year to date); statistically, the beginning of the year, month, and quarter are generally lower than the rest of the year in terms of patent filings, due primarily to the filing patterns of megafiler IP Edge and their proclivity to ramp up filings at the ends of months and quarters. There were 78 terminations (just above average). Frequent filer, RFC Lenders of Texas LLC, ensnared yet another local Texas company, this time Texas Southern Tire Mart LLC, in volume patent litigation; Intellectual Ventures refiled their new automotive OEM campaign outside of the Eastern District of Texas, moving to the Northern for certain OEMs; and Jack Henry Associates, as provider to many banks and websites of check deposit software, filed a declaratory judgment action against frequent filer, Lupercal LLC.

A normal week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and a heavy week in the district courts saw 100 new patent complaints filed and 30 petitions before the Board; there were 79 district court terminations as well, as cases settled quickly and a number of withdrawals or refilings continue in and out of the Western District of Texas. Intellectual Ventures—hearing footsteps from the Federal Circuit’s mandamus of Judge Albright transferring automotive cases out of his jurisdiction for lack of venue over car companies—has refiled Eastern District of Texas complaints against car companies in the Northern District of Texas, presumably because those companies have factories or some other serious presence there.

Some new assertion entities popped up this week, including a high-stakes campaign filed by LS Cloud Storage Technologies LLC (a Waco vintage, if from 2016) on a couple of data-sharing patents (one very old, one somewhat new, U.S. 6,549,988 and U.S. 10,154,092). There was also a new ride-sharing NPE campaign from Fare Technologies LLC (another older LLC with apparent ties to monetizers) against Uber and Lyft on just one patent, RE46727. By the numbers: the district courts saw 70 new patent complaints and another 106 terminated cases this week; the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) had their now-usual 25 petitions. 

It was a rather light week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with just 17 new petitions (the lowest in recent memory), with district court patent filings at 69—a few more than usual—and 60 more terminations. Samsung lost a series of five chip inter partes reviews (IPRs) at institution against an LED Wafer Solutions LLC (apparently associated with Oso IP) on the merits (they and Seoul Semiconductor were the only two plaintiffs yet sued); PPC Broadband got some IPRs from Amphenol based in large part on family members having been cancelled earlier in reexam on the same grounds; Raymond Anthony Joao entity Beteiro LLC filed a few further cases; Caselas, another of his entities, has now sued upwards of 40 banks on five patents of similar progeny; and there were lots of file-and-settle terminations in the district court, per usual. And what I believe is the final covered business method review (CBM) to be filed and pending has concluded with the claims being cancelled. The claims there were directed to currency trading systems.

It was another heavy week in the district court with over 100 new patent complaints filed, 64 terminated (mostly file-and-settle), and an average 26 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) cases (one post grant review and 25 inter partes reviews). It was also another week with about half of all parties briefing Fintiv, but no denials, begging the question, “Why are parties being forced to brief it in the first place?” Intel and Xilinx combined to cancel a number of litigation-funded chip patents from Arbor Global Strategies and FG SRC LLC [the latter funded by Freeman Capital Partners]; a number of Fortress-funded subsidiaries were challenged; another 29 IP Edge subsidiary suits; some interesting pharmaceutical action; and companies WebRoot and OpenText, inc. have launched a new assertion campaign against Trend Micro, Kapersky Labs, CrowdStrike, and Sophos on cybersecurity products.

With 69 new district court patent filings and 24 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenges (all inter partes reviews), it was a now-routine end-of-the-month filing spree for IP Edge subsidiaries, with 23 new complaints by such entities. The PTAB dockets continue to be dominated by cases against litigation-funded entities like Magentar Capital’s Scramoge, Fortress IP’s VLSI and Jawbone, and WSOU, plus the seemingly now-regular trickle of cases between Apple and Ericsson. Big-ticket assertor Agis Software disclaimed challenged claims in an IPR brought by Google and Samsung, thus cancelling the claims; and some ANDA-related litigation kicked off before various district courts.

It was a typical week in terms of overall patent filing numbers, with 31 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings, 56 district court complaints, and some 50-odd terminations; continued filings of inter partes reviews (IPRs) against Ericsson by Apple in their sprawling 5G fight; a Raymond Anthony Joao sub brought a 33-patent complaint (mostly expired) on shipping tracking; Fortress entities were on the receiving end of a few IPRs; and in Europe, a Fortress entity secured an injunction against Nokia over all Nokia-branded smartphones in the country, a huge blow for Nokia there. Unrelatedly, there was a hastily-filed errata filed in the Cal Tech opinion at the Federal Circuit with major estoppel implications (that Dennis Crouch has already well-covered).  Let’s get to it. 

Happy belated Valentine’s Day; there were 74 district court terminations last week (mostly file-and-settle flotsam); 36 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings (bolsted by Qualcomm indemnification filings and some medical device action); and 56 district court patent filings this week, in a mid-month lull before certain entities have to hit their end-of-month quota; let’s get to it.

Last week included the end of January, which meant district court filings spiked as they usually do at the end of the month, with 92 new patent filings, and plenty of terminations (66). Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenges (41) were propped up by filings between Ericsson and Apple in their large-scale 5G dispute, Samsung challenging an entire portfolio, it seems, on some assets owned by a subsidiary of the perennial file-and-settle consort IP Edge (which seems to be getting big eyes and going after bigger players these days, after years of filing thousands of suits against smaller companies); a number of competitor-competitor chipmaker suits, including one by Infineon against more Vector Capital-backed Monterey Research semiconductor patents; challenges by Nokia against monetizer IP Bridge patents; and a number of petitions filed by Chanel against Molo Design Ltd.