Posts Tagged: "patent filings roundup"

A relatively subdued week led to just 18 petitions and 57 district court patent filings, mostly driven by WSOU adding Cannon to a number of suits, a fair number of Leigh Rothschild entity complaints against small companies, and a new assertion campaign from Far North Patents. There were also 10 denials of institution, nine of which were on Section 314 non-merits grounds; the FitBit filings against Phillips patents were denied institution over Fintiv based on an International Trade Commission (ITC) action Phillips initiated, and a number of parallel petitions filed by Comcast were denied consideration under the Board’s July 2019 Trial Practice Guide Update “ranking” requirement (which was itself based on an earlier Comcast v. Rovi set of IPRs).

Patent filings were down ever so slightly last week, with 30 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitions filed (29 inter partes reviews [IPRs] and one post grant review [PGR], the biggest chunk being Lenovo’s nine IPR filings against Nokia’s standard-essential patents) and 61 litigations. District court filings were driven in part by WSOU against their now-regular defendant, OnePlus Technology (Shenzhen), and in part by another wave of mostly Western District of Texas cases against another six major device manufacturers by Aquis Technologies—a decades-long Texas-based assertor of patents against USB-connection devices (the patents have already seen claim construction at least once; this brings the total number of defendants involved to 20 over the past 10 years.)

Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings were down substantially this week, with just 16 filed, possibly given the rush to file before the fee increase probably cleared some dockets—or it could just be a fluke. District court patent filings were down just a tad from the usual 70 or so, with 68, fueled by megafiler WSOU adding another defendant in a half-dozen suits, this time NEC Corp. Otherwise, the jump in business method patent assertions is evident, and parties are filing counterfeiting/brand enforcement actions with design and utility patents at a healthy clip. All of that will be overshadowed by the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in Arthrex and the shadow it casts, but it’s worth noting that in the meantime monetization entities aren’t skipping a beat.

District court filings were low this week with 49, a substantial percentage of which were filed against small or medium-sized companies by IP Edge or Leigh Rothschild-owned subsidiaries.  The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was steady with 33, one post grant review (PGR), the rest inter partes reviews (IPRs).  The fallout from the Magnetar-backed Irish entity Neodron filing in the International Trade Commission (ITC) continued with the usual trickle of filings against their portfolio; frequent litigant Omnitracs, LLC (through various subsidiaries), a fleet management company, was the target of a handful of challenges, and a handful of parties filed challenges on semiconductor-related disputes.

District court patent filings bounced back this week to 86, while the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw a slight jump to 44, fueled in part by eight under-the-wire covered business methods (CBM) filings just prior to that program’s expiry. WSOU Holdings filed another round against new defendants from their massive Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent portfolio, asserting new one-off patents not previously asserted, bringing their litigation total this year to 131, and bringing new defendants F5 Networks and Xilinx into the fray. It seems there may be no end to new suits in sight.

District court filings were substantially lulled this week, with about a third of what’s normal—33—filed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s 32 petitions, propped up by lithium-ion battery company Amprius filing eight inter partes reviews (IPRs) against the Japanese Softbank (via Fortress IP)-owned Traverse CF non-practicing entity (NPE). CBM Sunset: The little-used covered business methods (CBM) program sunsets today. As evidenced by the lack of any substantial rush to file any at the last minute, the proceeding had for years been eclipsed both by Federal Circuit rulings narrowing the scope of the program and by the explosion and success of subject matter challenges in the district courts. While there have been rumors of a last-minute attempt to revive the program, for now it seems destined for the dustbin of history.

District court and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) patent filings were at roughly steady-state again this week, with 36 PTAB petitions and 75 new patent infringement district court complaints. Many of those PTAB filings were part of the Apple/Masimo spat, with Apple filing eight challenges. At least five patent owners walked away from their patents, including Lighthouse, a non-practicing entity that had sued most of America’s banks, primarily in the Western District of Texas, over check software before losing an important claim construction proceeding.

District court and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) patent filings were steady this past week, with 31 PTAB petitions and 78 new district court complaints. Many of those PTAB filings were part of the Lenovo/Interdigital spat, with the device maker filing challenges. The district court filings were propped up by a significant number of IP Edge suits, as detailed below; and Facebook challenged (so far) four of six patents asserted against them by a streaming media platform company for (effectively) their conferencing software/ability.

District court patent filings and filings with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) were relatively subdued this week, with 53 new complaints and 31 PTAB filings; the PTAB filings were puffed up by L&L Candle Company firing off three IPRs against Sterno company, three diaper IPRs dropped on Paul Hartmann AG, and Qualcomm IPRs as outlined below; the district court saw the typical activity, plus a pro se PTA suit and a few further complaints from frequent and longtime litigants Gil Hyatt and Lakshmi Arunchalam.

Even patent litigants take vacations (or staycations, this year). Whether it’s because it’s August and the temperatures were topping 90 degrees in the District, or because lawyers were busy juggling the start of the grand remote learning experiment as the school year started, patent filings were at their lowest in months—with just 39 new district court complaints (a number itself propped up by a slew of new WSOU complaints, adding HP Inc. and HPE to the ever-growing party) and 28 new Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings, a number of which were filed by drone company DJI against a tranche of IBM-originating patents.

This week, the district courts saw 77 new complaints—though at least 10 are re-filings of Uniloc v. Google cases being transferred from the Eastern District of Texas to the Northern District of California by stipulation, somewhat inflating the numbers, leaving us with a relatively low filing rate of 66 bona fide new complaints this week. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), for its part, saw 36 filings, driven up in part by a half-dozen petitions from LEGO® and Warner Bros. against assertion vehicle MQ Gaming, LLC.

This week, district courts saw 91 new complaints, a large portion filed by IP Edge subsidiaries, such as Karetek Holdings, LLC; Guada Technologies; Tunnel IP, LLC; Altair Logix, LLC; Coretek Licensing, LLC; and Raindrops Licensing, LLC, with the rest being Intellectual Ventures selloffs, company-to-company disputes (like the Skull Shaver, LLC v. Freedom Grooming design patent case), and some pharmaceutical filings.

There were 17 discretionary denials under Section 325; 41 PTAB petitions filed—one post grant review (PGR) and 40 inter partes reviews (IPRs)—a number buttressed largely by Amazon filing seven IPRs against VB Assets, LLC – an assertion vehicle apparently spun out of AI-voice company, VoiceBox, after Nuance purchased them last year – as well as Samsung filing five IPRs against Clear Imaging Research, LLC, an entity run by the former co-founder of Soryn IP. This was rounded out by a five-IPR battle between Monolitic Power Systems and Volterra Semiconductor over licensing semiconductor technology.

There was a spike in Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings this week—almost double the average, at 56—driven in part by eight new petitions (adding to those previously filed) against patents owned by the Moskowitz family by Globus Medical. That was good enough to rival newly filed complaints for the first time this year (57). It also appears Uniloc (Fortress) and Samsung have come to some sort of agreement, as a handful of pending inter partes reviews (IPRs) settled; Samsung was denied institution in all of the IPRs it has filed against Cellect to date (eight petitions, with 12 still pending—at least some patents have no remaining challenges, meaning the litigation is sure to continue in due course).

It was a relatively light week in the district court compared with recent memory, with 56 new complaints filed; the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is holding steady with 27 filings (all inter partes reviews [IPRs] this week), a number nearly identical to the totals for the past few months. The District Court activity was driven by new complaints in existing campaigns, some new ANDA/aBLA litigations related to pharmaceutical generic entry, a smattering of company disputes, and a new campaign by Raymond Anthony Joao. At the Board, a trickle of petitions filed as part of ongoing licensing disputes between Dolby and Intertrust, some further challenges in the funded Neodron suits, some further filings by Verzion against Huawei, and a number of petitions in response to non-practicing entity (NPE) suits made up the balance.

It was a banner week in the district courts, with 110 new filings, and the filings are showing signs of picking up—rather than slowing down—amidst the COVID pandemic.  Most of that, however, was driven by vape company Juul Labs, Inc.’s filing of some 39 new district court complaints.  An average 28 PTAB cases filed, all inter partes reviews this week, included the usual suspects—parties filing against the sprawling Neodron, Soundview, and Solas OLED campaigns, as well as medical device, battery, and streaming service competitor fights.