Posts Tagged: "patent filings roundup"

It was another relatively normal week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board with 30 patent filings—two post grant reviews (PGRs), 28 inter partes reviews (IPRs)—and another big one in district court with 98 new petitions—but yet again, that spike is largely driven by WSOU’s unusual filing pattern. WSOU has now sued Google on 15 separate patents, all covering different software aspects of various products, and single patent suits—the former Uniloc contingent continues to drive the numbers up, and continues to favor the Western District of Texas to do so. Some of the petitions challenging the Magnetar Capital-backed Neodron were instituted this week, the same week a tranche of Magnetar’s Data Scape patents were affirmed unpatentable on Section 101 before the Federal Circuit; further Bausch & Lomb abbreviated new drug application (ANDA)-related suits were filed as discussed last week; and new and old-hand IP Edge subs continue to file at a brisk clip.

Apologies for taking last week’s Father’s Day week off—here’s hoping you all had a restful week with your families and friends and are now gearing up for the Fourth. It was a relatively quiet week in the District Courts, with just 52 new patent complaints filed and 28 petitions, two post grant reviews (PGRs) and 26 inter partes reviews (IPRs). This week included Amazon filing four petitions against Freshub scanner patents; Verizon filed a number of petitions against Huawei, presumably in response to their widely publicized billion-dollar licensing demands; Dolby filed against Intertrust patents; there was plenty of continued IP Edge activity; but otherwise, a relatively quiet week; that said, the following week’s numbers (which stop at Monday’s reporting) contain a slew of new cases by Bausch and Lomb, as well as a phalanx of 15 WSOU complaints on fifteen independent patents not previously litigated, all in individual complaints, all in the Western District of Texas, and all against Google. 

District court patent filings are back down to roughly double the number of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings, with 65 new complaints to the PTAB’s 28 new inter partes reviews (IPRs) and one post grant review (PGR). The complaints were driven by the Rothschild entities, adding defendants to existing campaigns, and a fair number of pharmaceutical complaints.

District court patent filings remained unusually high this week (97), with 40 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) cases filed (one Covered Business Method, one Post Grant Review, and 38 Inter Partes Reviews). This week’s spike was driven in part by suits brought by Rothschild subsidiaries, but almost entirely (and this is true throughout this year) by the superlatively aggressive filing strategies of WSOU, who refiled or newly filed 35 suits this week in the Western District of Texas. Controlling for those 35 file/refile complaints, this week looks like a much more reasonable 65 or so new patent suits. That said, if we continue to see 100 weekly suits (or even a little less), that’s more than 4,000 projected suits in 2020.

This week’s 40 new Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings—39 inter partes reviews (IPRs) and one post grant review (PGR)—are up slightly from the average, but are dwarfed in comparison to this week’s explosion of 106 new district court complaints filed, including two notable wide-ranging automotive campaigns, dozens of filings by known aggregators, and the rare filing by licensor and innovator Dolby. The PTAB filings included the first petition filed by RPX in years, challenges from the continuing fallout between battery companies LG Chem and SK Innovations, and a district court assertion by plenty of new and familiar LLC subsidiary assertion vehicles. And an IPR petition against Uniloc (Fortress IP) was denied due to a Western District of Texas trial date, again showing that the Section 314 discretionary doctrines—under which the PTAB/USPTO Director has discretion to deny or institute IPRs—have been and continue to be a boon to serial assertors, with that case, the VLSi denials, and other Uniloc denials making up the bulk of 314 denials so far this year.

With 27 new Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings—25 inter partes reviews (IPRs), one post grant review (PGR) and one covered business method review (CBM), the first in months—this week’s numbers rested roughly within the new normal, with district court complaints flatlining at around 70 (i.e., 68 this week). That included five petitions on five patents owned by SAP brought by the Teradata corporation; on the District Court side, lots of small-potatoes NPE campaigns complemented a number of WSOU filings against their latest target, Dell EMC, as well as a few small company disputes, and one suit against the Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada.

There were only 16 new PTAB filings—all inter partes reviews (IPRs)—this week, with a whopping 70 new district court complaints filed.  Those numbers were driven primarily by: 1) frequent filer WSOU’s adding the first of what will likely be a tranche of new complaints (as is their wont) against U.S. manufacturer Dell to their ongoing campaigns against Huawei, ZTE, and Microsoft; and 2) by a sprawling suit on putative 2G and 3G patents by European patent aggregator SISVEL against at least 10 new targets, as well as various small-company disputes and the usual NPE activity.

It was another business-as-usual week for patent filings in the District Courts and before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with 54 suits and 29 petitions (two post grant reviews and 27 inter partes reviews, no covered business method reviews) filed. The Board already cited and relied on the new Apple v. Fintiv case in denying an IPR (filed three months after a complaint was filed) against a Fortress IP subsidiary’s patent; this week also saw a battle between e-cigarette (i.e., vaping) giants, saw another implantable medical device suit against Medtronic, and a surprising number of pet-related patent disputes, including iFetch, LLC and a suit between Pet Qwerks, Inc. and Benebone, LLC.

This week, Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings are back up, with four post grant reviews (PGRs) and 37 inter partes reviews (IPRs), while there were 83 district court complaints; the district court numbers skew high because of the WSOU entities’ proclivity for filing dozens of independent complaints per defendant, as discussed below. This week saw a major suit from PayPal against an online coupon competitor, allegations of abusive demand letter practices by BlackBerry, and even what appears to be a Matrix-themed gag filing in Delaware. Lockdown doesn’t seem to have slowed down suits in the slightest, despite what has been happening in other industries; only time will tell how earnings reports and market dips affect the patent marketplace longterm, though if history is any guide, litigation and patent assertion will likely rise in a recession economy.

Is there something in the water this week? While Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings were up slightly (the spike due entirely to 14 new petitions from Comcast against Rovi in their massive ongoing licensing dispute), the district courts—particularly the Texas branches—had a banner week, with 127 new filings—54 of which were filed Friday, April 24 alone. The majority, 31, were filed in Texas courts.
The 54 new complaints included a spate of filings by entities controlled by IP Edge and Leigh Rothschild, more VoIP-PAL suits, and some high-profile standard-essential patent infringement cases by Conversant Wireless against Tesla. They also included 16 new suits filed by a new entity, as described below.

The traditional wisdom—that patent suits rise and fall with the economy—seems backward. With some data forthcoming on that point, both during the last downturn and this one, patent filings haven’t slowed much, if any. Last week, 22 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitions were filed—one post grant review (PGR) and 21 inter partes reviews (IPRs)—just a few more than last week and down substantially now and on the year from the highs of a few years ago. But patent suits haven’t slowed, with 77 complaints nationwide this week, a docket chock full of repeat offenders, mostly comprising NPE aggregators like Oso IP and Equitable IP, with the occasional new campaign listed below or biopharmaceutical litigation, as listed below.

District court patent filings are up again this week, demonstrating that even a good lockdown can’t keep patent lawyers down; indeed, it appears there’s no sleep for the weary, given the spike in non-practicing entity (NPE) assertions and a fair amount of medium-sized company-to-company litigation, as well as a brewing dispute between Philips and Fitbit on wireless fitness trackers.

With Coronavirus delaying prosecution, preventing courts from empaneling juries, and keeping attorneys home with the kids, you would think filings would have dropped; instead, we saw a slight uptick this week. We saw Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos patents reemerge, witnessed the start of a battle between in-flight WiFi companies, and even watched sheets of sapphire sold to the government stay hot.