Patent Filings Roundup: Lighthouse Campaign Snuffed Out, At Liberty to Sue, Express Train Rolls On

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.

The District court filings were propped up this week by frequent filer WSOU (d/b/a/ Brazos Licensing) targeting Juniper and Jon Rowan entity Liberty Patents suing a half-dozen companies on their recently-acquired semiconductor portfolio, seemingly angling for an RPX settlement.

Lighthouse walkaway: Recently active Lighthouse Consulting Group LLC had sued 33 companies, mostly in the Western District of Texas, over their mobile check deposit applications on three patents, sparking two IPRs to date, one by Unified Patents. Those sued included Texas Bank and Trust Company, Southside Bancshares, Inc., LegacyTexas Financial Group, Inc., Independent Financial Group, Capital One Financial Corporation, PNC Financial Services Group, SunTrust Banks, Inc., Citizens Financial Group State Farm, Regions Financial Corporation, HSBC Holdings, State Street Bank and Trust Company, Charles Schwab Corporation, Fifth Third Bank, BB&T Corporation, Investors Bank, Citigroup Incorporated, among others. Meanwhile, the district court cases seemed to coalesce early after customer/supplier declaratory judgment actions by Jack Henry and NCR (the apparent providers of much of this software) and others forced early claim construction, which was unfavorable to Lighthouse. Almost as quickly as they came, Lighthouse abandoned one of their patents before the Board after institution, and the cases appear to have all mostly resolved themselves.

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty: The Jon Rowan entity Liberty Patents (as represented by the Antonelli Harrington & Thompson LLP firm) have branched out into semiconductor litigation, with a newish Intellectual Ventures-selloff portfolio (formed in December just after the transfer) seemingly targeted to encourage a big-dollar RPX settlement. They have now sued Acer, ASUSTek, HP, Micro-Star International, and Panasonic, on ARM-branded semiconductors and relatively broad features thereof, some related to firmware in the Eastern District of Texas, where Mr. Rowan is based (Tyler); the first round of suits themselves are based on just three patents of disparate origin and family, but have the backing of 100 or so assets transferred earlier this year, presumably with a backend for IV. This round accuses Chrome device firmware provided by those device manufacturers. Public records of entirely unrelated IV licenses from the past year show nominal upfront costs (in one case, $10,000 for a portfolio) with a substantial backend on increasing milestones for three years. 

Express yourself: The long-running Express Mobile campaign, which has been ongoing for over five years and has targeted the likes of just about every small and medium-sized website services organization that uses largely open-source web development software like WordPress and Drupal. The five-patent case has generated a whopping 97 district court cases to date, three claim construction orders, and is rumored to have been the basis of hundreds of demand letters; the campaign finally up-leveled to the largest companies in Silicon Valley, adding Alphabet, Atlassian, Dropbox, eBay, Expedia, Facebook, HubSpot, Microsoft, and SquareSpace. The five patents have been subject to a single IPR (on one) that was denied and has over the years generated more litigation than most other portfolios.

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