Patent Filings Roundup: End-of-Month Filing Spike; IP Val Sues Smart Thermostat Cos.

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. It was kind of an interesting week at the Board, which hasn’t seen a lot of large-set challenges outside of the chip context in recent memory. IP Edge petitions generally fill out near the end of the month (as noted here in the past, they appear to have some sort of monthly quota system), and this previous month was no exception.

On the institution side, there were seven procedural denials to this week’s two merits-based ones; some Daedalus Blue (read: IBM) patents were held patentable on Final Written Decision over challenges from China’s DJI Drone manufacturer; and Dolby successfully challenged and cancelled a claim in one of licensor Intertrust’s portfolios.

Turning the Heat Up on Connected Thermostats: It didn’t make this week’s update, but yesterday, IP Valuation Partners LLC vehicle Rosen Technologies LLC pulled the trigger on complaints in the Western District of Texas on connected thermostats. It’s just the latest in a spate of portfolios being asserted against smart thermostats, who appear for the time being to be the tip of the spear on connected-device internet of things (IoT) non-practicing entity (NPE) litigation, perhaps as the (largely) most successful example of in-home devices on the market to date.

The patents Rosen asserts are, unsurprisingly, rather broad—generally directed to controlling “space conditioning equipment,” whatever that is, but there are seven of them, and it was filed in Waco before Judge Albright. None of the patents appear to have ever been associated with a practicing company, though inventor Howard Rosen transferred them to a self-held entity and then sold them to IPVal in late December. IPVal is run by Adam Baumli, who founded it in 2012 along with Jonathan Szarynski, who has since split and moved on to Endpoint IP. Usual counsel Ni, Wang, & Massaud is involved, which, if this follows their general pattern, could mean other smart thermostat companies are in the process of being sued or approached as we speak.

PTAB (41)

District Court (92)

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