Skybell Technologies Subsidiary and CloudofChange Lose Patents; Bell Semiconductor and VisionX Technologies Expand Campaigns
It was a typical week for patent filings at both the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and in district courts, with 25 new PTAB petitions (five post grant review and 20 inter partes review) and 53 new district court complaints filed.
At the PTAB, there were three procedural denials under Section 325(d) (and denying patent owner’s request to deny under Fintiv) in IPRs filed by Nokia Corp. against optical networking patents owned by Alexander Soto and Walter Soto and asserted by inventor owned-NextGen Innovations, LLC. The PTAB issued just two institution decisions this week, but 18 final written decisions. The Board invalidated a CloudofChange point-of-sale patent, leaving all patents asserted by CloudofChange in district court unpatentable. Similarly, the Board issued final written decisions invalidating two Flygrip patents—the only two patents asserted in district court. Meanwhile, following a jury verdict against Vivint, the PTAB found two SB IP Holdings (a subsidiary of Skybell Technologies, Inc.) unpatentable. On the other hand, the PTAB issued final written decisions upholding the challenged claims in two Netlist (a company with close ties to Fortress IP) patents.
Meanwhile at the district court, we largely saw continuations of previous campaigns. Mcom [associated with Pueblo Nuevo LLC] added another three defendants to its campaign asserting e-banking patent. Nokia Inc. asserted its streamer-side video codec patents against another two defendants (Hewlett Packard) here and abroad. And Optimorphix also added new defendants to its campaign involving former Citrix data transfer patents (received from ByteMobile). Webstock Global Strategies [associated with Jeffrey M. Gross] launched a new campaign against five defendants.
Skybell Technologies Subsidiary Loses Patent Claims in IPR
Vivint saw success in its IPRs challenging patents asserted by SB IP Holdings LLC [a subsidiary of Skybell Technologies, Inc.]. This week, the Board issued two final written decisions finding that all challenged claims of SB IP Holdings’s entrance detection and viewing systems patents were unpatentable. These wins come in on the heels of a $45 million jury verdict, finding that Vivint infringed two of SB IP Holdings’s patents, also related to communication systems located near a door or entrance, through the provision of its smart home products.
Bell Semiconductor Circuit Design Patent Lawsuits Grow
Bell Semiconductor (associated with Hilco Inc., and various funders through them) continued to add defendants in its widespread circuit design patent campaign. This week, Bell Semiconductor filed four new lawsuits in the Eastern District of Texas against Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Cisco. Bell Semiconductor asserts one patent related to a “semiconductor package for a die with improved thermal cycling reliability” against all four defendants, increasing the number of cases in which this patent has been asserted to 10 total. Bell Semiconductor also asserts additional patents (also related to semiconductor technologies) against Fortinet and Juniper Networks.
VisionX Technologies Sets Sights on New Defendants
This week, VisionX Technologies (funding unknown) has filed its second lawsuit in its image sensor patent campaign against Omnivision Technologies. VisionX Technologies asserts three patents related to image sensors, targeting a number of Omnivision image sensor products. VisionX also noted in the complaint that a number of companies directly infringe by incorporating Omnivision products in their devices, including Microsoft, Dell, Tesla, Lenovo Gorup, Qualcomm, Nokia Corporation, ASUSTeK, Motorola Mobility, and others. Last year, VisionX Technologies filed a lawsuit against Sony, accusing Sony’s provision of image sensors and camera modules of infringing the same three patents. Sony responded by filing IPRs against each patent. The parties appear to have settled that case this past July, before an institution decision was issued in any of the IPRs. The patents were originally issued to Dongbu Hitek Co. and were assigned to VisionX by Intellectual Discovery Co., Ltd.
Storm on the Horizon for CloudofChange
The PTAB wiped out CloudofChange’s remaining patent in a final written decision this week. CloudofChange launched its campaign asserting two point-of-sale patents against NCR Corporation in 2019. Following a favorable $13 million jury verdict against NCR in 2021, CloudofChange filed two additional lawsuits against Clover Network and Lightspeed POS, alleging infringement of the same two patents, plus an additional point-of-sale patent. Clover Network and Lightspeed POS jointly filed IPRs challenging each patent. The PTAB has now found all challenged claims unpatentable in each IPR.
Links to the cases discussed above and more are available in the Weekly UP, which can be found here.
Kelly Hughes
Kelly Hughes is Senior Patent Counsel at Unified Patents, LLC where she handles PTAB filings including inter partes reviews and ex parte reexamination. Prior to Unified Kelly was a litigator […see more]
