Slow Week in PTAB and District Court, Ideahub Subsidiary Challenges Instituted; Patent Armory Continues the Offensive
It was a slow week for new patent filings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and in the district courts. This week saw only 18 new filings at the PTAB—one of which was a Post Grant Review, while the remaining were inter partes reviews (IPRs).
Texas Instruments, Inc. continued challenging Greenthread LLC patents, filing four IPRs against four patents (bringing the total number of IPRs Texas Instruments has filed up to seven). Amazon filed two IPRs against one Nokia Technologies Oy [associated with Nokia Corporation] patents; Apple filed five IPRs against three Resonant Systems Inc. (d/b/a RevelHMI) patents; and Micron filed two IPRs against two Yangtze memory Technologies Company Ltd. [associated with Yangtze River Storage Technology Holdings Co., Ltd.] patents. Hulu LLC and Capital One National Association also filed a joint IPR challenging an Implicit LLC [associated with Edward Balassanian] patent.
Although it may have been a light week in terms of PTAB filings, the Board was busy issuing twelve institution decisions and fifteen final written decisions. With respect to institution decisions, there was only one denial—Samsung’s IPR challenging one of four Slyde Anlalytics LLC patents asserted against Samsung (as well as Garmin and Zepp Health Corporation) in district court. Slyde analytics is associated with Ascend Innovation Management, LLC, which is run by former Intellectual Ventures alums. Samsung filed IPRs against all four patents with one being granted last month, another denied earlier this month, and one still pending an institution decision.
The remaining decisions issued granted institution, and included two joint Google and Samsung IPRs: one against Multimodal Media LLC [associated with Quest Patent Research Corporation] and the second against Nariste Networks Pty Ltd. LG Electronics also received favorable institution decisions in four IPRs challenging four Pantech Wireless Inc. [associated with Pantech Incorporated and Ideahub Inc.] patents (discussed below).
As to final written decisions, the PTAB determined all challenged claims unplantable in two Google IPRs: one challenging a Wildseed patent and the second challenging a Valtrus Innovations Ltd. [associated with Key Patent Innovations Limited] patent. Vivint was also successful in invalidating all challenged claims in one IPR challenging an SB IP Holdings LLC [associated with Skybell Technologies, Inc.] patent. Likewise, Apple successfully invalidated all challenged claims of a Corephotonics Ltd. [associated with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.] patent. BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings received favorable final written decisions (invalidating all challenged claims) in three IPRs, challenging one Walmart Apollo LLC [WalMart Inc.] patents.
In district court, there were just 21 new filings—one third of which were filed by Patent Armory Inc. (discussed below). Other new filings included one new suit, asserting three patents, filed by Polaris Powerled Technologies LLC [associated with Microchip Technology Incorporated] against Western Digital and another new suit by Daedalus Prime LLC [associated with Daedalus Group LLC] filed suit against MediaTek Inc., asserting eight patents
PTAB Institutes Challenges to Pantech Patents
This week, the PTAB issued institution decisions in four IPRs filed by LG Electronics Inc., challenging four Pantech Wireless Inc. and Pantech Corp [associated with Pantech Incorporated and Ideahub Inc.] patents. Pantech asserted the patents, as well as three other patents against LG Electronics in September of 2023. LG has filed IPRs against each of the seven asserted patents, one of which was granted last month, and two of which have not yet received institution decisions. These institutions come on the heels of a jury verdict finding that OnePlus Technology (Shenzen) Co. Ltd. infringed five Pantech patents, including one of the patents challenged by one of LG’s IPRs that was instituted this week.
Patent Armory Continues to File
This past week, Patent Armory Inc. [associated with Jeffrey M. Gross] filed suit against seven new defendants, including Barclays Capital Inc., BBDI LLC, Dell Technologies Inc., Auntie Anne’s, Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop Inc., Chuy’s Opco Inc., and Charter Communications Inc. Each of the cases asserts five patents generally related to customer service support systems, such as matching entities in an auction and intelligent telephone and communication routing. New suits are still trickling in this week (including suits against Texas Taco Cabana, L.P., Thrivent Investment Management Inc., PayPal, and United Airlines), bringing the defendants sued this month to 14 (and bringing the total number of defendants to over 70 for each of the patents asserted this week).
Links to the cases discussed above and more are available in the Weekly UP, which can be found here.
Image Source: Deposit PHotos
Author: hengki12
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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]
