NPE Financial Services Litigation Swung Further Upward in the First Half of the Year

An analysis of NPE district court filing trends by market sector reveals a significant uptick in litigation targeting certain industries in the first half of 2021, compared to that same period last year. Specifically, NPE litigation hitting the Financial Services sector increased by 171%, with filings also rising in sectors like Media Content and Distribution (by 37%) and E-Commerce and Software (by 18%).

Although the number of Financial Services defendants sued is relatively small in both periods, the litigation hitting that sector has been filed by plaintiffs linked to several well-known NPE litigants. In the second quarter, those included monetization firm Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP), which in May expanded the Financial Services campaign it launched in Q1 through subsidiary mCom IP, LLC. That NPE’s Q2 complaints target several financial institutions and one provider of banking industry tech over certain digital banking platforms, focusing in part on features related to consumer transaction management and monitoring, customer data analytics, and marketing; the plaintiff has since filed more suits in July. Inventor-controlled Mirror Imaging L.L.C. also filed a new round of litigation targeting a group of banks in the second quarter, wielding a newer set of patents that it defensively characterizes as “post-Alice” following the invalidation of its prior asserted patents under Section 101. Additionally, a new EMV “smart card” campaign was launched in early Q2 by Auth Token LLC, an entity linked to an individual behind many other litigating NPEs, recent examples including Compression Vectors, LLC; Display Vectors LLC; Netcom Global Solutions LLC; and TurboCode LLC.

Coverage of recent NPE activity in other top market sectors can be found on RPX Insight, including campaigns hitting the E-Commerce and Software and Media Content and Distribution sectors.

See RPX’s second-quarter review for additional analysis of other key trends impacting patent litigation and the patent marketplace.