E-Commerce and Software Saw the Most NPE Activity in Q1 2022, with Familiar Plaintiffs and Patents

The top market sector for NPE litigation in Q1 2022 was E-Commerce and Software, accounting for more than a quarter of all NPE activity. Networking saw the second most NPE assertions in the first quarter, followed closely by Consumer Electronics and PCs and trailed by Mobile Communications and Devices as well as Consumer Products.

E-Commerce and Software litigation filed by NPEs in Q1 included activity from a variety of notable plaintiffs, with some of those cases asserting patents from familiar sources. Among those plaintiffs were Advanced Transactions, LLC and Alto Dynamics, LLC, two Georgia LLCs with ties to patent monetization firm IPInvestments Group LLC (d/b/a IPinvestments Group), both of which launched campaigns focusing on this sector in February over patents divested from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV). Another monetization firm hitting the same sector in February was prolific plaintiff IP Edge LLC, which in Q1 started a campaign targeting app developers, service providers, and mobile device makers over patents acquired from Empire Technology Development LLC via Savannah Licensing LLC. In January and March, another IP Edge plaintiff—Bassfield IP LLC—also continued to file new cases in the QR code campaign that it launched in December over former Xerox patents.

Additionally, monetization firm Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP) initiated two new E-Commerce and Software campaigns this past March, filed separately through AK Meeting IP LLC and Silent Communication, LLC. The former’s litigation focuses on screen and content sharing features, while Silent attempted to sue BlackBerry over its Hub+ communications suite, asserting a patent previously litigated by a Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC plaintiff—though corporate identity issues could undercut Silent’s case.

See RPX’s first-quarter review for more on this and other trends impacting patent litigation and the patent marketplace.

Other recent campaigns hitting this sector have focused more on products and services related to enterprise infrastructure. Also in March, former cloud computing company Desktopsites Inc. (f/k/a CityCites.com Corp.) began a campaign over virtualization software with certain remote access and authentication features. The month before, Isix IP LLC, a subsidiary of monetization firm Aequitas Technologies LLC, began pegging systems integration products.

Even more campaigns targeted consumer-facing features this past quarter. Among them were two initiated by inventor-controlled NPEs: In February, Zentian Limited began asserting five speech recognition patents through the provision of devices with various voice assistant features, including wake word support, text dictation, and on-device speech processing. Weeks later, M4siz Limited added more retailers to its ongoing campaign targeting the search features offered by their e-commerce websites—in particular, features related to correcting misspelled search terms.

See RPX’s first-quarter review for more on this and other trends impacting patent litigation and the patent marketplace.