Plaintiffs Linked to Top Players, Inventors, and Third-Party Funders Hit E-Commerce and Software Space in Q4
January 25, 2023
The top market sector for NPE litigation in Q4 2022 was E-Commerce and Software, accounting for 27% of new defendants added to patent litigation campaigns. Consumer Electronics and PCs saw the second-most NPE litigation in the fourth quarter, followed by Networking, Semiconductors, and Mobile Communications and Devices.
NPE activity hitting the E-Commerce and Software sector in Q4 included litigation from a variety of familiar names in patent monetization and numerous suits from inventor-controlled plaintiffs—as well as some from a growing group of NPEs with outside funding.
Among the well-known players that targeted this sector in the fourth quarter was global investment manager Fortress Investment Group LLC, which launched a campaign, through associated plaintiff Softex LLC, focusing on products with device tracking features in mid-December. Q4 also saw multiple other monetization firms file litigation in new and existing campaigns in this space—including two plaintiffs linked to Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP): one, DynaIP’s AML IP LLC, filed a new round of suits in its ongoing campaign against retail e-commerce platform after surviving an Alice challenge; while another, WirelessWERX IP LLC, kicked off a location-tracking and mapping campaign at the start of October.
Meanwhile, the six-year-old targeted advertising campaign waged by Consolidated Transaction Processing LLC (CTP), a file-and-dismiss plaintiff linked to Nevada-based monetization firm Equitable IP Corporation, passed the 50-defendant mark with a fresh wave of complaints against various e-commerce retailers. Such retailers were also in the crosshairs of Gravel Rating Systems LLC, an entity with ties to a growing web of other plaintiffs, which in late November filed a set of lawsuits focusing on user review features offered by the defendants’ e-commerce websites.
Also hitting this sector was publicly traded Quest Patent Research Corporation via subsidiary Taasera Licensing LLC, which in October filed a new case in its ongoing cybersecurity campaign—for which prior filings have been consolidated in a multidistrict litigation before Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap. October also saw two waves of litigation (see here and here) in a new mobile advertising campaign started by TRON Holdings LLC, a Delaware plaintiff apparently associated with a familiar patent monetization figure.
The fourth quarter also saw a host of inventor-controlled NPEs file litigation in the fourth quarter, as noted above—including two new plaintiffs that kicked off their first campaigns. On December 16, HyperX Networks, LLC launched a network device provisioning campaign, while in late October, DataNet, LLC filed its inaugural litigation against providers of cloud storage platforms with file archival features. The fourth quarter also saw activity in several ongoing inventor-controlled campaigns, including a second social media suit filed by Virtual Creative Artists, LLC on December 8 that dropped a patent currently being challenged by a third party before the PTAB. Also reshuffling its patents was inventor-led AlmondNet, Inc. and subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC, which in November filed a new round of targeted advertising suits against a trio of existing defendants. However, the plaintiffs behind another ongoing database search campaign with new suits in December, a “Vilox Technologies, LLC” and a “Vilox, LLC”, appear to have some basic questions to answer—namely, whether the purportedly inventor-managed Texas LLCs actually exist, and how they share rights to the asserted patents.
Finally, a variety of inventor-controlled entities that have all granted a security interest to the same litigation funder began asserting patents in the fourth quarter. Four of those plaintiffs have filed litigation over various products in the E-Commerce and Software sector: Pardalis Technology Licensing, L.L.C. (which launched its first campaign on November 22), Mobile Data Technologies LLC (on November 23), DigitalDoors, Inc. (on November 29), and Entangled Media LLC (on December 16).
See RPX’s fourth-quarter review for more on other key patent trends in 2022 and Q4, including the ever-increasing role of third-party financing in patent litigation and the continued flow of patents into NPE hands.