Patent Risk Digest

June 2018

A monthly update on market activity, legal developments, and policy related to patent litigation
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Prolific Patent Assertion Entity Launches Four Campaigns in May

Over the past two years, IP Valuation Partners LLC (d/b/a IPVal) has initiated more than 20 litigation campaigns, encompassing a wide range of technology areas. In May of this year alone, the prolific patent asserter’s affiliates began four new campaigns targeting more than a dozen companies.

Two such campaigns have targeted big-box retailers over their ecommerce websites. Relativity Display, LLC has accused nearly 10 retailers of infringing up to three patents related to database access and/or data visualization. At issue are the search features on the defendants’ ecommerce websites. For instance, in one complaint, Relativity Display pleads that the retailer’s website allows its users to “select the ‘Cleaning Chemicals & Disinfectant’ category” to view certain types of cleaning products sold on the store’s website. Another IPVal affiliate, Flectere LLC, kicked off a campaign in May alleging that retailers infringed on a patent relating to information collected through form submissions on their ecommerce sites.

In another IPVal-related campaign, Adiona IP has sued several consumer products companies over a media distribution patent. At issue is how the manufacturers connect speaker systems with smartphones and tablets to play audio. The fourth campaign, started by PC Coma LLC, targets a manufacturer of copiers and scanners over a patent that relates to power management for a computer system.

IPVal is a Texas-based monetization firm, the affiliates of which have launched multiple litigation campaigns across a variety of technical fields, with the following additional Texas entities having been formed by one of the entity’s founders in recent months: Bicameral LLC, Chapterhouse LLC, Corrino Holdings LLC, DL8 Training Solutions LLC, Errol LLC, Phaleron LLC, Relativity Display, LLC, and Virtual Bezel LLC. At least three other IPVal affiliates—Compact Lens Technologies LLC, VenKee Communications LLC, and Contemporary Display LLC—have launched litigation campaigns in 2018.

Baby Monitors Subject of New Patent Litigation Campaign

In one of two ongoing litigation campaigns, Secure Cam, LLC has focused its infringement allegations on the manufacturers of baby monitors. The complaints assert a single patent related to transmitting video images over a network.

In one complaint, Secure Cam pleads that the defendant “manufactures, imports into the United States, offers for sale, and/or sells face recognition readers and license plate recognition cameras, which infringe at least Claim 12 of the ‘158 Patent”, before listing the accused baby monitor products. This text appears to be an inadvertent cut-and-paste from a paragraph of the complaint in another of the entity’s litigation campaigns.

This second campaign quickly ramped up since it began in April, two days after the first of the baby monitor suits. With this campaign, Secure Cam hits multiple manufacturers of face recognition readers, license plate recognition cameras, and other outdoor security cameras.

Secure Cam was formed in Wyoming in July 2017, around the same time it received more than a dozen patents from another non-practicing entity.

Smartwatches and Phones at Issue in Health Monitoring Suits  

Health Watch, LLC has kicked off a litigation campaign suing makers of smartwatches and smartphones in the Eastern District of Texas. The complaints assert six patents that all generally relate to a real-time vital sign monitoring device.

The defendants are accused of infringement through the manufacture and sale of smartwatches and smartphones that interact to provide health monitoring features. Health Watch’s new complaints imply that the devices at issue could not exist without the technology described in the patents it holds. The complaint states that products made previously “either required a chest belt, were not continuous, or were inaccurate or inconvenient during exercise or daily activities”.

Health Watch is an affiliate of Monument Patent Holdings, LLC, the litigating arm of Texas monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC. It was formed in Texas in August 2015, changing its name from Monument Tech Chi, LLC to Health Watch, LLC in August 2017.