Monetization firm IP Edge LLC, through plaintiff Nitetek Licensing LLC, has sued Castles Technology (1:20-cv-02297), ChargePoint (3:20-cv-03594), Crane (Crane Merchandising Systems) (1:20-cv-00717), HMS Industrial Networks (1:20-cv-03193), and Ingeteam (1:20-cv-00716) over the provision of devices (e.g., electric vehicle charging stations, mobile-payment terminals and gateways, vending machine payment devices) that feature wireless communication capabilities. The asserted patents generally relate to wireless communications, a first to CDMA communication and a second to dynamically allocating resources in a TDMA system.
IP Edge, through another controlled entity, Intertechnology Global LLC, acquired those two patents (6,661,783; 7,020,105) in February 2017 from Allied Security Trust (AST), to which they were transferred as part of a portfolio of roughly 30 patents by Panasonic in December 2015. Each comprising a family of one, the '783 patent, broadly concerning CDMA communications, issued in December 2003, and the '105 patent, broadly directed to TDMA systems, issued in March 2006. Intertechnology Global assigned them both to Nitetek on May 14, 2020.
Seven others of those former Panasonic patents have been spread out and litigated by IP Edge plaintiffs: one (7,797,011), generally related to push-to-talk (PTT) over cellular (PoC) service, to Techno Licensing LLC; a second (6,684,086), generally related to devices and methods for radio communication, to fellow IP Edge entity Zavala Licensing LLC; a third (6,577,715) to Commtech IP LLC, which asserted that patent in a fax data transmission campaign begun in September 2018; a fourth (6,952,413) used the next month by plaintiff Mentone Solutions LLC to begin a campaign devices with Dual-Carrier HSPA+ capability; a fifth (6,687,343) to Tekvoke LLC now at the heart of an active VoIP campaign; and two (7,154,961; 7,567,622), generally related to "ARQ re-transmission" in a wireless communication system, to Swirlate IP LLC, which began a campaign targeting data transfer over an LTE network using the Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) protocol in April.
IP Edge was formed in July 2015 by Texas attorneys Gautham (Gau) Bodepudi, Sanjay Pant, and Lillian Woung, the last an IPNav alum. It has now begun nearly 110 litigation campaigns both before (directly through its founders) and after its formation. Before the US Supreme Court handed down its May 2017 TC Heartland decision on proper venue in patent cases, IP Edge had established a pattern of forming litigating entities in Texas, identifying as managers of those entities longtime residents of Texas, and filing waves of litigation in the Eastern District of Texas. Since then, IP Edge has continued to form litigating entities in Texas but has taken to filing its cases in a wider range of districts, as is the situation in this campaign.
Nitetek Licensing has filed its case against ChargePoint in the Northern District of California, which requires the disclosure of any nonparties having an interest in the outcome of the litigation. The NPE has filed a less stringent disclosure, indicating that it has no corporate parent and that no publicly traded company owns ten percent or more of its stock. It has not filed a certificate of interested parties. Where IP Edge has filed such a certificate in other campaigns, it has identified no such interested party or only MAVEXAR LLC, an affiliated entity elsewhere disclosed as a consultant for the IP Edge plaintiff. 5/28, Castles, Northern District of Georgia; Ingeteam, District of Delaware; 5/29, HMS Industrial Networks, Northern District of Illinois; 5/29, ChargePoint, Northern District of California; 6/3, Crane, District of Delaware.
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