In a new Eastern District of Texas complaint, Calypso IP LLC has accused Samsung (2:24-cv-00568) of infringing a single patent described as generally related to "seamless fixed mobile convergence" for handing off a call from Wi-Fi to a cellular connection. The Texas plaintiff focuses on the provision of devices, including a long list of Galaxy-series smartphones and tablets that allegedly support "dynamic switching between cellular and Wi-Fi networks" through the Intelligent Wi-Fi (f/k/a Smart Network Switch and Adaptive Wi-Fi) feature. This campaign is not the first over this wireless communications patent.
Calypso IP was formed in Texas on July 17, 2024, with Calypso IP Management I LLC as its sole manager. Calypso IP Management I itself was formed in Delaware on July 12, 2024; in Texas, where it is also registered, Calypso IP Management II LLC—also formed in Delaware that same day—is identified as its manager. Calypso IP's asserted patent (6,680,923) was previously asserted by a Calypso Wireless, Inc., against Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) from 2008-2014. Any connection between the plaintiff and Calypso Wireless (or its parent company Calypso Technology Delaware, Inc.) is unclear.
Calypso Wireless's case, eventually filed with coplaintiffs Drago Daic and Jimmy Williamson, against T-Mobile was unsuccessful. Eastern District of Texas Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne construed the term "pre-established vicinity range" from the claims of the '923 patent to mean "a predetermined, maximum distance existing between the wireless communication device and the computer facility" (in a recommendation subsequently adopted by Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap). Based on that construction, the court granted T-Mobile's motion for summary judgment of noninfringement, prompting a fruitless appeal to the Federal Circuit. Magistrate Judge Payne subsequently denied a motion to shift attorney fees against the plaintiffs, and the litigation ended.
T-Mobile contended in its motion for exceptionality that the Calypso Wireless case against it was "not the first time Plaintiffs ha[d] abused the legal system for a profit". T-Mobile pointed to parallel litigation in the Delaware Chancery Court over the conduct of Calypso Wireless's business, which appears to have spawned litigation in multiple other districts, as well as a bankruptcy, shifted finances, and a recommendation that the '923 patent be sold, a recommendation that was set aside in favor of asserting it in the T-Mobile litigation. The motion also contained accusations of delay early on in the case while Calypso Wireless sorted out the addition of Daic and Williamson to the suit.
Now apparently expired, the '923 patent issued in January 2004 with an estimated priority date in May 2000. Its assignment history reflects the troubled business history of Calypso Wireless, but no assignment of the patent from L. Scott Frazier, an early investor in Calypso Wireless and—an apparent "licensed clinical psychologist" and "qualified medical evaluator" with Garland & Associates, a Los Angeles-based "medical legal public relations & marketing" firm—appears in currently available USPTO records. Calypso IP nevertheless pleads ownership.
The new complaint was filed by Ahmad Zavitsanos and Mensing PLLC; Judge Gilstrap has been assigned to preside. 7/22, Eastern District of Texas.
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