Savannah Licensing LLC, an apparent IP Edge LLC plaintiff, has launched its first litigation, suing Atlassian (6:22-cv-00116), Meta Platforms (Instagram) (1:22-cv-00139), Snap (1:22-cv-00138), Sony (1:22-cv-00140), and Sun Cupid Technology (NUU Mobile) (3:22-cv-00226) over the provision of certain feedback tools in mobile apps (Atlassian, Instagram, and Snap) as well as smartphones (Sony and NUU Mobile) that support the accused feedback tools. Broadly pertaining to providing a feedback system upon detection of a "user frustration event", the two asserted patents come to IP Edge from a familiar source.

IP Edge—through controlled subsidiary Vibrant Licensing LLC—picked up over 30 US patent assets, including the two that Savannah Licensing now asserts (8,680,992; 9,454,777), in an assignment dated May 25, 2021 from Empire Technology Development LLC. The patents comprise a family of two with respective grant dates in March 2014 and September 2016, the family having an estimated priority date in September 2010. The patents' sole named inventor (Ezekiel Kruglick) assigned the family, through his Ardent Research, to Empire Technology that same month, in September 2010.

Empire Technology is a subsidiary of Allied Inventors Management, LLC (AIM), which was reportedly founded in 2015 to monetize patents received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV). In December 2018, Empire Technology granted a security interest in over 2,800 patent assets to a subsidiary of Crestline Investors, with the NPE subsequently recording a series of releases of the Crestline security interest over various sets of its patents, ahead of an accelerating set of divestments from late 2019 through 2020. Recipients include Allied Security Trust, presumably for subsequent sale, and IP Edge, as well as Boogio, Huawei, Meditech Devices LLC (a recently formed Delaware NPE of uncertain connections), and Mercury Kingdom Assets Limited (a murky entity, addressed in the British Virgin Islands, with director Standguard Nominees (H.K.) Ltd., a Hong Kong entity of uncertain operations, other than to continue prosecuting applications in the families acquired), NohBell, and Xero Limited.

The May 2021 pickup through Vibrant is only the most recently recorded batch of patents that IP Edge has acquired from Empire Technology. Beginning in December 2019, it acquired batches of assets through apparent controlled entities Chimetech Licensing LLC (two patents), Crave Licensing LLC (33 patents), and Xinctec Technologies LLC (32). The firm added several more portfolios from Empire in 2020, received by Atestraw Licensing LLC (17 patents), Invincible IP LLC (30), Mellaconic IP LLC (6), and Syclone IP LLC (1), followed by two more last year, via Stonebank IP LLC (one patent) and Vibrant Licensing (34). IP Edge, again through controlled LLCs, has been asserting various patents from these acquisitions across multiple litigation campaigns since.

IP Edge began its rise to prominence as prior monetization firm IP Navigation Group, LLC (d/b/a IPNav) wound down operations when founder Erich Spangenberg "moved off" into 2014 to "do other things" thereafter (details here). Having been the director and vice president of Asia for IPNav in 2012-2013, Lillian Woung created IP Edge with fellow Texas attorneys Gautham (Gau) Bodepudi and Sanjay Pant, first in Nevada and later merging into Texas. The firm has been the top filer of NPE cases over the years since, having initiated over 170 litigation campaigns in total, both right before and of course after its formation in Texas.

Apart from a rare trial before the International Trade Commission last year (see here for RPX coverage), most of the firm's patent assertion activity has consisted of district court cases resolved at the pleadings stage without much, if any, substantive litigation. More specifically, 30% of IP Edge cases are dismissed within 90 days of a complaint, while 95% are resolved within a year. For a closer look at IP Edge's litigation history—and its impact on the overall volume of patent litigation filed over the years—see RPX's Q4 in Review.

In 2021, IP Edge added 615 defendants, or about 26.3% of all NPE litigation filed during the year—asserting patents originating with operating companies (e.g., Cypress Semiconductor, Hitachi, Huawei, Kyocera, Nokia, IBM, Seiko Epson, Siemens, Technicolor, or Xerox, among others), universities (e.g., Ajou University), and individual inventors (e.g., John D. Almon), as well as from Empire Technology.

The firm tends to file cases in end-of-the-month sprees, with Savannah's campaign joining separate new campaigns from plaintiffs Noblewood IP LLC, Pixeltide Pathway LLC, and Wikeshire IP LLC over former IBM patents at the end of January. For details on that acquisition and litigation, see "IP Edge Acquires More Former Operating Company Patents" (February 2022). 1/31, Atlassian, Western District of Texas; 1/31, Instagram, Snap, Sony, District of Delaware; 1/31, NUU Mobile, Northern District of Texas.

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