July 21, 2024
Sinotechnix LLC has filed what appears to be its first litigation, accusing Samsung (2:24-cv-00544) of infringing six patents from a portfolio received from Seoul Semiconductor back in May 2022. The patents are broadly directed to various aspects of lighting technologies—including "irradiation-redistribution lenses", LED devices, LED fabrication, LED packages, and more—with infringement allegations in the new Eastern District of Texas complaint targeting Samsung over the provision of monitors and TVs that incorporate screen lighting technologies such as certain diffusion plates, lead frames, and lenses.
Of the six asserted patents (7,618,162; 7,748,873; 7,901,113; 7,951,626; 8,132,952; 9,412,913), two are new to litigation (the '873 and '913 patents). The others have appeared in the sprawling campaign of Seoul Semiconductor, which has been active for more than a decade, through multiple plaintiffs, and in which more than 100 patents have been asserted. In May 2022, Seoul Semiconductor subsidiary Seoul Viosys assigned 17 US patents to Sinotechnix in two transactions, one on May 23 and the other on May 24. Both were recorded with the USPTO that July.
Currently available USPTO assignment records suggest that Seoul Semiconductor holds thousands of US patent assets. In December 2022, it divested five patents to Smart Handover, LLC, an entity formed in Texas in December 2012, managed by Hao Ni of frequent plaintiff-side counsel Ni Wang & Massand, PLLC, and apparently used to move assets to other entities for assertion (having received patents from Teletouch Communications, in December 2012; Telinit Technologies LLC, in March 2018; from Samsung, in June 2022; and from Seoul Semiconductor, in December 2022).
Smart Handover passed the five patents that it received from Seoul Semiconductor (along with a sixth, which issued in the meantime) and the two patents that it received from Samsung to SemiLED Innovations LLC (a Texas entity formed in December 2022 and managed by Alexander Dobrescu), which has been litigating that portfolio in a campaign active since May 2023. Its most recent case was filed in May 2024, against Visual Comfort of America, in the Western District of Texas. SemiLED did file one of its cases in the Central District of California, which imposes heightened disclosure requirements on litigants. There, SemiLED identified no nonparties with a pecuniary interest in the case.
Smart Handover moved three other patents to Remote Concepts LLC, another Texas entity managed by Dobrescu, this one formed on April 16, 2020, six days after it purportedly received those assets. Dobrescu appears to be an attorney specializing in immigration and criminal law; for additional details about his past activities, see "BlueJeans, Recently Acquired by Verizon, Hit in Second Campaign over Networking Patent" (August 2020).
Sinotechnix was formed in Delaware on May 10, 2022, apparently for the purpose of receiving and ultimately asserting these assets. No public information confirms the plaintiff's management or personnel. In connection with the new complaint, Sinotechnix discloses only that "[n]o parent or publicly-held corporation owns ten percent (10%) or more of" its "stock". The suit has been assigned to Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC provides representation. 7/17, Eastern District of Texas.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.