July 21, 2024
Hermes IP Management LLC has become the latest entity tied to Texas monetization firm Longhorn IP LLC to file US litigation. In a new Eastern District of Texas complaint, Hermes IP has accused Samsung (2:24-cv-00540) of infringing three former SK Telecom patents through the provision of mobile devices featuring audio noise cancellation, multiple home screens, and/or image geotagging and navigation features. Longhorn IP has made headlines recently for its appeal to the Federal Circuit of the requirement that it post a bond under Idaho's "Bad-Faith Patent Assertion" law, in litigation against Micron.
The plaintiff received the three patents asserted against Samsung (8,537,977; 8,855,720; 9,613,060) through two transfers from Arista Holdings Co. Ltd., one in December 2022 (two patents) and another in May 2023 (four patents). Generally related to voice processing on a mobile device, where voice is captured from a main microphone, and noise is then removed by a noise processor based on input from a second, outward-facing microphone, the '977 patent is asserted against the "Samsung Galaxy A Series, Samsung Galaxy M Series, Samsung Galaxy S Series, Samsung Galaxy Z Series and all other Samsung devices having dual microphones and multi-mic echo cancellation and noise suppression". At issue are features related to audio noise cancellation that use multiple microphones.
The '720 patent is broadly directed to switching between multiple "idle screens" on a mobile device that contain shortcut icons for installed apps based on a leftward or rightward "movement request" by the user, with indicators for each idle screen and indicating the active one. Hermes IP accuses Samsung of infringing the patent through the provision of the "Samsung Galaxy A Series, Samsung Galaxy M Series, Samsung Galaxy S Series, Samsung Galaxy Z Series and all other Samsung devices running Android Mobile Operating System 4.4 or later", targeting user interface features that allow swiping between multiple home screens with associated indicator dots at the bottom.
The '060 patent broadly concerns generating an image and location data for a predetermined location using a mobile device with a camera, sending a compressed version of the image that includes the location data to another device, which then lets the user navigate to that location using GPS. Infringement allegations focus on features related to geotagging and sending captured images, and then navigating to an address associated with the received image's tagged location data, within "Samsung Galaxy A Series, Samsung Galaxy M Series, Samsung Galaxy S Series, Samsung Galaxy Z Series, and all other Samsung devices running Android 4.4 or later".
In the patent assignment filed with the USPTO, Arista Holdings is identified as a Korean entity, with Jungkil Nam signing on behalf of it, as its CEO. The listed address for Arista Holdings corresponds to ISIS IP Law LLC, a Korean IP law firm that identifies "Jung-kil" Nam as its cofounder. On the ISIS IP Law website, he is described as holding prior positions with "LG U-plus Corp. R&D Center" (as an "Engineer") and Shin & Kim Law LLC (no position listed). Arista Holdings acquired the six patents through multiple assignments from SK Telecom, one dated in November 2021 and the other three dated in March 2023. (Note that on December 15, 2023, SK Telecom transferred 13 US patents directly to Samsung.)
Hermes IP discloses that it has no parent (and that no publicly traded company owns ten percent or more of it). The plaintiff was formed in Texas in October 2022, identifying Khaled Fekih-Romdhane as its manager at formation and later listing Tanit Ventures Inc. as a member, Fekih-Romdhane signing as Hermes IP's president. Fekih-Romdhane is a past executive with Acacia Research Corporation, having started Longhorn IP with fellow Acacia alum Christian ("Chris") Dubuc. The two appear to have parted ways a few years ago, Dubuc forming Harfang IP Investment Corp and Fekih-Romdhane moving ownership of Longhorn IP (and multiple litigating entities) to Tanit Ventures, also a Texas entity. Dubuc is nevertheless listed as Hermes IP's agent in its most recent state filing, dated May 15, 2023.
Longhorn IP's first litigation campaign was run through Lone Star Silicon Innovations LLC beginning in October 2016 (over former AMD patents, asserted against multiple defendants, including Micron, Nanya Technology, Renesas, SMIC, STMicro, Toshiba, and United Microelectronics) followed by campaigns filed by L2 Mobile Technologies LLC (litigating a portfolio of former ASUSTek/Innovative Sonic patents against Alphabet (Google), Ford, OnePlus, and TCL from April 2021 through the present); Katana Silicon Technologies LLC (litigating patents developed at Sharp, Samsung, and Kioxia, in complicated fashion, against GlobalFoundries, Samsung, and TSMC, as well as, most recently, Micron, from May 2019 through the present); Nordic Interactive Technologies LLC (litigating a former Nokia patent, together with an unrelated second patent, against LGE and Samsung from January 2020 through April 2022), and Trenchant Blade Technologies LLC (litigating former TSMC patents against Intel, Samsung, and SK hynix from November 2020 through October 2022)—and now Hermes IP. SK hynix entered the Trenchant Blade campaign by filing a complaint for declaratory judgments against Trenchant as well as fellow Longhorn IP entity Hamilcar Barca IP LLC (which holds a portfolio of former MediaTek patents).
It is the litigation against Micron, begun by Lone Star Silicon as early as October 2016 and continued through Katana, in March 2022, that seems to have bogged Longhorn IP down somewhat. Micron responded by suing Longhorn IP in Idaho, invoking that state's Bad-Faith Patent Assertion Law, in a case that was removed to federal court. The litigation in the District of Idaho has generated an $8M bond on the patentholders, the imposition of which Longhorn IP has appealed to the Federal Circuit. As RPX recently reported, other states have weighed in in favor of Idaho, but the appeal has yet to reach its conclusion (with litigation in the lower court stayed to await the outcome, as well as the conclusion of certain PTAB proceedings).
Longhorn IP advertises several other "portfolios", held through at least seven other entities, some of which have been engaged in foreign litigation, and others that have yet to file suit. A pattern seems to have developed for Longhorn IP via which it sues a defendant and as part of the end of that litigation picks up patents from that defendant, which patents are then held by another "portfolio" entity for assertion against others, some of these portfolios actually landing in litigation. For details concerning at least some of these other entities, see, e.g., "Longhorn IP's L2 Mobile Files Latest Complaint Under Seal" (October 2022) and "2022 Ends with More Transactions" (January 2023).
Ni, Wang & Massand, PLLC filed the Hermes IP complaint; the case has been assigned to Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap. 7/16, Eastern District of Texas.
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