The last of Mobility Workx, LLC's Eastern District of Texas cases against the big three US wireless carriers, targeting AT&T (AT&T Mobility), ended this past July. The plaintiff has now filed separate complaints in the same district against Cisco (4:24-cv-00799), Ericsson (4:24-cv-00796), Nokia (4:24-cv-00797), and Samsung (4:24-cv-00798). Two patents generally related to the allocation of network resources are asserted against each defendant, with a third patent, broadly pertaining to mobile network emulation, also at issue against Ericsson and Samsung. The accused products include a broad range of mobile devices and wireless networking equipment.
The resource allocation patents (7,697,508; 8,213,417) comprise a family of two, issuing to University of Florida Research Foundation, Incorporated (UFRF) in April 2010 and July 2012, respectively. The applications that led to these patents were assigned to UFRF in October 2004 by Abdelsalam ("Sumi") Helal, a professor, and Edwin Hernandez, his doctoral student. Helal is the director and "principal investigator" of UFRF's Mobile & Pervasive Computing Laboratory. Hernandez identifies himself as a former Motorola engineer with currently identified positions as the CTO and founder for EGLA Communications, a Florida company that advertises itself as developing a platform that "connects cloud to Cable TV enabling simplified distribution of video and music content", as well as expert witness services, and as principal of Mobility Workx. Prior to his employment with Motorola, Hernandez also reports having worked for Microsoft.
In February 2020, Unified Patents filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) of claims 1-7 (i.e., all of the claims) of the '417 patent (IPR2018-01150). The PTAB canceled claims 1-2, 4-5, and 7 as obvious but left claims 3 and 6 standing, a result noted in the new complaints. Mobility Workx asserted the '508 and '417 patents against T-Mobile in an August 2017 case that ended in December 2018 after a noticed settlement that followed a July 2018 claim construction order from Eastern District of Texas Judge Amos L. Mazzant, III. In that case, even though the Eastern District of Texas does not require it, Mobility Workx disclosed three entities with a financial interest in the outcome of the litigation: the plaintiff; Whitaker Chalk Swindle & Schwartz PLLC, as plaintiff's counsel; and Dominion Harbor Group, LLC, as "licensing advisor" for Mobility Workx.
The plaintiff also asserted those two resource allocation patents, together with the network emulation patent (7,231,330), in its December 2017 to August 2021 litigation against Verizon, which settled on the verge of trial (also before Judge Mazzant), seeing a March 2019 claim construction order and challenges to expert declarations from both Helal and Hernandez among the more typical flurry of pretrial motions. Less happened in the AT&T Mobility case, filed in June 2023, before its end this past July. Claim construction briefing was underway when the parties notified the court that they had resolved their disputes.
The '330 patent had been previously litigated. Rapid Mobile Technologies, Inc. (an NPE with president and CEO Hernandez) from July 2007 to July 2014, asserted it, as exclusive licensee, multiple times against Motorola. Rapid Mobile first sued Motorola over the patent in 2010, a case that ended quickly after "irreconcilable differences" ended the representation of the plaintiff's counsel. The NPE, together with UFRF as patent owner, made a second run at Motorola in 2013, a case that ended in settlement in May 2014. (During this same time period, Hernandez also filed a separate whistle blower complaint against Motorola; an intellectual property consultancy attempted to enforce a charging lien against Rapid Mobile, unsuccessfully, in both actions.)
Mobility Workx was formed in Florida in February 2016 as Hernandez & Helal, LLC, changing its name three months later. Helal and Hernandez (the individuals) were originally the managers of the entity, but the named inventors now exercise control through two separate LLCs that each manages: Sumi Helal LLC (formed in September 2016 in Florida, managed by Helal) and Ubiwireless LLC (formed in October 2005, also in Florida, managed by Hernandez). UFRF assigned a set of Helal-Hernandez patents, including those in suit, back to the named inventors in June 2015, roughly a year before they assigned them to Mobility Workx (in July 2016).
As noted, the list of products accused in these new complaints is long. Against Cisco, with respect to the resource allocation patents, Mobility Workx targets the provision of "handover products" identified as "Cisco's 4G LTE Advanced Pro Solutions products and services, Cisco's LTE Routers including Cisco's 880G, 890G, Branch Routers and SD-WAN appliances, Cisco's 5G Network Architecture products and services, Cisco's Cloud Core and Packet Core products and services for 5G and 4G, Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 500 Series products and services, and Cisco's Private 5G service".
Against Ericsson, with respect to those same two patents, Mobility Workx targets the provision of "4G (LTE) and 5G wireless cellular base stations and small cells that perform network handover, and services related to the providing of 4G (LTE) and 5G wireless communications networks. The Accused Handover Services/Products include the complete Ericsson Radio System family of macro, massive MIMO, mmWave, micro, and indoor remote radios and antenna-integrated radios for radio access networks".
Against Nokia, those accused products are "4G (LTE) and 5G wireless cellular base stations and small cells that perform network handover, and services related to the providing of 4G (LTE) and 5G wireless communications networks. The Accused Handover Products/Services include the Nokia AirScale Radio Access portfolio of products and services, including Nokia's entire 5G Radio product family, Nokia's Cloud Packet Core products and services, Nokia's 5G and Radio Access Networks products and services, and Nokia's AirScale Baseband Solutions products and services".
Finally, as to these two patents, against Samsung, the plaintiff targets the provision of "4G (LTE) and 5G wireless cellular mobile devices and base stations and small cells that perform network handover, and services related to the providing of 4G (LTE) and 5G wireless communications networks", as well as of "Samsung's Galaxy line of mobile devices, Samsung's Sustainable 5G line of products and services, and Samsung's 5G Business line of products and services".
Mobility Workx accuses Samsung of infringing the '330 patent through the provision of its Galaxy line of mobile devices; Ericsson, through the provision of "device testing and certification activities, services and systems", as allegedly identified on excerpts from Ericsson's public website.
Zeisler PLLC of Miami, Florida filed the new complaints on the Mobility Workx's behalf, with Machat & Associates, PC out of West Hollywood, California also appearing on the signature block. The cases have yet to be assigned to a judge. For additional coverage of this campaign, including an unsuccessful appeal from that IPR loss that alleged institutional bias, see "Its Tangle with the PTAB Behind It, Mobility Workx Hits AT&T Mobility" (June 2023). More recent reporting on patents moving to another Helal vehicle, see here. 9/2, Eastern District of Texas.
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