The "exclusive intellectual property management and technology transfer organization for Arizona State University" (ASU), Skysong Innovations, LLC, has filed a Western District of Texas complaint against CrowdStrike (7:25-cv-00040) and an Eastern District of Texas complaint against Fortinet (2:25-cv-00098). Asserted are four patents that the Arizona Board of Regents moved into the plaintiff's hands two days before the cases were filed. Skysong targets the provision of the CrowdStrike Falcon Platform and the Fortinet Security Fabric.
The named inventors for the four patents now in suit (10,313,385; 11,275,900; 11,775,831; 11,892,897) are ASU personnel and/or students. Paulo Shakarian is listed (with others) as an inventor for all but the '831 patent. Shakarian is an associate professor of "Computing and AI" within ASU's Fulton Schools of Engineering. The lead inventor named on the '831 patent is Jae-Sun Seo, identified as an "Associate Professor at Cornell Tech and an Adjunct Professor at" ASU. (Cornell Tech is affiliated with Cornell University.) ASU moved these four patents (together with a family member of the '831 patent) to Skysong on January 29, 2025.
The new complaints describe Skysong as a private nonprofit that "works with ASU faculty, researchers, and technology industry partners to translate ASU innovations into broad societal impact" with "the rapid and wide dissemination of intellectual property and inventions created by ASU to the marketplace" as its goal. Skysong touts ASU's charter, "which is literally carved in stone on its Tempe campus" and apparently reads: "ASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves".
Skysong Innovations was formed in Arizona in May 2003. It identifies as its member ASU Enterprise Partners, itself formed in Arizona in September 2015. ASU Enterprise Partners characterizes itself as "a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide an ecosystem of services to create solutions and generate resources to extend Arizona State University's reach and advance its charter". It lists among its affiliates "the ASU Foundation for a New American University, ASURE, Enterprise Collaboratory at ASU, ASU Outreach Hub, NEWSWELL and University Realty LLC". Meridith Rentz is its current CEO. Augustine V. Cheng is identified on Skysong's public website as the entity's CEO and "Chief Legal Officer". Skysong notes that Cheng "was the founder and chief counsel of the Patent & Licensing Group in the Office of the General Counsel at Columbia University in New York".
Last November, in a Northern District of Georgia complaint, Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC), "a 501(c)(3) company and an affiliated organization of the Georgia Institute of Technology", accused Murata Manufacturing (Murata Electronics North America) of infringing a single patent generally related to a certain "multi-band RF device". For details, see "University-Linked Plaintiff Files Suit in Georgia" (November 2024).
Skysong pleads that each defendant has been aware of the patents-in-suit and their alleged application to the accused products "since at least the filing" of the complaints. It does not plead a history of prior interactions with either CrowdStrike or Fortinet. Key Kesan Dallmann PLLC out of Washington DC filed the complaints for Skysong. The cases have yet to be assigned to judges. 1/31, CrowdStrike, Western District of Texas, Fortinet, Eastern District of Texas.
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