Coplaintiffs Malikie Innovations Limited (as "the successor-in-interest to a substantial patent portfolio created and procured over many years by [BlackBerry]") and Key Patent Innovations Limited (KPI, as "the beneficiary of a trust pursuant to which Malikie owns, holds, and asserts the Asserted Patents") have sued Match Group (3:25-cv-00381) in the Northern District of Texas and Vantiva (2:25-cv-00163) in the Eastern District of Texas. After first D-Link exited this campaign in December 2024 in light of an earlier noticed settlement and then the cases against both Acer (with prejudice) and Sophos (without prejudice) were dismissed in 2025, this litigation remains active as to ASUSTek and Nintendo—and now Match Group and Vantiva.
Against Match Group, KPI and Malikie target with five patents (7,315,747; 8,175,625; 8,671,208; 8,688,152; 10,779,156) the provision of messaging and live video chat on its apps and platforms, including Azar and Tinder. Against Vantiva (f/k/a Technicolor), the plaintiffs target with four different patents (7,529,305; 8,099,646; 8,291,289; 9,313,065) the provision of networking devices (i.e., gateways, modems, and routers) compliant with various IEEE 802.11 standards. The '646 and '289 patents are newly asserted in the campaign. Roughly two dozen former BlackBerry patents are now in suit in this campaign.
Malikie filed its early original complaints in this campaign without KPI, which characterizes itself on its public website as "an Irish-based company that identifies and invests in high value patent-based opportunities", listing a team of directors headed by Angela Quinlan. She has been in the role of KPI managing director since July 2020, listing past positions with Dublin-based monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited ("Vice President of Licensing and Acquisitions" from September 2019 to July 2020); with one of Atlantic IP's portfolio of plaintiffs, Solas OLED Limited ("Vice President of Licensing and Associate General Counsel" from April 2019 to July 2020); and with patent advisory firm IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue) subsidiary Longitude Licensing Limited (patent attorney from March 2014 through April 2019).
KPI advertises three portfolios, one held by each of Malikie (the former BlackBerry patents), Pictiva Displays International Limited (former OSRAM patents), and Valtrus Innovations Limited (former HP Enterprise (HPE) patents). Valtrus has been litigating its portfolio since early 2022, and last fall, Pictiva began litigating, suing Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas. KPI's ownership model for these portfolios—with each litigating plaintiff holding their respective portfolios in trust (under Irish law) for the benefit of KPI—has come under intense pressure in the Valtrus campaign.
There, Eastern District of Texas Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap received motions (at least partially redacted) to dismiss a Valtrus case for lack of standing, to amend the complaint there to add KPI as a plaintiff, to transfer that case elsewhere, and to dismiss a belt-and-suspenders action filed with KPI; and District of Delaware Judge Gregory B. Williams received a motion to dismiss a declaratory judgment complaint pleading a violation of the Delaware Consumer Fraud Act (with related state law claims for relief), as well as a motion for sanctions. Judge Gilstrap denied the motion challenging standing but is now in receipt of a motion for reconsideration of that denial outlining three purported clear errors. Judge Gilstrap also denied a motion for an intradistrict transfer, which has now been taken to the Federal Circuit via a petition for a writ of mandamus.
Per Valtrus, "what should have been a straightforward patent infringement case in EDTX is now mired in procedural chaos, excessive and wasteful venue-related litigation, and an unnecessary drain on the resources of two different Courts". In the meantime, KPI and Valtrus, in the same configuration as KPI and Malikie sit in their campaign, have sued Home Depot (2:25-cv-00081) and Lenovo (2:25-cv-00080), both in the Eastern District of Texas. The NPEs target Home Depot (with five former HPE patents) and Lenovo (with an overlapping set of six patents) over the provision or use of a wide array of products, ranging from Apache Kafka Streams and Apache Cassandra to smartphones and tablets that support Google Maps.
The KPI-[Malikie/Pictiva/Valtrus] configuration has also been attacked in the Pictiva campaign, which to date involves only defendant Samsung. Judge Gilstrap handed down a similar ruling there concerning standing, allowing KPI to be added as a plaintiff to the first complaint there, to cure any statutory defect. It is unclear whether the mess surrounding the various parties, the various complaints, and the various motions to dismiss has yet been entirely cleared, but on February 3, 2025, Judge Gilstrap granted the plaintiffs' motion to consolidate the two cases filed—the one filed originally by only Pictiva (to which KPI was later added) and the belt-and-suspenders one filed by both—"based on the fundamental principles of judicial economy and the Court's inherent authority to manage its own docket", seeming to credit the plaintiffs' argument that doing so "is the most judicious and efficient approach because [i]t will eliminate the risk of having to re-do the entire case if Defendants revive their standing arguments on appeal".
The Malikie suit against ASUSTek so far has centered around a defendant motion to dismiss the case for improper venue in which ASUSTek contends that because the plaintiffs pleaded that it—ASUSTek Computer, the Taiwanese parent—operates as a single enterprise with its US subsidiary ASUS Computer International (in order to impute allegedly infringing activities from the sub to the parent), that supposition should be taken as true for the purposes of venue. By this logic, ASUSTek is not a foreign entity against which venue lies anywhere, but rather should be treated as its sub, i.e., as a domestic company with insufficient ties to the Eastern District of Texas. ASUSTek asks that the case against it be dismissed or, in the alternative, transferred to the Northern District of California, where ASUS Computer International is headquartered. KPI/Malikie attack the motion as contrary to existing law and precedent. The motion has been briefed through a surreply; Judge Gilstrap has yet to issue a ruling.
The September 2024 case against Nintendo was filed in the Western District of Washington, where it was assigned to District Judge James L. Robart. Nintendo has answered the complaint. In connection with the case against Match Group, filed in the Northern District of Texas, the local rules of which impose heightened disclosure requirements, the plaintiffs filed a bare corporate disclosure, identifying Malikie as wholly owned by KPI (and KPI as wholly owned by New PP Licensing LLC), further indicating that no publicly held corporation owns ten percent or more of KPI's "stock". It has not filed a certified list of interested parties—i.e., one providing "a complete list of all persons, associations of persons, firms, partnerships, corporations, guarantors, insurers, affiliates, parent or subsidiary corporations, or other legal entities that are financially interested in the outcome of the case".
Reichman Jorgenson Lehman and Feldberg LLP represents KPI/Malikie in this campaign. Patrick Colsher of Reichman Jorgenson signed the bare corporate disclosure for the plaintiffs. 2/10, Vantiva, Eastern District of Texas, 2/14, Match Group, Northern District of Texas.
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