In April, the first case filed in the litigation campaign of C47 Technologies LLC, against Samsung, was dismissed with prejudice after an earlier noticed settlement. Separate Eastern District of Texas suits against Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) and TCL remain active, with C47 Technologies now filing a Western District of Texas case against Apple (7:25-cv-00249) over the same patent, which is generally related to combining digital images from multiple cameras. The plaintiff targets the support for Portrait Mode and for LIDAR 3D scanning within smartphones with camera arrays that incorporate multiple digital cameras and/or sensors.
The new case was filed in the Midland-Odessa Division and has been assigned to the division's sole district judge, David Counts, who has jumped to second on the list of the top district judges for patent lawsuits after taking steps to emulate the practices of District Judge Alan D. Albright of the Waco Division. Judge Albright's patent docket has been slimmed significantly by a case assignment policy in West Texas aimed to curb the concentration of patent litigation before him.
Chief Judge Alia Moses has been particularly rigorous in applying that case assignment policy (spreading out new patent cases filed in Waco, where Judge Albright is also the sole district judge, to a range of other West Texas judges). For example, earlier this year, Proxense, LLC filed a new case against Hyundai (Genesis, Kia) in an ongoing litigation campaign, with earlier cases before Judge Albright. Judge Moses quickly denied motion to transfer the suit to Judge Albright, ruling that Proxense is "mistaken" in its belief that the overlap with other cases provides "sufficient justification" for transfer: "This Court warns the Plaintiff in making such an attempt again". (Note that shortly after the transfer denial, Proxense voluntarily dismissed the case against Hyundai without prejudice.)
C47's asserted patent (10,984,605) issued to WorldScape in April 2021 with estimated priority in October 2001, based on the filing of a provisional application. Apparently expired, it belongs to a family of eight with issue dates ranging from July 2007 through July 2021. Sole named inventor Peter R. Rogina identifies himself on social media as the founder of Project Peace Lights, an NGO "formed to accelerate the timeline to achieve peace education in the 55 nations of the African Union as called for in Aspiration #4 of the 50-year plan, Agenda 2063". He indicates that he founded WorldScape in January 2000 (after more than a decade working for HP), describing his time there (through December 2009) as having "[f]ounded high technology Company [sic] involved in massively parallel computing and immersive imaging applications".
Rogina also identifies himself as a cofounder of "Enchanted Glass Entertainment" in 2010, a position that continues to the present day. Nevada state records indicate that C47 Technologies was formed there in March 2023, apparently as "Enchanted Glass Entertainment LLC", with a name change to C47 Technologies dated in early February 2024. Rogina and George Johnsen are listed as the entity's managers, both located at a Burbank, California address. A George Johnsen in Burbank, California holds himself out on social media as the owner of MammothVision, which operates in "film, television, and special venue production".
TCL has answered the complaint against it, while Lenovo has contested venue, arguing that C47 has been unsuccessfully hunting around for a proper foreign entity in its corporate structure to anchor venue in the Eastern District of Texas. (Without such an entity, per Lenovo, the US subs would have to be sued elsewhere.) Garteiser Honea, PLLC represents C47. 5/27, Western District of Texas.
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