Earlier this year, RPX noted the transfer of roughly 80 US patents from NETGEAR to Estelgia LLC, an entity created in Delaware on December 13, 2024. The recipient has now filed suit over a subset of those assets: one before the International Trade Commission (ITC) (337-TA-3830) that names as proposed respondents ASUSTek, D-Link, Linksys, and Plume Design; and four others in the District of Delaware, one against each proposed respondent (1:25-cv-00614; 1:25-cv-00615; 1:25-cv-00616; 1:25-cv-00618). Targeted with six former NETGEAR patents is the provision of "certain Wi-Fi routers, Wi-Fi devices, mesh Wi-Fi network devices and components thereof".
From the portfolio that it received from NETGEAR in December 2024, Estelgia asserts in the new ITC complaint all six patents (7,936,714; 9,277,591; 9,775,164; 10,531,518; 10,735,973; 11,246,016) against each proposed respondent. Estelgia—identifying "Estelgia Korea" (of uncertain formation) as its parent company in court disclosures—describes itself as a "a patent management and licensing company", pleading that a domestic industry exists through the activities of NETGEAR, which it characterizes as its licensee. The complainant breaks the identified domestic industry products into two categories: a first "represent[ing] the majority of Netgear's Wi-Fi offerings" (applicable to all but the '591 and '518 patents); and a second, a subset of the first, which excludes "dual-band" Wi-Fi products (applicable to the '591 and '518 patents).
The divested portfolio here includes patents that NETGEAR asserted in litigation against Harris (later becoming L3Harris) back in 2012 and TP-Link (which has since undergone an extensive reorganization) more recently, from April 2023 into October 2024. The latter litigation involved its own action before the ITC over the importation of "certain Wi-Fi routers, Wi-Fi devices, mesh Wi-Fi network devices, and hardware and software components thereof". Last May, the presiding Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) issued a final initial determination (ID) finding a violation of Section 337 with respect to claim 13 of the '714 patent and claims 12, 15, 17, and 19 of the 10,681,698 patent, but finding no violation with respect to claim 11 of the 10,278,179 patent. The parties then settled, ending that action as well as a parallel case stayed in the Central District of California.
Estelgia identifies the following "exemplary accused products": for ASUSTek, the ZenWiFi Series, the GT Series, ROG Series, RT Series, and TUF Series products as well as Blue Cave, DSL-AX82U, EBA63, EBM68, and EBR63; for D-Link, the COVR Series, DIR Series, Aquila Pro AI Series, Eagle Pro AI Series, DBA Series, and DAP Series products "in combination with hardware controllers (including at least DNC-100, DNH-100, DWL-2690) and/or with Nuclias Cloud or Nuclias Connect"; for Linksys, the MX-Series, MR Series, WHW Series, A030x, A0101, VLP010x, MBE Series Products, MX6200 Series, LN Series, ESeries, and EA-Series products as well as the WUSB6300, RE7350, RE7310, RE6800, and RE6700 devices; and for Plume, "SuperPod, SuperPod6, 7 SuperPod with WiFi 6E, SuperPod Aon with WiFi 6, and SuperPod Aon with WiFi 6 + LTE alone or in combination with HomePass or WorkPass".
Latham & Watkins LLP filed the complaints for Estelgia, which appears to have engaged Matthew B. Shoemake of Peritum LLC (formed in Texas in December 2016) as a technical expert. Shoemake submitted a declaration in support of the claim construction positions taken by International Semiconductor Group Co., Ltd. (ISG) in its ITC action filed against Dell, HP, HP Enterprise, and Lenovo. (See RPX coverage here, the investigation having since been terminated as to Lenovo.) There, Shoemake lists as the most recent engagement under "Consulting & Litigation Services", from 2025 to present, "Estelgia, LLC, Pertains to Wi-Fi patents". 5/16, ITC, District of Delaware.
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