Global Connect Technology, Inc. (GCTI) has filed separate Eastern District of Texas complaints targeting the ecommerce websites of defendants Anker Innovations (2:25-cv-01207), Canon (2:25-cv-01209), Signify (2:25-cv-01210), and Sony (2:25-cv-01211). At issue is functionality related to filtering search results where multiple filter criteria within multiple categories can be selected. GCTI began this campaign with separate August 2024 complaints in the same district against Best Buy, Christie's, and Costco. A motion to dismiss one of those cases for lack of standing was mooted this past week by the filing of a second amended complaint.
A single patent (7,246,128), generally related to searching using multiple hierarchical points of view, has been asserted across all seven complaints. Comprising a family of one, the '128 patent issued in July 2007 with an estimated priority date in June 2002. Jena J. Jordahl—which formed GCTI as "General Connect Technology Inc" in Massachusetts on October 29, 1997—is the sole named inventor. Based on publicly available USPTO records, she appeared to have transferred the patent to GCTI in an April 2011 assignment agreement.
Best Buy, however, filed a motion to dismiss the complaint against it, arguing lack of standing. Per that motion, Massachusetts administratively dissolved GCTI on May 31, 2007; thus, the attempted 2011 assignment was ineffective. After GCTI filed suit, Best Buy served standing-related discovery, seemingly prompting GCTI to seek reinstatement of its charter in Massachusetts. Then, in response to a letter "putting Global Connect and its counsel on notice of its Rule 11 obligations", Jordahl executed a "Nunc Pro Tunc Corrective Patent Assignment" that purports to correct the chain of title with "unsworn representations regarding, among other things, Ms. Jordahl's purported earlier 2002 executed assignment . . . of a 'patent'" to GCTI.
Best Buy characterizes this attempted correction "confounding as the '128 patent did not exist at that time and even predated the filing of the provisional application upon which the '128 patent is based". The problems, per Best Buy, compound from there:
The Nunc Pro Tunc also indicates that the death of Global Connect's corporate secretary and subsequent dissolution of Global Connect in 2007 "interfered with the [alleged] original assignment of patents rights" (id.) but failsto explain how a death in 2004 affected an alleged 2002 assignment. Nor does it explain why the Attempted 2011 Assignment was necessary if the patent had already been assigned in 2002. And even though Ms. Jordahl filed the Attempted 2011 Assignment with the PTO, the Nunc Pro Tunc does not mention it, or attempt to reconcile that the alleged existence of a 2002 assignment directly contradicts Ms. Jordahl's representations and warranties in the Attempted 2011 Assignment.
Jordahl represented in the attempted 2011 assignment that she had "the full and unencumbered right to sell, assign, and . . . has not executed and will not execute any document or instrument in conflict herewith", which would not have been true had a 2002 assignment already been in place. In opposition to Best Buy's motion, GCTI argues that it alleged in its January 2025 amended complaint that it held exclusionary rights in the '128 patent and that Best Buy has infringed those rights—and that is all that is required to establish constitutional standing to sue. Factually, GCTI repeats the sequence of events here: a purported 2002 assignment of a "patent" (without identifying the patent), the 2007 dissolution; the June 2025 reinstatement, and the August 2025 nunc pro tunc attempting to move the assignment date back to 2002.
Best Buy and GCTI submitted another round of briefing. In its reply, Best Buy asserts that GCTI has the law wrong here, opening its reply with, "Article III standing is the courthouse key—if a plaintiff does not have it when they arrive, the courthouse doors do not open. No amount of post-lawsuit paperwork can unlock jurisdiction that did not exist when the lawsuit was filed". Best Buy sums up the legal theory as "sue-first, assign-later" (also taking issue with GCTI's factual assertions). In its surreply, GCTI contests Best Buy's reading of the relevant law, arguing that Best Buy "throws itself under the bus" by attaching correspondence with the law that GCTI contends undermines its entire motion.
Last week, District Judge Rodney Gilstrap denied Best Buy's motion to dismiss, as mooted by a second amended complaint (which alters the definition of the accused products and removes willfulness-related allegations, apparently in light of other orders in the case). It remains to be seen whether Best Buy will refile its motion—and the parties will rebrief everything from there. Meanwhile, Christie's and Costco appear both to have settled (based on dismissals with prejudice following earlier-filed Joint Motions to Stay All Deadlines and Notices of Settlement, a form filing before Judge Gilstrap).
On social media, Jordahl holds herself out as having served as "President" with GCTI—where she has "[d]eployed Research tools to augment human understanding of multi-dimensional data that is otherwise considered to be beyond visualization techniques"—since October 1997; as "Business Owner and Data Scientist" with Infinite IQ, Inc.—where she has "[p]rototyped an autonomous agent system called MARGE, "Mobile Autonomous Redundant Gigabit Evolutionary" environment—since July 2009; and as "Generative AI Blackbelt" with Google—where she "build[s] fine-tuned models, POCs, and hands-on workshops dedicated to Generative AI applications" for the "top 200 Google customers"—since June 2023. Jordahl further describes GCTI's technology as being "licensed through Infinite IQ and Global Connect Technology". Each complaint contends that the '128 patent is a "pioneering" patent (noting citation to it by large tech companies in connection with their own patent applications).
Garteiser Honea PC represents the plaintiff in litigation. The complaints are riddled with errors that suggest some cutting-and-pasting here. For example, after introducing the only patent-in-suit (the '128 patent), the complaints contain three success paragraphs reading, "The Patents-in-Suit are...", "The Patents-in-Suit includes [sic] numerous claims...", and "The priority date of each of the Patents-in-Suit is..." GCTI's briefing also seems a bit rushed; for example, GCTI includes this challenging sentence in its surreply: "Although both cases discuss facts supporting ownership since it also addressed the substantive issue in the cases, neither case supports that the allegations must plead 'facts' supporting allegations that exclusionary rights exist in confer Article III standing". 12/11, Eastern District of Texas.
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