Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), through subsidiary Intellectual Ventures II LLC (IV II), has sued Dell (VMware) (6:20-cv-00220) over the provision of various products related to virtualization and data center network traffic monitoring and optimization. Five patents of disparate origins are asserted in the new Western District of Texas complaint, IV having moved three of them into the plaintiff's possession back in 2018, assigning the other two to IV II earlier in March—along with five others of similar subject matter but not yet asserted in litigation. Various VMware products are accused of infringing the five patents.
Those five patents include a single asset (9,338,217) from a family having one member asserted in litigation before acquisition by IV; three patents (7,016,963; 9,092,546; 9,686,378) from a 13-member family no member of which appears to have been previously litigated; and a fifth patent (6,816,464) comprising a family of one also making its debut in litigation.
The '217 patent broadly concerns, according to the plaintiff, "an improved way to provide remotely hosted virtual machines to users". It issued to an IV affiliate in May 2016 as the most recent member in a 13-patent family, the earliest of which issued to G&H Nevada-Tek, a Nevada partnership between the '217 patent's named inventors Michael L. Gough and Paul L. Hickman. Gough and Hickman assigned the family to a Texas entity that the two created—Accolade Systems LLC—between 2007 and 2010 before returning them to G&H Nevada-Tek ahead of their November 2011 assignment to an IV entity.
During the three years that Accolade Systems held a portion of the '217 patent family, the entity filed two cases asserting one of them (7,130,888), a short-lived 2007 suit against Canadian cyber security company 01 Communique Laboratory, LogMeIn (merged with Citrix subsidiary GetGo in November 2017), and Symantec (now NortonLockLife after acquisition by Broadcom in November 2019), each of which was dismissed with prejudice after little substantive litigation; and a 2007 case filed originally against Cisco (WebEx), Citrix, and Laplink Software that persisted into 2010 against Citrix alone. The claims against Laplink Software were dismissed with prejudice in relatively quick fashion, while Accolade Systems and Cisco (WebEx) settled in April 2009, roughly one month before District Judge Leonard Davis handed down the claim construction order in the case. Only the claims against Citrix proceeded toward trial, but Judge Davis granted summary judgment in the defendant's favor after Citrix argued that the settlement with Cisco (WebEx) covered its use of any and all accused products as a customer of Cisco (Citrix stating that it "has used only Cisco routers and switches with its GoTo Services"). Accolade Systems appealed, but the parties ended their dispute before midstream.
On March 11, 2020, IV moved the '217, together with two of its family members (8,484,317; 8,751,597) to IV II's hands, presumably for assertion in litigation. VMware is alleged to infringe the '217 patent through the provision of various virtualization products, including "vSphere, ESX/ESXi, Horizon/View, vCenter Server, Connection Server, vMotion and vSAN", targeting user-side features, server-side features, and relevant infrastructure used to serve and maintain virtual machines with personalized storage and settings.
IV II pleads that the '963, '546, and '378 patents belong to a five-member family generally related to "an improved way to invoke and deliver server-based applications to remote client devices based on unique client characteristics". The three issued in March 2006, July 2015, and June 2017, respectively, the earliest to Melia Technologies (d/b/a Nimbus Software), which assigned the family to an IV affiliate in March 2009. A different IV affiliate moved them into IV II's hands in September 2018.
VMware is alleged to infringe the '963 and '546 patents through the provision of "Horizon View, vSphere, ESX/ESXi, vCenter Server, [and] Connection Server" products, targeting features that provide virtualized apps as a service, including features related to displaying remote user interfaces. The defendant is alleged to infringe the '378 patent through the provision of "Horizon/View, Horizon Client/Horizon HTML 5 Client, vSphere, ESX/ESXi, vCenter Server, [and] Connection Server" products, targeting features related to transmitting user input to a remote virtual computer and displaying that computer's interface on the client computer.
The '464 patent generally relates, according to IV II, to "an improved way to test candidate network routes and select a subset thereof for interconnecting gateways across a wide area network (WAN)". It issued in November 2004 to Array Telecom, comprising a family of one and passing into IV's possession in November 2011. An IV affiliate moved the '464 patent to IV II's hands on March 11, 2020, together with two others (7,822,841 and 8,352,584), the first assignee of which is Modern Grids, a Colorado entity formed by their named inventor Jeffrey B. Franklin. The accused products are "VMware NSX and SD-WAN by VeloCloud", with features related to data center network traffic monitoring and optimization targeted.
IV moved at least seven patents in three transactions to IV II on March 11, 2020: the '271 patent, together with its two family members; the '464 patent, together with the two Franklin patents; and a single patent (7,793,051) originally issued to Panta Systems, a failed California company from which IV picked up the patent in May 2012. The two Franklin patents broadly relate to "hosting computing clusters for clients"; the '051 patent, to shared memory.
IV was founded in 2000, with the new complaint touting the NPE's origins, particularly the accomplishments of Nathan Myhrvold, the former Microsoft CTO and one of IV's cofounders. IV II pleads that "[u]nder Dr. Myhrvold's leadership, IV acquired more than 70,000 patents covering some important inventions of the Internet era", two "significant accomplishments" of which are characterized as the "related technologies of cloud computing and virtualization".
While IV has launched roughly a dozen litigation campaigns since 2010, in recent years, it has turned to divesting patents at an accelerating rate, announcing plans to halt the acquisition of new patent assets and forging a "deepened" relationship with Texas monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, to which IV has assigned multiple patent portfolios over the past several years, initially of smaller size but more recently of considerable bulk. Batches of patents have been assigned to myriad other entities, including other NPEs. RPX has prepared a living report cataloging IV's divestitures to NPEs since January 1, 2016, as well as notable subsequent assertion campaigns—the latest version of that report can be downloaded from RPX Insight here. 3/25, Western District of Texas.
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