Liberty Patents LLC, an NPE with ties to several other litigating plaintiffs, has sued Acer (2:20-cv-00287), ASUSTek (2:20-cv-00288), HP (2:20-cv-00289), Micro-Star International (2:20-cv-00290), and Panasonic (2:20-cv-00291) over the provision of a wide variety of computing devices, including those that incorporate certain ARM-branded processors, support certain charging features, are Platform Security Architecture (PSA) certified, and/or use Google's ChromeOS firmware. Three patents are asserted across the new complaints, Liberty Patents having acquired them as part of a 100-plus asset pickup from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) in December 2019.
The first of the three patents-in-suit (6,535,959), comprising a family of one, broadly concerns generating a "power reduction signal" in an "instruction cache". Original development work for the patent, which issued in March 2003, was conducted at Conexant Systems (f/k/a Rockwell Semiconductor). After Conexant's 2001 spinoff of its "Internet Infrastructure" group as Mindspeed Technologies, groups of patent assets, including the '959 patent in June 2003, were assigned to the new entity. Mindspeed assigned the patent to IV in March 2008. The patent names Sumant Ramprasad (now reportedly a Qualcomm engineer) and Sameer I. Bidichandani (now "Head of Product Management" with Shoreline IoT) as inventors.
With the '959 patent, Liberty Patents targets a wide variety of devices that incorporate ARM-branded processors: for Acer, certain Chromebook-series devices; for ASUSTek, smartphones, tablets, and single board computers; HP, certain laptops and tablets; Panasonic, certain tablets and chipsets; and Micro-Star, certain tablets.
Comprising a family of one, the second asserted patent (6,920,573) issued in July 2005 to SmartPower Corporation, a Michigan entity created by sole named inventor Howard Hong-Dough Lee in February 1999 and dissolved in July 2017. IV also scooped it up as part of its widespread patent acquisition efforts in 2007-2008 (specifically in August 2008). The '573 patent generally relates to supporting multiple operating states on an "energy-conserving apparatus" through "power-distributing circuitry".
With the '573 patent, the plaintiff targets the charging feature of the defendants' respective laptops: Acer's Power-Off Charging, ASUSTek's USB Charger+, HP's Sleep and Charge, Panasonic's Always On Charging, and Micro-Star's Super Charger.
Micro-Star is not accused of infringing the third patent-in-suit (7,493,612), which issued to Lite-On Technology, a Taiwanese consumer electronics manufacturer, in February 2009 and was assigned by Lite-On to IV in March 2013, together with a handful of other US assets. The '612 patent also comprises a single-member family.
Acer, ASUSTek, and HP are accused of infringing the '612 patent through the provision of Chrome devices (e.g., computers, laptops, and tablets), with the NPE focusing its accusations on the auto-update feature of Google's ChromeOS firmware. Panasonic is accused of infringing through PSA Certified devices, including the PAN1780 controller, with features for auto-updating the device's firmware also at issue. As noted, the '612 patent is not asserted in the Micro-Star complaint.
Liberty Patents was formed in Texas on December 22, 2019; public records in that state suggest ties to Dynamic Hosting Company LLC, which litigated two patents originating with Connect One (a fabless semiconductor company) against more than 30 defendants in 2014-2015; to Plectrum LLC, which ran a networking campaign in 2017 that hit 16 companies over patents acquired from HP Enterprise; to Snyders Heart Valve LLC, which has an ongoing medical devices campaign; and finally, to Panther Innovations LLC, which just recently sued Birch Grove Software over the network activity monitoring provided as part of its ActivTrack platform, asserting a patent acquired in July 2020 from its named inventors' vehicle, Ascentive LLC.
Liberty Patents also appears to share a manager with American Patents LLC, which has launched three campaigns to date, one of which remains active, each concerning patents also acquired from IV. 9/2, Eastern District of Texas.
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