In March, RPX flagged the assignment of hundreds of US patent assets from chip maker NEWRACOM to Acacia Research Corporation's Atlas Global Technologies, LLC—which has just opened up its first campaign with suits against ASUSTek (6:21-cv-00820), Samsung (2:21-cv-00304), and SerComm (6:21-cv-00818). Each filed in the Eastern or Western District of Texas, Atlas Global's complaints target various devices with Wi-Fi capabilities that are alleged to practice the e 802.11ax-2021 standard, identifying long lists of accused products including access points, adapters, cameras, desktop computers, e-readers, gateways, laptops, mini PCs, motherboards, phones, routers, set-top boxes, and televisions. An overlapping set of nine patents are asserted, all developed by NEWRACOM, a California-based fabless company formed in 2014 by a group of over 20 individuals from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI).
In its complaints, Atlas touts NEWRACOM as a "major contributor" to the 802.11ax-2021 standard, citing a 2018 IAM Industry Report that ranked NEWRACOM "as the world's fourth most active technical contributor to the 802.11ax Standard, behind only Qualcomm, Intel, and Huawei". The plaintiff reports NEWRACOM as having served as a member of the 802.11ax Task Group and claims that defendant Samsung was also a member.
The plaintiff alleges that ASUSTek, Samsung, and SerComm have known that NEWRACOM "possessed patents relating to the 802.11ax standard since at least March 11, 2015", the date on which NEWRACOM submitted a Letter of Assurance for Essential Patent Claims to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Atlas Global received its nine patents-in-campaign (see an assertion grid here) as part of a larger transaction in February 2021, comprising 213 US patent assets as well as foreign counterparts in Asia and Europe. The portfolio now held by Atlas—the US assets of which can be viewed on RPX Insight here—appear to be part of what NEWRACOM characterizes as its 802.11ax technology (a/k/a Wi-Fi 6). On its website, NEWRACOM touts 802.11ax as enabling "unlimited possibilities for remote control and monitoring, smart devices, and industrial IoT applications".
The patents-in-suit (9,531,520; 9,763,259; 9,825,738; 9,848,442; 9,912,513; 9,917,679; 10,020,919; 10,153,886; 10,756,851) issued to NEWRACOM between December 2016 and August 2020, with estimated priority dates in 2014 or 2015. Each is broadly directed to wireless communications.
The August 9 launch of Atlas Global's litigation campaign is nearly 12 months to the day that Acacia formed the NPE in Texas (August 10, 2020). This new litigation campaign is the third begun by an Acacia subsidiary so far this year, each springing from a sizeable patent transaction.
First, in January, Acacia's R2 Solutions LLC filed separate Eastern District of Texas lawsuits against Deezer, Samsung, Target, WalMart, and Workday, accusing the defendants of infringing overlapping subsets of seven from among the roughly 2,500 former Yahoo patents that Acacia acquired last year through Excalibur IP, LLC.
Also in January, Acacia's Stingray IP Solutions LLC hit Samsung, again in the Eastern District of Texas, this time alleging infringement of four patents picked up from Harris Corporation (now L3Harris after the 2019 merger with L3 Technologies). Acacia describes that portfolio as comprising nearly 150 US patents "covering commercial applications of Wi-Fi and IoT technologies".
R2 Solutions and Stingray each followed up with a wave of new suits in June, hitting defendants Expedia, iHeartmedia, and Roku (R2 Solutions); and Amazon (Amazon.com, eero, Immedia Semiconductor (d/b/a Blink), Ring), Legrand, and Somfy SA (Stingray). RPX coverage of those new suits is available here and here, respectively.
Acacia has been acquiring and litigating patents for more than 20 years, with a lull in activity preceding a shakeup, begun in 2018, when activist investors Sidus Investment Management and BLR Partners LP overhauled the company's leadership. A strategic shift followed, part of which has been accelerating patent portfolio acquisition and assertion. That acceleration has continued through Acacia's partnership with hedge fund Starboard Value, which opened up access to as much as $500M in new capital.
Acacia began five new litigation campaigns in 2020, all in the first half and nearly all involving portfolios originating with major technology companies, including Agilent, HP's semiconductor division (litigated by Acacia's ID Image Sensing LLC); France Telecom/Orange SA (by Monarch Networking Solutions LLC); Siemens (also litigated by Monarch Networking Solutions); and Fusion-IO, later acquired by SanDisk, itself later acquired by Western Digital (Unification Technologies LLC). Also in 2020, Acacia's Semiconductor Connections LLC began litigating a patent that currently available USPTO assignments show as still held by German research institution Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
Susman Godfrey LLP and Heim, Payne & Chorush, LLP filed the new complaints on behalf of Atlas Global. 8/9, Samsung, Eastern District of Texas; ASUSTek, SerComm, Western District of Texas.
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