The day after VideoLabs, Inc. filed Western District of Texas suits against Acer, ASUSTek, Lenovo (Motorola Mobility) and Micro-Star International, the NPE filed a complaint before the International Trade Commission (ITC) against those same defendants. That complaint targets the same feature set, related to video/audio coding and screen rotation, within the same variety of accused devices (e.g., computers, smart displays, smartphones, tablets), with the same four patents. VideoLabs pleads a domestic industry based on its activities combined with a confidential list of licensees.
VideoLabs further pleads, in its public interest statement, little impact of the investigation on domestic markets for tablets and personal computers:
VideoLabs' licensees and other competitors to the Respondents represent the largest technology companies in the world, all of whom manufacture and sell directly competitive products. For example, in the United States tablet market as of May 2022, the Respondents do not even appear behind industry leaders Apple (56%), Samsung (21%), Amazon (10%), and "Unknown" (10%). Similarly, as of 2022 Q1, only Lenovo (Motorola) even registers in United States smartphone market share (at 11%), trailing far behind Apple (50%), Samsung (24%), and "Others" (13%). As for personal computers, current data shows that the Respondents likely make up less than a quarter of the United States market share, with the vast majority going to third party competitors and licensees, namely Dell (27%), HP (23%), Apple (15%), and Others, including Mic[r]osoft, Samsung, and Toshiba.
The encoding patents (7,769,238; 8,139,878; 8,208,542) are against the provision of products that are capable of encoding media data in various coding formats. Infringement allegations with respect to the display patent (7,372,452) focus on the support for screen rotation in the defendants' various accused products. Now, a dozen patents—of disparate origins—are asserted in overlapping sets against these proposed respondents (and district court defendants), as well as Amazon, Dell, Lions Gate Entertainment (Starz Entertainment), Meta Platforms (Facebook, Giphy, Instagram, WhatsApp), and Netflix, each of which has been sued previously in this campaign.
For prior coverage of VideoLabs and its rapidly expanding litigation, see "More Patents, Defendants, and Alice Challenges in Ever-Widening VideoLabs Litigation" (June 2022). 7/1, ITC
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