Pearl IP Licensing LLC is one of four NPE plaintiffs associated with IP Edge LLC to litigate former Cypress Semiconductor patents that the Texas monetization firm acquired from Monterey Research, LLC, a subsidiary of IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue). Early in 2020, Pearl IP accused AT&T, Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), and Verizon (Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless) of infringing a single such patent, broadly directed to a circuit that can recover from certain "overstress conditions". With those three cases ending, this past December the IP Edge plaintiff sued HMD (1:20-cv-25220) in the Southern District of Florida and HTC (2:20-cv-01850) in the Western District of Washington over the same patent. Each complaint targets the provision of smartphones equipped with a Qualcomm processor featuring a Resource Power Management (RPM) circuit.
Comprising a single-patent family, the asserted patent (6,819,539) issued to Cypress Semiconductor (acquired by Infineon Technologies in April 2020) in November 2004 with estimated priority in August 2001. The new complaints respectively identify the Nokia 2 V smartphone, for its alleged inclusion of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor; and the HTC U11 smartphone, focusing on its incorporation of a Qualcomm 835 processor.
The prior defendants were accused of infringement through the provision of mobile devices also allegedly incorporating that Qualcomm 835 processor: for AT&T, the LG V30 smartphone; for T-Mobile, the Motorola Z2 Force smartphone; and for Verizon, the Motorola Moto Z3 smartphone. While Pearl IP's complaint against T-Mobile explicitly excluded Samsung products from those T-Mobile devices accused of infringement, the AT&T and Verizon complaints exclude both Apple and Samsung products.
The Verizon Wireless complaint was dismissed without prejudice in early November 2020, after the filing of an answer, while roughly one month later the T-Mobile suit was dismissed with prejudice, also shortly after the defendant answered. A stay and notice of settlement has halted the case against AT&T.
This quick file-and-dismiss posture is typical of most IP Edge campaigns. The firm was formed in Texas in July 2015 after prominent monetization firm IP Navigation Group, LLC (d/b/a IPNav) wound down operations when founder Erich Spangenberg "moved off" into 2014 to "do other things" thereafter (details here). Having been the director and vice president of Asia for IPNav in 2012-2013, Lillian Woung created IP Edge with fellow Texas attorneys Gautham (Gau) Bodepudi and Sanjay Pant.
The firm has been the top filer of NPE cases over the years since, having initiated over 120 litigation campaigns in total, both right before and of course after its formation. Before the US Supreme Court handed down its May 2017 TC Heartland decision on proper venue in patent cases, IP Edge had established a pattern of forming litigating entities in Texas, identifying as members or managers of those entities longtime residents of Texas and filing waves of file-and-dismiss litigation in the Eastern District of Texas. Since May 2017, while it continues to create plaintiffs in Texas under the management of longtime Texas residents (for Pearl IP, a Tyfanie Nguyen of uncertain professional capacity), the monetization firm has been filing suits in and then dismissing suits from myriad other districts.
IP Edge finished 2020 at the top of the list of most frequent NPE plaintiffs, with four of its more than 30 campaigns begun last year litigating patents picked up through Monterey Research: Celebration IP LLC, targeting chipsets that control the discharge of lithium ion batteries; Forutome IP LLC, devices that feature a programmable tri-state buffer; and Heritage IP LLC , devices with systems-on-chip (SoCs) that feature PoR generators and/or Brown Out Reset capabilities. In December 2020, IP Edge expanded the Heritage IP campaign as well, hitting TDK and Tile in separate suits.
As RPX has previously reported, IP Edge has picked up plenty of patents, many from operating companies, with which to continue its high-volume filing approach to patent monetization, but it also broke character in September 2020 by filing a complaint before the International Trade Commission against CommScope (ARRIS; Ruckus Wireless), HP Enterprise (HPE) (Aruba Networks), and NETGEAR (over patents acquired from Siemens). So far, IP Edge appears ready to litigate those claims—the coming months will tell whether 2021 will be marked by more continuity or more change for the firm. 12/23, HMD, Southern District of Florida; 12/28, HTC, Western District of Washington.
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