United States: IV Hits HP Enterprise In Long-Running Litigation Campaign

Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)—through Intellectual Ventures I LLC and Intellectual Ventures II LLC—has filed suit against HP Enterprise (HPE) (6:21-cv-00226) over the provision of various products related to enterprise data storage, virtualization, and wireless networking. The new case keeps alive litigation in a campaign that began in May 2013 but appeared to draw to a district court close in January 2021, after dismissals with prejudice ended separate suits against Arista Networks and Dell (VMWare). A Federal Circuit appeal remains active, filed by Dell (EMC), Lenovo, and NetApp following a grant of summary judgment of noninfringement in the District of Massachusetts.

IV has asserted dozens of patents over the life of this campaign, the focus of which has shifted through the years. In its newest complaint, IV accuses HPE of infringing seven patents (6,618,736; RE42,153; 7,783,788; RE44,818; 6,816,464; 8,023,991; 8,725,132), of disparate origins.

The '736 patent generally relates to managing "storage units" divided up into private storage units within shared storage units. IV targets certain Docker file system management features deployed within various products utilizing Docker for virtualized application support (including "HPE Docker Enterprise Edition, HPE ProLiant family of servers with integrated Docker, HPE Ezmeral Container Platform with Docker integration, [and] HPE GreenLake Service for Containers"). Original development work for the '736 patent was conducted at Ensim Corporation.

The '153 patent broadly concerns distributed computing platform in which a project server dynamically allocates workloads across multiple client systems, where the server uses poll communication to dynamically take snapshots of client utilization and processing workloads in order to add or remove client systems as needed for projects. With this patent, IV targets products using Kubernetes for virtualized application support, including "the HPE Ezmeral Container Platform (including with pre-integrated HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric) and HPE Apollo Servers, as well as HPE GreenLake cloud services for containers (including services powered by the HPE Ezmeral Container Platform, and run on the HPE Synergy integrated system)". United Devices is the patent's original assignee.

IV accuses HPE of infringing the '788 patent through the provision of certain enterprise storage systems, including "the HPE 3PAR StoreServ family of flash-optimized data storage systems, the HPE Primera Storage, HPE GreenLake Enterprise-Ready VM Service when implemented with Primera Storage platform, [and] HPE GreenLake Mission Critical Storage Service when implemented with Primera Storage platform". Originally issuing to 3Leaf Systems (f/k/a 3Leaf Networks) and passing through a Huawei subsidiary and through the Florida State University Foundation on its way to IV, the patent generally relates to the management and configuration of virtualized I/O subsystems.

The '818 patent broadly pertains to managing throughput to network-attached storage by multiple clients, specifically by allocating tokens in a hierarchical structure to devices. IV targets certain HPE enterprise storage systems, including "the HPE 3PAR StoreServ family of flash-optimized data storage systems, the HPE Primera Storage, HPE GreenLake Enterprise-Ready VM Service when implemented with Primera Storage platform, [and] HPE GreenLake Mission Critical Storage Service when implemented with Primera Storage platform". The '818 patent followed the same development and assignment path as that of the '788 patent.

The '464 patent generally relates to determining the best-quality route for network traffic; in particular, Voice over IP (VoIP) communications traffic. Asserted against certain edge networking products, including "HPE's Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN Edge Platform, including Intelligent Internet Breakout, a/k/a Aruba EdgeConnect Platform, ('Unity EdgeConnect')", the '464 patent was originally assigned to Array Telecom.

IV accuses HPE of infringing the '991 patent through the provision of "the Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) feature of HPE-owned Aruba's operating system, ArubaOS (and all versions/editions that support the ARM feature), including the Aruba 7200 Series Mobility Controllers on which ArubaOS runs; the Mobility Master feature, particularly the AirMatch Workflow functionality, of ArubaOS 8 (and all versions/editions that support such functionality)". Originally granted to Autocell Laboratories (f/k/a Propagate Networks), the patent generally relates to adjusting the wireless power transmit levels of multiple access points in a wireless network in order to reduce interference.

Finally, the '132 patent, following the same development and assignment path as the '991 patent, broadly concerns adjusting the power level of wireless transmission among multiple devices on a network in order to reduce interference. The patent is asserted against "the Mobility Master feature, particularly the AirMatch Workflow functionality, of ArubaOS 8 employing Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E technology (and all versions/editions that support such functionality), including Aruba's 802.11ax, 530 Series, and 550 Series Access Points (APs)".

The case against HPE has been assigned to District Judge Alan D. Albright. 3/9, Western District of Texas.

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