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4 Interesting New Cases From Last 2 Weeks of December

By Troll Tracker

Well, what do we have for you today? How about the Rothschild family investing in a Eurotroll, and suing in Marshall, Texas? How about an ex-Fish & Richardson associate buying patents for millions of dollars (while an associate) and being D/J'd in Sherman, Texas after trying to shake down an EDTX company? How about a couple of lawsuits by a guy who, with related patents, has made the Electronic Frontier Foundations' 10 Most Wanted Invalid Patents? How about yet another Scott Harris/J-Beau/Ray Niro lawsuit? Yeah, you could read those other ABA-nominated patent blawgs, but I've got your juicy patent news right here!

WIAV Solutions: Choongsoo Park

Let's start off with the D/J case of American Microsystems Ltd. v. WIAV Solutions, filed in the Eastern District of Texas on December 28. Now why would anyone file a D/J case in the Eastern District? Well, in this case, perhaps it makes sense. The accused infringer is a company located smack dab in the middle of EDTX. It received letters from WIAV Solutions, a company of unknown origin (so unknown that AML had to plead WIAV was not from Texas on "information and belief"). Actually, the letters came from Sidley Austin-San Francisco.
Since AML couldn't figure out who is behind WIAV Solutions, I decided to dig around to see if I could figure it out. It wasn't too hard. WIAV asserted U.S. Patents 5,400,338 and 6,480,497 in its correspondence with AML. These patents, prosecuted by Townsend and Townsend and Crew in San Francisco, were originally assigned to Metricom of Los Gatos, CA. From there, they went to Ricochet Networks, which became part of Terabeam, of San Jose, CA. They show no further assignment.

But Google and the USPTO Assignment database shed more information. The USPTO Assignment database shows WIAV Solutions buying a boatload of patents from Skyworks Solutions. In the transaction, executed in September 2007, WIAV listed an address in Reston, Virginia (which appears to be a home address). If you search for "5400338 6480497 Terabeam," you get one result: a Terabeam SEC filing showing the sale of these patents. A couple more clicks, and you get this SEC filing -- the actual assignment agreement transferring patents from Terabeam to SPH America, a Virginia limited liability company, located at the same address as WIAV. All in all, SPH America bought 4 patents from Terabeam for $5M, including the two now-in-suit.

But who is behind Virginia LLCs SPH America and WIAV Solutions? According to Virginia corporate filings and Terabeam/Proxim SEC documents, it was Choongsoo Park, who, at the time of the purchases, was a lowly associate in the D.C. offices of Fish & Richardson. TrollTracker does not understand how an associate can afford to spend $5M on patents (more, actually, if you include the 88 patents bought from Skyworks). But apparently Park knew what he was doing - he has an advanced degree in Electrical Engineering.

Park is no longer on the F&R website (as of sometime between Halloween and now), so apparently he no longer works for F&R. Question is whether he's happy or not litigating his patents in Sherman, Texas against a company that actually employs people in the District. More on the case here. More on the technology behind the original Metricom/Ricochet system here. Metricom, the original technology developer, was a victim of the tech bubble bursting. The Ricochet technology is a good example of what others described to be exciting technology that generated a lot of buzz, but never got off the ground due to a bad business model.

It would be nice to hear that Park has left F&R to form his own company to commercialize the Ricochet technology, rather than, as American Metrosystems alleged, making money only "by suing alleged infringers of [the] patents and negotiating license fees from its victims." Time will tell. You have to admit: it's a bit strange, a law firm associate spending multi-millions on patents that are then asserted in an attempt to gain licensing revenue. It's one thing to be Scott Harris, and invent your own patents. It's quite another to be, well, Acacia, or Erich Spangenberg. You have to wonder whether Park is fronting for someone else.

Mondis Technology Ltd.: Inpro Licensing SarL

IPEG had an interesting post about how Europe has generally escaped the patent troll problem. But Europeans have been rumored to be gobbling up US patents to sue in American courts. This case is a perfect example. On New Years' Eve, Mondis Technology Ltd. of London sued Korean manufacturer LG, and Taiwanese manufacturers Hon Hai and Innolux (both related to Foxconn), in Marshall, Texas (on 5 patents). Dechert-Philadelphia filed the complaint, with help from Otis Carroll.

Who is Mondis Technology? According to UK corporate documents, it is Inpro Limited. Inpro is a EuroTroll, apparently. Mondis was originally formed at 160 Queen Victoria St. in London -- home of Dechert's offices there. Then it was moved to 19 Perrin Lane in Hampstead, London. That is the same address as a company known as Inpro IP Services. Inpro IP Services and Inpro Limited appear to me to be related to Inpro Licensing, a Luxembourg company that bought the IP portfolio of once-company Elonex, of London. And Inpro's mission? To make money off of intellectual property. Other ties between Inpro-Luxembourg and Mondis? Inpro considers Dechert to be part of its extended team. The same Dechert lawyers who represented Inpro in patent litigation against RIM appear to be representing Mondis in this case. My conclusion: Mondis is an Inpro company.

Oh, and then there's this: click on "DDC Patents" on Inpro's "Current Projects" web page, and you get 3 out of the 5 patents in suit. So I guess that's more circumstantial evidence.

Another fascinating tidbit: RIT Capital Partners, a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange that is about 25% owned by the Rothschild family, owns more than 10% of Mondis. You know, related to the winemaking Rothschilds? Other directors of Mondis include David John Morrison, who owns Prospect Investment Management, a London private equity firm. This is a well-funded EuroTroll. What's it doing slumming in Texas?

I may have the answer: It looks like "Mondis"/Inpro bought the five patents in suit from Hitachi on October 30, 2007. I'm sure LG and Foxconn will send a big thank-you to Hitachi for that. Of course, LG and Hitachi already have 4 patent litigations pending between them in the Eastern District. So could it be that Hitachi is hitting back at LG not just with a suit brought by itself, but with a troll lawsuit? I have no idea, but if true, it would be interesting....

Beneficial Innovations: Sheldon Goldberg

Beneficial Innovations is a Nevada company owned by patent inventor Sheldon F. Goldberg. He is suing companies on U.S. Patents 6,712,702 (Method and System for Playing Games on a [Computer] Network) and 6,183,366 (Network Gaming System). He was noted four years ago on Slashdot for threatening a bunch of companies that he owned the rights to games played on a computer network. Jason Schultz, a/k/a LawGeek, called the '366 patent his Silly Internet Patent #4 a ways back. Sheldon Goldberg made the EFF's "Most Wanted" poster for "Crimes Against the Public Domain, Willful Ignorance of Prior Art, and Egregious Displays of Obviousness." (oh, hello, Acacia!). According to Ted Frank's post on the wonderful blog, Overlawyered, Goldberg's other patents claimed computer solitaire, on-line game rankings, and pop-up advertising. Goldberg first sued a bunch of defendants in June 2007, and it hardly rated a mention here. But given this second suit and my additional research, this certainly falls under the patent troll category, in my opinion.

16 defendants have now been sued in Marshall: Blockdot, CareerBuilder, Cnet Networks, Digg, Ebaum's World, Jabez Networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Weather Channel, and The Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Company were sued in June on the same two patents. The latest suit named AOL, The Dallas Morning News, Google, IGN Entertainment, Morris Communications, Tribune Interactive, Yahoo!, and YouTube. Dovel & Luner, a firm that is challenging Niro Scavone for the most contingent-fee multi-defendant cases, represents Beneficial Innovations.

Innovative Patented Technologies: James B. "J-Beau" Parker/Scott Harris

Speaking of Niro, he filed his own New Years Eve case, in Chicago, on behalf of Innovative Patented Technologies. The first IPT case filed was in South Florida, in early December, as I reported here. James "J-Beau" Beauregard Parker owns Innovative Patented Technologies, a company that does nothing other than hold patents invented by Scott Harris, a former Fish & Richardson principal who is in a dispute with his former firm (and litigation in Chicago). IPT does nothing other than assert patents and try to collect licensing fees. The latest company to be sued was Motorola, on the same 4 patents as the South Florida litigation. Since Motorola has a big facility in South Florida, why not sue them there and/or add them to the other case? Anyway, Motorola's popular RAZR phone and its Q smartphone were listed as accused products.

To recap, at least the following 5 lawsuits against 10 defendants are now pending involving the Scott Harris patents now owned by James Parker -- all brought by the Niro firm:

Memory Control Enterprise, LLC v. Honda, LG Electronics, Motorola, Oakley, and US Cellular (NDIL, August 2007)
BarTex Research, LLC v. FedEx (EDTX, August 2007)
Illinois Computer Research v. Google (NDIL, September 2007)
Innovative Patented Technology v. Nokia and Samsung (SDFL, December 2007)
Innovative Patented Technology v. Motorola (NDIL, December 2007)

There were other troll cases filed in the second half of December in EDTX and elsewhere, but that's enough for today! The rest can wait for the December Troll Call, coming sometime next week.

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(Update: hey - welcome to all the visitors from The New York Times - my first link from "traditional" media. Wonder if it's because I mentioned they are a defendant in the Goldberg lawsuit. This is a disappearing link, though - after Saturday, January 5, it will likely be gone).

Full post as published by Patent Troll Tracker on January 04, 2008 (boomark / email).