XtreamEdge, Inc. (as patent owner) and Concurrent Ventures, LLC (as exclusive licensee) have filed what appears to be their first litigation, suing AMD (Pensando Systems) ( 1:24-cv-00335) in the Western District of Texas. The complaint targets the provision of "all products including or related to AMD's DPU [data processing unit] technology", which specialized units the plaintiffs characterize as necessary "[a]s data becomes even more firmly entrenched in society". Five patents in this technological area are now in suit.
The plaintiffs plead that in June 2014 AMD "held detailed technical discussions with Concurrent Ventures' commercialization agent, HellaStorm, Inc., during which AMD was provided with the specifics of Concurrent Ventures' technology". That agent and AMD allegedly entered into a mutual nondisclosure agreement, and after the meeting a "proposed engagement plan" was drafted but never implemented.
Per the plaintiffs, that meeting imparted notice of infringement of the asserted patents (8,924,596; 9,529,767; 10,873,753; 10,944,634; 10,985,943) that had issued, as further evidenced by "the similarities between Defendants' Accused Products and their marketing and the Plaintiffs' patented technology and marketing; and the small nature of the industry, Plaintiffs' pioneering role in that market, and Defendants' direct competition against Plaintiffs".
Jesse D. Beeson is named as an inventor for the patents, with Jesse B. Yates; Beeson is identified in the complaint as the CEO of Concurrent Ventures (formed by Beeson in Georgia in 2012). On social media, Beeson indicates that as CEO of XtreamEdge, he "enable[s] and scale[s] streaming video, network acceleration, distributed processing, and IoT with FPGA-based products and services". There, he is also identified as the CEO of Xlera Solutions, an FPGA-implementation consultancy, as well as holding executive positions with HellaStorm at least through 2020.
Shortly after XtreamEdge's formation in Delaware in 2021, Beeson signed for Concurrent Ventures in moving more than two dozen patent assets to XtreamEdge. As noted, the plaintiffs plead that XtreamEdge is the owner of the patents-in-suit and that Concurrent Ventures "has exclusively licensed all substantial rights to" them. Per the plaintiffs, although they were the first to invent a specialized unit to streamline the processing of data (called by the plaintiffs a "Stream Processing Unit"), they were "not the last".
The plaintiffs plead that "Pensando Systems Inc. pursued similar solutions as XtreamEdge—years after XtreamEdge— but called its product a Data Processing Unit ('DPU'). AMD acquired Pensando in 2022, leading to the integration of Pensando's DPU-enabled systems into AMD's networking, computing, and security services platforms". The complaint further outlines the accused products:
The Accused Products are all products including or related to AMD's DPU technology, including without limitation, AMD's Pensando Data Processing Units including the AMD Pensando Giglio Data Processing Unit, the Elba Data Processing Unit, the Capri Data Processing Unit, and future versions, such as the announced Salina Data Processing Unit, the AMD Pensando Distributed Services Card, the AMD Pensando Distributed Services Platform, the AMD Pensando DPU system, the AMD Pensando SmartNIC, the AMD Pensando SmartSwitch, the AMD Pensando Software-In-Silicon Development Kit ("SSDK") and reference pipelines, as well as any products incorporating those items.
Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP filed the complaint for XtreamEdge and Concurrent Ventures. The case has yet to be assigned to a judge. 3/29, Western District of Texas.
Originally published March 30, 2024.
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