June 22, 2024
Lab Technology LLC has added separate Western District of Texas cases against Alphabet (Google) ( 6:24-cv-00334), Cisco ( 6:24-cv-00338), Intel ( 6:24-cv-00332), LG Electronics (LGE), ( 6:24-cv-00336), Lyft ( 6:24-cv-00333), Microsoft ( 6:24-cv-00331), NVIDIA ( 6:24-cv-00337), and Qualcomm ( 6:24-cv-00335) to the litigation campaign first begun early last month with Eastern District of Texas suits filed against Samsung and Verizon and then expanded earlier this month with separate suits, also filed in the Eastern District of Texas, against Amazon, Anritsu, Bose, Ericsson, Stryker, and Quectel Wireless Solutions. The plaintiff has also filed a District of Colorado case against Zoom Video Communications ( 1:24-cv-01711), asserting a patent already in suit against AT&T. Currently available USPTO records have yet to reflect the assignment of any of Lab Technology's six patents-in-suit away from TP Lab, Inc.
Lab Technology (of uncertain management or personnel) was formed in New Mexico on January 8, 2024. Its turn to patent litigation appears to be part of a developing pattern, of recently formed New Mexico plaintiffs launching litigation over patents the assignment of which to the new plaintiffs has yet to be recorded and through the representation of Rabicoff Law LLC, which filed Lab Technology's complaints for the NPE. For other examples, see RPX's coverage of new campaigns initiated by Data Resonance LLC, Payvox LLC, and Pointwise Ventures LLC. Rabicoff Law LLC has lately also filed multiple complaints on behalf of plaintiffs with ties to increasingly prolific monetization figure Jeffrey M. Gross.
Chi Fai Ho is the founder and CEO of TP Lab. He was formerly Senior Director of Business Strategy at Nokia and VP of Engineering at Amber Networks. (Nokia acquired Amber Networks, a maker of edge routers, for $421M in 2001.) According to his TP Lab bio, Ho "led the innovation of mobile Internet service routing" at Nokia. He also served as CTO of the Ethernet division of Vitesse Semiconductor. In 1997, Ho founded IPLearn LLC, an entity that has asserted online education patents against several dozen defendants. He founded TP Lab in 2004.
Currently available USPTO records indicate that TP Lab holds over 100 patents, the company characterizing its "main invention areas" as "Internet-telecommunication convergence, Web-oriented personal communication, and consumer digital media such as music and videos". USPTO records also indicate that patents developed at TP Lab have been transferred to Dolby, as well as to apparent NPEs ZAMA Innovations LLC (in August 2021 after a November 2019 transfer to Allied Security Trust), Fiver LLC (in September 2017), InnoBrilliance, LLC (in July 2017), and Knapp Investment Company Limited (in December 2015). For more on these transfers, see here.
TP Lab also assigned a batch of patents, in August 2017, to Local Intelligence, LLC, an affiliate of Texas monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC. Among those patents is one now asserted by Lab Technology generally related to "refreshing" a phone's display with a location-specific "communication service" (9,219,982). Of the newest defendants, only Lyft is accused of infringing the '982 patent—through the provision of the Lyft app as used on a mobile device to display real-time information such as a driver's location and share information (including rating) between users requesting rides and potential drivers—but prior defendants Samsung and Verizon were also hit with it.
Samsung was accused of infringement through the provision of smartwatches, including the Galaxy Watch6, that "operate[] as a telephone to make calls and text using the contacts stored inside the memory" and Verizon is accused of infringement through the provision of the Care Smart mobile app, which provides "communications and location service[s] for smartwatches". In the June complaint against it, Samsung was also accused of infringing four other patents (8,498,388; 8,503,973; 8,515,032; 9,578,570); Verizon, two others (the '973 and '032 patents).
That suit against Samsung has already been dismissed, without prejudice. As RPX noted in its prior coverage, Local Intelligence accused Samsung (in an Eastern District of Texas complaint), as well as HTC (in the Northern District of California) and LGE (in the District of Delaware), of infringing the '982 patent, among others. HTC filed a motion to dismiss the complaint filed against it, arguing that the claims of the patents-in-suit, including the '982 patent, are all ineligibly directed under Alice to the abstract idea of "providing communication information based on location and other user information". Northern District of California Judge Edward J. Davila denied the motion, "conclud[ing] that the . . . specific improvement to user interfaces claimed here is also not an abstract idea".
The California and Texas suits ended in the runup to claim construction, while Local Intelligence's Delaware case against LGE was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice before an answer (or other response) to that complaint was filed. The family of patents to which the '982 patent belongs issued to TP Lab between December 2014 and December 2015 with an estimated priority date in June 2006 and sole named inventor Shin Cheung Simon Chiu. Chiu and Ho are both named inventors on a family of 12 emergency caller location patents, one of which (the '973 patent) has also been asserted against both Samsung and Verizon, as well as against Cisco and Microsoft. That family was also transferred from TP Lab to Dominion's Local Intelligence back in August 2017, but Local Intelligence never asserted patents from this family, transferring its assets back to TP Lab in November 2019.
The '973 patent is broadly directed to obtaining the location of a mobile device coupled to a wireless base station. With it, Lab Technology targets Cisco WebEx Calling and Microsoft Teams Phone, focusing on their respective support of the enhanced 911 (E911) calling service, including functionality related to sending a user's designated emergency address and dynamic location detection. Verizon is accused of infringing the '973 patent through the provision of its Webex Cloud Communication platform. The deadline for Verizon to respond to the complaint filed against it on May 3, 2024 has been pushed out by Eastern District of Texas Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap.
Google and LGE have each been hit with the '388 patent, which is broadly directed to "receiving an announcement by telephone". Both are accused of infringement through the provision of smart speaker devices (the Google Nest Hub (2nd gen) and LG XBOOM AI ThinQ WK7, respectively) that support Google Assistant, as used to with voice commands to make phone calls; ask for weather information, sports scores, and news; check the time; and set timers. The '388 patent is also in suit against Amazon and Bose (and was also among the five patents asserted against Samsung).
Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm have each been accused of infringing the '570 patent, which is generally related to "switching an instant messaging (IM)-based first voice call to a second voice call". The accused products are LTE modems (from Intel and Qualcomm) and processors containing LTE modems (NVIDIA) that can "switch from voice calls made over LTE (E-UTRAN calls, including VoIP calls) to calls on 3G or 2G networks (CS/UTRAN calls)". Prior defendants hit with the '570 patent are Anritsu, Ericsson, and Quectel Wireless. (The '570 patent was among the five patents asserted against Samsung.)
Finally, Lab Technology asserts a single patent (8,483,102) against Zoom. The only prior defendant to have been accused of infringing the '102 patent is AT&T. It generally relates to mapping a "voice identity" on a phone system, with Zoom accused of infringement through the provision of call forwarding within Zoom Phone. AT&T is accused of infringement through the provision of call forwarding within the Office@Hand business phone system.
Assertion grids for this litigation are available on RPX Empower here and here. As noted, Judge Gilstrap presides over the Eastern District of Texas cases. The Western District of Texas suits have yet to be doled out to judges, which will presumably be done under that district's new judge assignment policy. The Zoom case has been assigned to Magistrate Judge Susan Prose. As noted, Rabicoff Law represents Lab Technology. 6/19, Zoom, District of Colorado; 6/21, Cisco, Google, Intel, LGE, Lyft, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Western District of Texas.
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