Marshall Division
May 26
Plaintiff Actus is a Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Marshall. It claims to own the rights to four patents relating to prepaid gift cards or online payment options for customers.
The patents-in-suit are:
U.S. Patent No. 7,328,189 issued Feb. 8, 2008, for a Method and Apparatus for Conducting Electronic Commerce Transactions Using Electronic Tokens.
U.S. Patent No. 7,249,099 issued July 24, 2007, for a Method and Apparatus for Conducting Electronic Commerce Transactions Using Electronic Tokens.
U.S. Patent No. 7,177,838 issued Feb. 13, 2007, for a Method and Apparatus for Conducting Electronic Commerce Transactions Using Electronic Tokens.
U.S. Patent No. 7,376,621 issued May 20, 2008, for a Method and Apparatus for Conducting Electronic Commerce Transactions Using Electronic Tokens.
The plaintiff alleges that 15 defendant companies are infringing the patents-in-suit. The defendants are Amazon.com, AMDocs, American Express, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Cabela's, Citigroup, eBay, FirstView, Marketing Technology Concepts, Netspend, OfficeMax, U.S. Bancorp and VivoTech.
Actus is seeking a permanent injunction, damages, costs, expenses, interest, attorneys fees, enhanced damages and other relief to which it may be entitled.
William E. "Bo" Davis III of the Davis Firm in Longview is representing the plaintiff.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge T. John Ward.
Case No. 2:09-cv-168-TJW
Tyler Division
May 26
Plaintiff Klausner claims it owns two patents related to telephone answering devices.
U.S. Patent No. 5,572,576 was issued Nov. 5, 1996.
U.S. Patent No. 5,283,818 was issued Feb. 1, 1994.
Both patents are titled "Telephone Answering Device Linking Displayed Data with Recorded Audio Message."
Klausner alleges that six defendant companies are infringing the '576 Patent. The defendants are Qwest, Yahoo, Panasonic, Ribbit Corp., SpinVox and ooma.
The plaintiff also alleges that all the defendants, with the exception of SpinVox, have infringed the '818 Patent.
"Plaintiff has been damaged by Defendants' infringement and will suffer additional irreparable damage and impairment of the value of its patent rights unless Defendants are enjoined from continuing to infringe," the complaint states.
Klausner is seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction, compensatory damages, costs, attorneys' fees, interest and "such other relief as justice requires."
T. John "Johnny" Ward Jr. of Ward & Smith Law Firm and Eric Albritton of the Albritton Law Firm in Longview are representing the plaintiff. Gregory Dovel of Dovel & Lunar LLP in Santa Monica, Calif., is also representing the plaintiff.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis.
Case No. 6:09-cv-232-LED
Lufkin Division
May 20
Plaintiff Deep Nines is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Dallas.
Deep Nines is alleging infringement of three of its patents:
U.S. Patent No. 7,058,976 issued June 6, 2006, for an Intelligent Feedback Loop Process Control System
U.S. Patent No. 6,930,978 issued Aug. 16, 2005, for a System and Method for Traffic Management Control in a Data Transmission Network.
U.S. Patent No. 7,380,272 issued Aug. 16, 2005, for a System and Method for Detecting and Eliminating IP Spoofing in a Data Transmission Network.
According to the original complaint, Deep Nines provides network security solutions. Susan Pittman Dark is the CEO of Deep Nines.
Dark is also the inventor of the '976 Patent, which relates to a security system for detecting attacks on a site in a communication network and for taking actions to reduce and/or redirect such attacks.
The suit alleges that defendants McAfee and Secure Computing are infringing the '976 Patent through their Sidewinder and SnapGear products.
Dark and Clifford Sharp are named as the inventors of the '978 Patent assigned to Deep Nines. The '978 Patent relates to a network traffic management system for sniffing data arriving at any point in the system and remembering certain parameters about that data to control the volume and type of data arriving at that point.
Deep Nines alleges defendants infringe the '978 Patent through the Sidewinder, SnapGear and Cyberguard TSP products.
Dark and Sharp are also inventors of the '272 Patent assigned to Deep Nines. The '272 Patent relates to network traffic management systems for sniffing data arriving at any point in the system and extracting certain address information related to the data to control the volume of data arriving at that point.
The plaintiff alleges that the defendants also infringe the '272 Patent through the Sidewinder, SnapGear and Cyberguard TSP products.
Deep Nines claims the defendants directly and/or indirectly infringed the patents in suit and supplied at least a substantial portion of the components of the patented inventions.
"Each of Defendants' acts of infringement has caused damage to Deep Nines, and Deep Nines is entitled to recover from each Defendant the damages sustained as a result of their individual wrongful acts in an amount subject to proof at trial," the suit states.
The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages, interest, enhanced damages, attorneys' fees, costs and other just and proper relief.
Brett C. Govett of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP in Dallas is lead attorney for the plaintiff.
The case has been assigned to U. S. District Judge Ron Clark.
Case No. 9:09-cv-089-RC