Marshall Division
Dec. 9
The plaintiff, Ho Keung Tse, claims to be the inventor and sole owner of the rights to U.S. Patent No. 6,665,797.
The '797 Patent employs user identity verification technologies to prevent music piracy while enabling the music purchasers to have full access to the music they own.
Tse had a previous lawsuit over the '797 Patent in August 2005 against Apple, RealNetworks, MusicMatch, Sony and Napster filed in the Northern District of California. The case was stayed in October 2007 pending a reexamination of the '797 Patent.
In the current litigation, Tse alleges eBay Inc., uBid Inc., America Online Inc. and Texas Glamour Publications are infringing the '797 Patent.
"Each defendant is using, or participates in using or in implementing, a system which requires each customer to provide financial account information, such as credit card account or its equivalent, through Internet and then verifies the validity of the account information through a payment gateway so as to verify the real identity of each customer, before providing non-charging services to the customer, infringing claims 16, 21, 22, 24 and 25 of the '797 Patent," the suit states.
According to the complaint, defendants eBay, uBid and America Online have been notified of the plaintiff's rights in the '797 Patent, but have willfully proceeded to infringe in disregard of plaintiff's rights.
Specifically, defendants eBay and uBid allegedly infringe the '797 Patent through the use of Internet Auction Services to verify the real identities of its bidders, thereby preventing any user from using a fake identity to bid so as to protect its auction business from shill-bidding activities and other Internet frauds.
Defendant AOL allegedly infringes the '797 Patent by offering the Try or Buy free trial service to users, including free trials of its Internet Online Services and other services or products including AOL Product Central portal.
AOL uses the identity verification method to verify real identities of users so as to turn potential customers into paying customers by offering free trials and at the same time prevent users from repeatedly using the free trial services by submitting fake identities.
According to the complaint, defendant Texas Glamour offers pornography to its customers through its Web site.
Texas Glamour allegedly uses the patented user identity verification methods to verify the real identities of subscribers and verify that its Web site visitors are adults before providing them porn contents.
Tse is seeking injunctive relief, actual damages according to proof, statutory damages, treble damages, costs, attorneys' fees and other proper relief.
Tse is representing himself in the litigation.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge T. John Ward.
Case No. 2:09-cv-380-TJW
Dec. 11
Plaintiff Ring Technology Enterprises is a Texas limited liability company having a principal place of business in Tyler.
Ring is the owner by assignment of U.S. Patent No. 6,879,526 issued April 12, 2005, for Methods and Apparatus for Improved Memory Access.
The plaintiff alleges that defendants A-Data Technology, Elpida Memory, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Micron Technology, Nan Ya Technology, Samsung, Smart Modular Technologies, Sanmina-Sci Corp., Dell Inc., IBM, Sun Microsystems and Kingston Technology are infringing the patent.
According to the complaint, defendants are "making, using, importing, offering for sale, and/or selling one or more devices having a memory device and a set of shift registers interconnected in series that shift data from the memory device from one shift register to the next in the set according to a shift frequency received from a clock signal, including, by way of example and without limitation, a random access memory device employing an Advanced Memory Buffer covered by one or more claims of the '526 patent."
As a result of the defendants' infringement of the '526 patent, plaintiff Ring claims it has suffered monetary damages and seeks compensation for defendants' infringement in an amount no less than a reasonable royalty.
The plaintiff is also seeking a permanent injunction enjoining defendants, costs, expenses, interest, attorneys' fees and any and all other relief to which it may be entitled.
Andrew Spangler of Spangler Law PC in Marshall and Marc A. Fenster of Russ, August & Kabat in Los Angeles, Calif., are representing the plaintiff.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge T. John Ward and referred to Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham for pretrial proceedings.
Case No. 2:09-cv-383-TJW-CE
Dec. 14
Plaintiff BetaNet is a Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Tyler. BetaNet's president is Daniel F. Perez.
According to the complaint, plaintiff is the owner by assignment of U.S. Patent No. 5,222,134 issued June 22, 1993, for a Secure System for Activating Personal Computer Software at Remote Locations.
The plaintiff alleges defendants Adobe, Apple, Arial Software, Autodesk, Carbonite, Corel, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, McAfee, Online Holdings, Oracle, Rockwell Automation, Rosetta Stone, SAP America, Siemens and Sony Creative Software infringe the '134 Patent.
According to the complaint, defendants are using, selling and offering to sell computer software via a process that provides a program file – including a loader segment and a registration shell portion – to a remote computer having a display. The program file contains a first executive control program, representing a limited version of the program file.
License transaction information is entered in the registration shell portion, and that information is transmitted from the registration shell to a separate registration program provided in a registration computer.
The registration program merges the license transaction information with a second executive control program – representing a complete version of the program file – to generate a unique overlay file.
The unique overlay file is transmitted from the registration program to the registration shell, and contains the second executive control program. The overlay file is installed in the main program file, thereby allowing complete operation of the program file.
The plaintiff also claims to own the rights to U.S. Patent No. 5,103,476 issued April 7, 1992, for a Secure System for Activating Personal Computer Software at Remote Locations.
Defendants allegedly infringe the '476 Patent by using, selling and offering to sell computer software via a process that provides a program file – having a loader segment and a registration shell portion – to a remote computer having a display. The program file lacks a critical portion that prevents the program file from operating properly.
User identification information is entered in the registration shell portion, and transmitted from the registration shell to a separate registration program provided in a registration computer.
The registration program merges user identification data with the critical portion to generate a unique overlay file that is transmitted from the registration program to the registration shell.
The overlay file contains the critical portion originally lacking from the program file, and it is installed in the program file, thereby allowing operation of the program file.
The products that allegedly infringe the '134 and '476 Patents include Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, iTunes, Aperture, Email Marketing Director, AutoCAD, Paint Shop Photo, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, WinDVD, WordPerfect, WinZip, Kodak Digital SHO, IBM Content Manager, Lotus, Intuit QuickBooks, TurboTax, Quicken, Microsoft Office, Windows Server, MS Windows Media, MS Games, McAFee Total Protection, VirusScan, Oracle Database 11g, Rosetta Stone Programs, SAP BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Sony ACID and Cinescore programs.
The plaintiff is seeking a permanent injunction enjoining defendants, compensatory and enhanced damages, costs, expenses, interest, attorneys' fees and all other relief to which it may be entitled.
Andrew W. Spangler of Spangler Law PC in Longview is representing the plaintiff.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge T. John Ward and referred to Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham for pretrial proceedings.
Case No. 2:09-cv-384-TJW-CE
Tyler Division
Dec. 9
Plaintiff Vehicle Occupant Sensing Systems is a Texas limited liability company located in Frisco.
The plaintiff claims to own the rights to three patents issued for a Vehicle Occupant Presence and Position Sensing System.
The patents-in-suit are:
Defendant Honda allegedly infringes the patents through the technology associated with the front passenger airbag sensing system and the Occupant Position Detection System in its vehicles.
Defendant GM allegedly infringes the patents through its Passenger Sensing System and Passenger Presence System.
The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages, injunctive relief, treble damages, attorneys' fees, interest, costs and other relief to which it may be entitled.
Anthony G. Simon of the Simon Law Firm PC in St. Louis, Mo., and Craig Tadlock of Tadlock Law Firm in Irving and Tyler are representing the plaintiff.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis.
Case No. 6:09-cv-548-LED
Dec. 10
Litepanels Ltd. et al vs. Dot Line Corp. et al
According to the complaint, Litepanels Ltd. is the owner by assignment of two U.S. patents, with Litepanels Inc. as the exclusive licensee.
The plaintiff alleges that defendants Dot Line Corp. and Infocus Camera & Imaging LLC are infringing the '823 and '361 Patents by making and selling camera mounted flash equipment using an LED light source.
The lawsuit states that Dot Line Corp., located in Chatsworth, Calif., makes and sells video production lighting equipment and peripheral products which are in competition with Litepanels products, including the DLC DV60 LED Light. Infocus Camera, located in Orange, Texas,is a distributor for Dot Line, and sells lighting products including the DLC DV60 Video & DSLR LED Light.
Litepanels claims it has been damaged as a result of the infringing activities of Dot Line and Infocus, and is seeking an injunction to stop the defendants from further infringement.
The plaintiff also alleges that Dot Line and Infocus knew of Litepanels' rights to the '823 and '361 Patents, yet continued the market the infringing products.
Litepanels is demanding a trial by jury and is seeking compensation for the infringement, attorneys' fees, costs and other relief to which it may be entitled.
S. Calvin Capshaw, Elizabeth DeRieux and Jeffrey Rambin of Capshaw DeRieux LLP in Longview are representing the plaintiff. Attorneys from Fellers, Snider, Blankenship, Bailey & Tippens PC in Tulsa, Okla., are of counsel.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis.
Case No. 6:09-cv-554-LED