Recent patent infringement cases filed in the Eastern District of Texas

Patent infringement suits filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Feb. 3-7, 2014

MARSHALL DIVISION 

Feb. 4 

• C-Tation Technologies LLC v Time Warner Cable Inc, et al Case No. 2:14-cv-00059-JRG-RSP

Plaintiff C-Tation Technologies is a Texas limited liability company with a principal place of business in Rye, N.Y.

The defendants named in the suit are Time Warner Cable Inc., Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC, Time Warner Cable Texas LLC, Arris Group Inc. and Casa Systems Inc.

In Count One of the allegations, C-Tation accuses TWC Inc., TWC Enterprises and TWC Texas of infringing on U.S. Patent No. 5,563,883 issued Oct. 8, 1996, for a Dynamic Channel Management and Signaling Method and Apparatus.

"The accused cable systems include cable system components such as cable modem termination systems, RF and optical transmission hardware, network monitoring equipment, and customer premises equipment (e.g., cable modems, embedded multimedia terminal adapters, and set-top boxes), including but not limited to components that are compliant with the Data Over Cable System Interface Specification (“DOCSIS”) standard," the suit states.

In Counts Two, Three and Four of the lawsuit, defendants Arris, Cisco and Casa Systems are accused of selling cable system components including cable modem termination systems and customer premises equipment for use in cable systems that allegedly infringe the '883 Patent.

The suit accuses several of the defendants of having knowledge that their cable system components were specially adapted for use in a system covered by the ’883 patent or a practicing a method covered by the ’883 patent.

The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages, treble damages for willful infringement, costs, attorneys' fees, interest and other equity to which it may be entitled.

A jury trial is demanded.

Sam Baxter of McKool Smith in Marshall is representing the plaintiff. Attorneys from Kenyon & Kenyon LLP in New York, N.Y., are of counsel.

The case has been assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap and referred to Magistrate Judge Roy Payne for pre-trial proceedings.

 

Feb. 5

• Content Guard Holdings Inc. v Google Inc. Case No. 2:14-cv-00061

Plaintiff Content Guard Holdings is a Texas corporation with a principal place of business in Plano.

According to the suit, Content Guard is a developer and licensor of digital rights management (DRM) and related digital content distribution products and technologies.

The suit gives a history of the plaintiff, stating that its "long history of innovation" in DRM began in the 1990s. At that time, however, no one had yet invented an effective means to prevent piracy of digital content, which could be readily copied and distributed by personal computers.

In 2000, the Xerox Corp. and Microsoft Corp. partnered to form Content Guard to pursue DRM-related inventions.

The suit claims that "virtually every smartphone, tablet, and e-reader produced and sold around the world relies on ContentGuard’s DRM technology." Without that technology, Content Guard claims many companies that invest billions of dollars to produce movies, videos, books, music and applications would be unwilling to distribute their digital content over the Internet, the suit states.

Google is accused of infringing on the following patents-in-suit:

• U.S. Patent No. 6,963,859 issued Nov. 8, 2005, for a Content Rendering Repository;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,523,072 issued April 21, 2009, for a System for Controlling the Distribution and Use of Digital Works;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,774,280 issued Aug. 10, 2010, for a System and Method for Managing Transfer of Rights Using Shared State Variables;

• U.S. Patent No. 8,001,053 issued Aug. 16, 2011, for a System and Method for Rights Offering and Granting Using Shared State Variables;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,269,576 issued Sept. 11, 2007, for a Content Rendering Apparatus;

• U.S. Patent No. 8,370,956 issued Feb. 5, 2013, for a System and Method for Rendering Digital Content in Accordance with Usage Rights Information;

• U.S. Patent No. 8,393,007 issued March 5, 2013, for a System and Method for Distributing Digital Content to be Rendered in Accordance with Usage Rights Information;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,225,160 issued May 29, 2007, for Digital Works Having Usage Rights and Method for Creating the Same; and

• U.S. Patent No. 8,583,556 issued Nov. 12, 2013, for a Method of Providing a Digital Asset for Distribution.

According to the suit, ContentGuard has made numerous attempts to negotiate a license agreement with Google’s wholly-owned subsidiary Motorola and, more recently, with Google itself.

"Despite ContentGuard’s good-faith efforts, Google has refused to pay for its use of ContentGuard’s DRM technologies," the suit states.

The plaintiff is seeking a permanent injunction against Google, compensatory damages, treble damages for willful infringement, costs, interest and other just and proper relief.

Sam Baxter of McKool Smith PC in Marshall; Holly  Engelmann and Seth Hasenour of McKool Smith PC in Dallas; and Robert Cote, Radu Lelutiu, Shahar Harel, David Dehoney and Angela Vorpahl of McKool Smith PC in New York, N.Y., are representing the plaintiff.

The case has been assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap and referred to Magistrate Judge Roy Payne for pre-trial proceedings.

 

Feb. 6

• Wolf Run Hollow LLC v Euromarket Designs Inc., dba Crate & Barrel Case No. 2:14-cv-00063

• Wolf Run Hollow LLC v Target Corp. Case No. 2:14-cv-00064

• Wolf Run Hollow LLC v Williams-Sonoma Inc. Case No. 2:14-cv-00065

Plaintiff Wolf Run is a Texas limited liability company with a principal place of business in Tyler.

The defendants are accused of infringing on U.S. Patent No. 6,115,817 for Methods and Systems for Facilitating Transmission of Secure Messages Across Insecure Networks.

Wolf Run is seeking an injunction against the alleged infringers, compensatory damages, costs, expenses, interest, treble damages and other equitable relief.

A jury trial is demanded.

Austin Hansley of Dallas is representing the plaintiff.

The case has been assigned to Judge Rodney Gilstrap.

 

TYLER DIVISION

Feb. 3

• Catharon Intellectual Property LLC v FedEx Corporate Services Inc. Case No. 6:14-cv-00061

• Catharon Intellectual Property LLC v Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. Case No. 6:14-cv-00062

• Catharon Intellectual Property LLC v Flixster Inc. Case No. 6:14-cv-00063

• Catharon Intellectual Property LLC v The Home Depot Inc. Case No. 6:14-cv-00064

• Catharon Intellectual Property LLC v Photobucket.com Inc. Case No. 6:14-cv00065

• Catharon Intellectual Property LLC v United Parcel Service Inc. Case No. 6:14-cv-00066

• Catharon Intellectual Property LLC v Capital One Financial Corp. Case No. 6:14-cv-00067

Plaintiff Catharon is Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Austin.

The defendants are accused of infringing U.S. Patent No. 6,065,046 issued May 16, 2000, for a Computerized System and Associated Method of Optimally Controlled Storage and Transfer of Computer Programs on a Computer Network.

Catharon is seeking injunctive relief, compensatory damages, costs, expenses, interest and any other relief to which it may be entitled.

A jury trial is demanded.

Hao Ni, Timothy Wang, Neal Massand and Stevenson Moore V of Ni Wang & Massand PLLC in Dallas are representing the plaintiff.

The case has been assigned to District Judge K. Nicole Mitchell.

 

• Equistar Chemicals LP and MSI Technology LLC v Westlake Chemical Corp. Case No. 6:14-cv-00068

Plaintiff Equistar is a limited partnership organized under the laws of the state of Delaware with a principal place of business in Houston.

Plaintiff MSIT is limited liability corporation organized under the laws of the state of Illinois with a principal place of business in Arlington Heights, Ill.

Defendant Westlake, based in Houston, is in the business of manufacturing, distributing and selling polyolefin-based adhesive resins, including the Tymax product, according to the suit.

Westlake is accused of infringing on U.S. Patent No. 7,064,163 issued to MSIT on June 20, 2006, for Polyolefin-based Adhesive Resins and Making Adhesive Resins. The suit states that Equistar is the exclusive licensee of the '163 Patent and has the right to sue to recover damages from infringement.

The plaintiffs allege Westlake had knowledge that it was infringing the '163 Patent.

They are seeking compensatory damages, enhanced damages, interest, costs, expenses, attorneys' fees and other just and proper relief.

A jury trial has been demanded.

Thomas Melsheimer and Ann Cathcart Chaplin of Fish & Richardson PC are representing the plaintiffs.

The case has been assigned to District Judge Nicole Mitchell.