Recent patent infringement cases filed in the Eastern District of Texas

MARSHALL DIVISION

March 31 

• SynQor Inc. v Cisco Systems Inc. Case No. 2:14-cv-00286

• SynQor Inc. v Vicor Corp. Case No. 2:14-cv-00287

Plaintiff SynQor is a Delaware corporation with a principal place of business in Boxborough, Mass.

According to the suit, SynQor is a leader in the design, development, manufacture and sale of innovative AC/DC power converters and AC/DC power conversion solutions to the communications, computing, industrial, medical and military markets.

The patents-in-suit are:

• U.S. Patent No. 7,072,190 issued July 4, 2006, for a High Efficiency Power Converter;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,272,021 issued Sept. 18, 2007, for a Power Converter with Isolated and Regulated Stages;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,269,034 issued Sept. 11, 2007, for a High Efficiency Power Converter;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,558,083 issued July 7, 2009, for a High Efficiency Power Converter; and

• U.S. Patent No. 8,023,290 issued Sept. 20, 2011, for a High Efficiency Power Converter.

The suit alleges defendant Vicor makes, sells or uses unregulated bus converters used in intermediate bus architecture power supply systems. Defendant Cisco, the suit alleges, is one of Vicor’s customers and Cisco makes, sells and uses unregulated and semi-regulated bus converters with POLs in intermediate bus architecture power supply systems which infringe the patents at issue in this action.

Further, this patent infringement case is directly related to SynQor, Inc. v. Artesyn Technologies, Inc. et al, Civil Action No. 2:07-cv-00497-TJW-CE filed in this judicial district on Nov. 13, 2007, before Judge T. John Ward.

The '497 case alleged infringement of the very same SynQor patents and some of the same products that are at issue in this case. The '497 jury found that products sold by Cisco, which included the '497 defendants' bus converters, infringe five of the SynQor patents asserted here.

The suit states the '497 case was tried to a jury before Judge Ward on Dec. 13-21, 2010. On Dec. 21, 2010, the jury found that the '497 defendants directly infringed, induced infringement of, and/or contributed to infringement of the '190, '021, 034, '083, and '702 patents.

The jury's verdict also awarded SynQor a combination of lost profits and reasonable royalty damages, which collectively totaled $95,224,863, according to the suit.

SynQor is seeking injunctive relief, compensatory damages, enhanced damages including treble damages for allegations that the infringement was willful, interest, costs, attorneys’ fees and other relief deemed just and proper. A jury trial is requested.

Thomas D. Rein of Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago is lead attorney for the plaintiff.  Michael Hatcher and David DeZern of Sidley Austin LLP in Dallas are serving as local counsel.

The case has been assigned to District Judge Michael H. Schneider and referred to Magistrate Judge Caroline M. Craven.

 

April 1

• Penovia LLC v BenQ America Corp. Case No. 2:14-cv-00289-JRG

• Penovia LLC v Mitsubishi Corp. Case No. 2:14-cv-00290

Plaintiff Penovia is a Texas limited liability company with a place of business in Plano.

The defendants are accused of infringing U.S. Patent No. 5,822,221 issued Oct. 13, 1998, for an Office Machine Monitoring Device.

Among allegedly infringing devices are the Mitsubishi LT-46164 LCD HDTV and BenQ’s Joybook Lite U121, the suit states.

Penovia is seeking compensatory damages, interest, costs, expenses, attorneys’ fees and other just and proper relief.

A jury trial is demanded.

Andrew W. Spangler of Spangler Law PC in Longview and Stamatios Stamoulis and Richard C. Weinblatt of Stamoulis & Weinblatt LLC in Wilmington, Del., are representing Penovia.

The cases have been assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap.

 

April 2

• RecruitMe LLC v Urbansitter Inc. Case No. 2:14-cv-00292

Plaintiff RecruitMe is a Texas limited liability company having a principal place of business in Plano.

The plaintiff alleges Urbansitter is infringing U.S. Patent No. 5,623,660 issued April 22, 1997, for a System for Regulating Access to Data Base for Purpose of Data Base Management.

“Upon information and belief, Defendant has been and is now infringing the ’660 Patent in the State of Texas, in this Judicial District, and elsewhere in the United States, by, among other things, methods practiced on various Urbansitter websites (including, without limitation, www.urbansitter.com), for regulating access to a data base containing both primary and secondary data, limiting access to primary data until a selected precondition has been satisfied, including determining that a number of needs listed relative to a number of leads is sufficient, covered by one or more claims of the ’660 Patent to the injury of RecruitMe,” the suit states.

The plaintiff is seeking injunctive relief, compensatory damages, costs, expenses, interest and other relief to which it may be entitled. A jury trial is demanded.

The plaintiff is represented by Hao Ni of Ni, Wang & Massand PLLC in Dallas.

The case has been assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap.

 

• St. Lawrence Communications LLC v Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., et al Case No. 2:14-cv-00293-JRG-RSP

Plaintiff St. Lawrence is a Texas limited liability company with a place of business located in Plano.

The defendants in the suit are Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Samsung Electronics America Inc., Samsung Telecommunications America LLC and Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC.

Defendants are accused of infringing:

• U.S. Patent No. 6,795,805 issued Sept. 21, 2004, for an invention called a Periodicity Enhancement in Decoding Wideband Signals;

• U.S. Patent No. 6,807,524 issued Oct. 19, 2004, for a Perceptual Weighting Device and Method for Efficient Coding of Wideband Signals;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,151,802 issued Dec. 19, 2006, for a High Frequency Content Recovering Method and Device for Over-Sampled Synthesized Wideband Signal;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,260,521 issued Aug. 21, 1007, for a Method and Device for Adaptive Bandwidth Pitch in Search of Coding Wideband Signals; and

• U.S. Patent No. 7,191,123 issued March 13, 2007, for a Gain-Smoothing in Wideband Speech and Audio Signal Decoder.

“Samsung’s infringing products include at least the HD Voice phones offered for sale in the United States by T-Mobile including, but not limited to: Galaxy Light; Galaxy Note; Galaxy Note II; Galaxy Note 3; Galaxy S 4G; Galaxy S II; Galaxy S III; Galaxy S4; and the Galaxy S5. These phones are among the larger range of Samsung HD Voice phones, each of which practices the patents,” the suit states.

According to the suit, the defendants knew of or were willfully blind to the existence of the patents-in-suit, making the infringement willful and deliberate and entitling St. Lawrence to increased damages.

The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages, treble damages, interest, attorneys ‘ fees and other relief deemed just and proper. A jury trial is demanded.

Demetrios Anaipakos and other attorneys from Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing PC in Houston are representing the plaintiff.

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

 

SHERMAN DIVISION

April 3

• LT Tech LLC v RadialPoint Safecare USA Inc. Case No. 4: 14-cv-00201

• LT Tech LLC v Support.com Inc. Case No. 4:14-cv-00202

• LT Tech LLC v Axios Systems Inc. Case No. 4:14-cv-00196

Plaintiff LT Tech (LTT) is a Texas limited liability company with a place of business in Plano.

The defendants are accused of infringing on U.S. Patent No. 6,177,932 issued Jan. 23, 2001, for a Method and Apparatus for Network-Based Customer Service.

LTT is seeking a permanent injunction against defendants, damages, costs, expenses, interest, attorneys’ fees and other relief to which it may be entitled. A jury trial is requested.

The plaintiff is represented by Hao Ni of Ni, Wang & Massand PLLC in Dallas.

The cases have been assigned to District Judge Ron Clark.

 

TYLER DIVISION

April 1

SmartPhone Technologies LLC v TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd., et al Case No. 6:14-cv-00237-JDL

Plaintiff SmartPhone is a Texas limited liability company based in Plano.

The defendants are TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd., TCT Mobile (US) Inc., TCT Mobile Inc. and TCT Mobile (US) Holdings Inc. TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd. is a corporation organized in the People’s Republic of China with a principal place of business in Hong Kong. The other defendants are its U.S. subsidiaries.

Defendants are accused of infringing:

• U.S. Patent No. 6,173,316 for a Wireless Communication Device with Markup Language-Based Man-Machine Interface;

• U.S. Patent No. 7,076,275 for a Method and System for Single-Step Enablement of Telephony Functionality for a Portable Computer System;

• U.S. Patent Reissue No. 40,459 for a Method and Apparatus for Communicating over Low Bandwidth Communications Networks; and

• U.S. Patent No. 6,976,217 for a Method and Apparatus for Integrating Phone and PDA User Interface in a Single Processor.

According to the suit, allegedly infringing products include Alcatel 6033 Idol Ultra, Alcatel Authority, Alcatel M'Pop, Alcatel One Touch 918, Alcatel One Touch 991S, Alcatel One Touch Evolve, Alcatel One Touch Fierce, Alcatel One Touch Premiere, Alcatel One Touch Shockwave, Alcatel One Touch Ultra (960C), Alcatel OT-908, Alcatel OT-909, Alcatel OT-981, Alcatel OT-990S, Alcatel OT-995, Alcatel Venture, and Alcatel One Touch Idol.

SmartPhone is seeking compensatory damages, costs, a reasonable royalty, interest and other relief deemed just and proper.

Edward R. Nelson III of Nelson Bumbardner Casto PC in Fort Worth is lead attorney for the plaintiff, along with attorneys from The Simon Law Firm PC in St. Louis, Mo., and Ward & Smith Law Firm in Longview.

The case has been assigned to District Judge John D. Love.