The IP Files #2 November 14, 2021
Acacia Settlement with Samsung, Delay in Netlist v Google, IP Dealmakers 2021, Future Stories I am Working On.
Welcome to the second edition of the IP Files, a weekly series highlighting events, news, analysis related to intellectual property and patents. If you have a case tip, case to watch, or filing of interest, or correction, please email me at iphawk@outlook.com. Thank you everyone for the great feedback last week.
Acacia Research Group $ACTG had a joint motion to stay pending settlement in their Atlas Global Technologies versus Samsung.
The AGT portfolio of about 650 worldwide patent assets was purchased from Newracom in Q1 2021 for $11M. There are another $19M in patent acquisition investing activities listed in the Q1 2021 10Q filings that are likely related to the purchase.
In a rare $ACTG patent press release, Acacia announced a licensing agreement with Samsung, which covers Wi-Fi 6 standard essential patents. The patent complaint filed on August 9, 2021 targeted 173 different accused products per the RPX Insight database, which cover phones, tablets, tvs, and cameras that use WiFi 6 capability. Unfortunately we won’t see the settlement reflected in the earnings release on Monday November 15, 2021 and it will be included in financial results likely released in February 2022. I believe the settlement value should likely be in the $15M to $35M range. A question for the conference call I intend to ask is “what percentage of the overall market the patent portfolio covers?” It should be noted that AGT also has cases filed versus Sercomm Corp and ASUSTeK in the Western District of Texas, which are in the very early stages of litigation.
The twelve year patent litigation between Netlist and Google was delayed again. The Motion for Summary Judgment on Intervening Rights filed by Google was set for a hearing for November 10, 2021 in the Northern District of California. It has now been moved to January 12, 2022.
Google is pushing for a SJ decision because the patent claims were amended during reexamination, any damages should start from when the new patent claims were amended and issued a reexamination certificate. This would essentially cut off 11+ years of patent damages. The stock dropped 15%+ on the news.
The 8th annual IP Dealmakers Forum is scheduled for December 6-8, 2021 in New York City. I spoke on a panel back in 2014, which was a lot of fun. The event features ten excellent panels and a great networking feature to schedule 1on1 meetings with other attendees. I am really looking forward to the following three panels.
Day 1
Day 2
I am working on some future patent stories, which include:
Liquidia Corp $LQDA v United Therapeutics $UTHR
AMO Development (JNJ Surgical Vision) v Alcon $ALC
Medtronic $MDT v Axonics Modulation $AXNX
Regeneron $REGN v Novartis $NVS
Thank you everyone for reading and the continued support.