Patent Assertion Entities have been a topic of discussion in the IP industry for years. They have earned a moniker of frivolous lawsuit filers, trying to assert a patent covering vague or quite general technology.
Most of the cases filed by PAEs in the past decade involved patents covering software technology because software patents are easily prone to abuse. A recent example is Mesa Digital, which has sued smartphone manufacturers like Lenovo, BlackBerry, Sony, and Amazon.
What has Mesa Digital done? Which patents and what kind of patents are involved in the lawsuit? And most importantly, are these patents strong enough to survive a lawsuit? Read on, and you will find the answers to these questions:
Mesa Digital – A new player in games of Patent Assertion Entities
Mesa Digital has no digital presence. The only proof of their existence is their patent portfolio and the lawsuits. Digging a bit deeper, we found it to be related to an IP law firm, OL Patents or Ortiz & Lopez, PLLC.
FYI: The law firm’s founders are the inventors of the patents in the lawsuit. In addition to the four companies sued, where Mesa is a plaintiff, OL Patents also sued Alphabet and HP. Further, Mesa’s patent portfolio, comprising 65 patents, covers semiconductors and multimedia devices.
Products and Patents involved
Mesa Digital filed all four cases on 5 February 2018 with case numbers 1:18-cv-0092, 1:18-cv-0091, 1:18-cv-0094, and 1:18-cv-0099.
In this analysis, we are considering two terminally disclaimed patents, US9031537B2 and US9646444B2, titled Electronic Wireless Hand Held Multimedia Device. The US’ 537 and US’ 444 cover a handheld device with the capability to communicate over different network protocols, a touchscreen, and a camera. To make it simpler for you, both of these patents cover a device quite similar to modern smartphones and tablets.
The devices infringing the patents are famous products of the four companies. In the court documents, Mesa provides a detailed analysis of how different claims of its patents read on the features of the Sony Xperia XZ1. You can find a similar analysis for Lenovo’s P2, P260, and P250 smartphones. BlackBerry was sued over the DTEK60 and DTEK50, while Amazon is being sued over its Fire tablet.
The outcomes of these lawsuits are important because if Mesa wins – an unlikely event as per our analysis – a lot of smartphone and tablet manufacturing companies will become vulnerable to these 2 patents.
What does our analysis say?
We kick-started our analysis with a product that has all these features. Smart communication devices have been in trend for several decades, and by the time these patents were granted, many companies were racing to manufacture the next smartphone. Companies like IBM, Sony, Microsoft, etc., were highly active in researching and manufacturing similar devices.
Thereafter, we ran multiple key-strings on Google Patents that had relevant terms missing from the examiners’ search reports. We identified relevant companies, which led us to products such as NEC MobilePro 770, Sony VAIO PCG-C1X (CIR), Palm Pilot, Casio E10 (11), Nokia 8110, Philips Nino, Palm III, and 3COM Palm VII. Using these products, the patents could get nixed under section 103.
We searched the wireless communication technologies, such as Wi-Fi, IEEE, GSM, and HSDPA. One product led to the next, and finally, we found some relevant results. We have put together all this evidence in our preliminary report.
The report also includes a detailed list of potential areas where one could find a knock-out prior art. You can download the report using the form below:
Over the past few months, we have conducted extensive preliminary analysis to assess the strength of the patents involved in recent litigation. Our most recent one is about DivX’s patent asserted against Netflix and Hulu; you can read it here: Is DivX compression tech patent really a trouble for Netflix and Hulu?