ServStor Technologies, LLC, an IPInvestments Group LLC (d/b/a IPinvestments Group) plaintiff, has filed a third round of litigation in its sole campaign, accusing Lenovo ( 2:24-cv-00204) and ZTE ( 2:24-cv-00205) of infringing a familiar set of five former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents in separate Eastern District of Texas complaints. The defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of certain computer servers and racks, as well as related hardware and software products.
This campaign has proceeded in three waves, one filed in 2022 against each of Acer, NEC, Quanta Computer, Fujistu, and Wiwynn; another last year, against each of Atos, Celestica, HP Enterprise (HPE), Inspur, Inventec, and MiTAC (MiTAC Computing Technology); and now in 2024. All of these cases have been dismissed, most after acknowledged settlements and before much substantive litigation. Only the suits against Celestica (a Canadian defendant) and Inspur (a Chinese defendant) remain "active", albeit with dormant dockets that do not confirm whether the April 2023 complaints have ever been served.
In each complaint in this campaign, ServStor has consistently asserted the same five patents (6,738,930; 7,000,010; 7,191,274; 7,310,750; 7,870,271), which are broadly directed to various aspects of computing, including "monitoring environmental characteristics" of an industrial personal computer through an "alarm card" (the '930 and '750 patents); "managing characteristics" of a computer through a "management appliance" (the '010 patent); a computer with an enclosure that contains a "plurality of planar shared circuit cards", each with an "independent dedicated servicer function" (the '274 patent); and a storage device that is coupled to a network (the '271 patent). All were received from IV.
The original development work for all but the '271 patent was conducted at Crystal Group, characterizing itself as a "small, employee-owned business with a global impact" from its base in Iowa. They passed into IV's hands in the 2008 timeframe, with IV assigning them to ServStor as part of a 71-asset portfolio in August 2021. The '271 patent originally issued to Zetera, a network storage technology developer based in California. It passed to IV as part of the same portfolio.
Fabricant LLP, together with Rubino IP and Rubino Law LLC, filed each of ServStor's complaints on the NPE's behalf. For background concerning IPinvestments Group, ServStor, and other associated NPEs asserting patents received from IV, together with evidence that IV retains an interest in the outcome of these campaigns, see "Computing Hardware Campaign Picks Up Steam" (June 2022). The suits have again been assigned to Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap. 3/21, Eastern District of Texas.
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