Some of the former intellectual property assets of Aliph (d/b/a Jawbone), a maker of Bluetooth headsets and other audio accessories that was liquidated in 2017—75 of them—have landed in litigation. The current owner, Jawbone Innovations, LLC, has sued Samsung (2:21-cv-00186) over the provision of products with voice activity detection features and related microphone arrays, including earbuds and smartphones. The complaint specifically highlights the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro and Galaxy S20 as products accused of infringing the two asserted patents.
Jawbone Innovations pleads that "Samsung was notified that the Accused Products infringe the Asserted Patents, and/or otherwise became aware of the Asserted Patents [8,019,091; 8,280,072] and recognized that the Accused Products infringe the Asserted Patents at least as of 2017", at which time Jawbone's liquidation purportedly prompted a "host of technology companies including Apple, Samsung, Google, LG and Fitbit [to be] identified as potential buyers of Jawbone's US Patents". It further pleads that it is the "sole and exclusive owner of all right, title, and interest to and in" the two patents.
Issuing to Jawbone in September 2011 with estimated priority in July 2000 (based on the filing of a provisional application), the '091 patent generally relates to detecting and processing a desired signal in the presence of acoustic noise, using a sensor to detect vibration of human tissue associated with voicing activity. The '072 patent issued to Jawbone in October 2012 with estimated priority in June 2007, also based on the filing of a provisional application. It broadly concerns physical microphone array that create a virtual microphone array for noise cancelling purposes. Gregory C. Burnett (identifying himself as the "chief scientist" with Jawbone from 2000-2011, now "on sabbatical") is identified as a named inventor for both, alone for the '072 patent and together with Eric F. Breitfeller for the '091 patent.
Hosain Rahman formed Jawbone (f/k/a Aliph) in the late 90s with Alexander Asseily. The assets of the company, which had received funding secured by its intellectual property from various entities (including DBD Credit Funding LLC, a Fortress Investment Group LLC entity; Wells Fargo; Silver Lake Waterman; and BlackRock Advisors, in that order), were liquidated in 2017, at which time two assignments were recorded with the USPTO from an Aliph entity to JAWB Acquisition LLC (misidentified in USPTO records as "Jawab Acquisation, LLC"), on behalf of which Daniel Setton signed as manager.
Setton appears to be a manager of Lionel Capital, which describes itself on its public website as "an investment firm focused on branded consumer product companies from early stage investments, growth rounds to distressed assets in need of a turn around". Listed among its current and past investments is "Aliph Brands", described as a brand management company; on its public website, Aliph Brands gives a description very similar to that of Lionel Capital ("We target early-stage, growth, and distressed assets in need of a turnaround to build valuable brands", listing Jawbone as one of its brands).
The actual plaintiff here, Jawbone Innovations, was formed on February 1, 2021 with York Eggleston of Slingshot Technologies LLC as its manager. It acquired the asserted patents on May 18, 2021 from JI Audio Holdings LLC, a Texas entity formed on May 7, 2021 with JAWB Acquisition (formed in July 2017 in New Jersey) identified as its manager.
Eggleston manages Slingshot Technologies, a Maryland NPE associated with Keith Machen as well. The two cofounded Maryland-based IP Commercialization Labs, LLC (IPCL), an "IP and technology commercialization firm". In the past, on its public website (which appears to have been intermittently in need of repair), IPCL has described its consulting services through three models: (1) "direct licensing", under which the "inventor retains ownership of the patent(s) and therefore controls the campaign" while "IPCL serves as an outsourced service provider to manage licensing and any litigation that may be required to compel licensing negotiations"; (2) "indirect licencing [sic]", under which the "inventor/owner transfers the patents to a third party, typically an NPE, which will focus on and manage the monetization campaign" while "IPCL will manage the transfer to the third party, and will continue to manage the monetization process", touting the advantage "that indirect licensing can yield upfront cash payments in addition to percentage participation in gross recoveries or ownership in the venture"; and (3) "enforcement", under which "IPCL uses proven enforcement strategies that encourage companies to settle quickly rather than engage in lengthy and expensive litigation" using IPCL's purported ability to "litigate and win".
IPCL shares a Baltimore address with another Eggleston-Machen enterprise, YE Ventures, which is described as a technology commercialization company with an investment vehicle (YE Capital) and an R&D operation (YE Venture Labs). (On its website, YE Ventures describes IPCL as a "partner", along with Studio Codeworks, a "software development and IT services firm" that was acquired by Qlarant at the end of 2019. Machen is an attorney; the YE website also describes Eggleston as "an "inventor, entrepreneur and financier".) Machen also apparently serves as president of Nexify, "a global leader in content personalization tools and solutions for all applications" that is identified as a YE Ventures "portfolio company". None of these various entities has a history of filing any patent litigation, including Slingshot Technologies, but other entities associated with Eggleston and York have received and litigated assets through them.
For example, in June 2019, Slingshot Printing LLC, a Eggleston-Machen entity, filed four cases, technically each a separate campaign, against HP over buckets of former Lexmark International patents received from Funai Electric. (See here for background.) Another plaintiff associated with Eggleston and Machen, Stone Interactive Ventures LLC, created in Maryland in October 2018, litigated a couple of patents, received from IV, against Electronic Arts (EA) in relatively uneventful fashion, the September 2019 case having been dismissed with prejudice within a month of the defendant's answer was filed later that year. (Further background is available here.)
Last year, Quartz Auto Technologies, LLC sued Lyft and Uber (and Uber's subsequently acquired Postmates) over several former IBM patents, received either directly from Daedalus Group LLC or indirectly from that NPE via Eggleston-Machen entity Slingshot IOT LLC. The litigation ended in mid-January 2021 as to Uber and Postmates but continues as to Lyft, as well as against GrubHub, which was sued in March 2021. (Additional background on this campaign can be read here.)
One Eggleston-Machen venture hit a snag last year when the pair, through Slingshot Technologies, filed suit in Delaware Chancery Court to contest the ownership of a certain portfolio of patent assets. Slingshot Technologies planned to acquire former France Telecom assets from Transpacific IP Group Limited (a patent monetization firm headquartered in Singapore), but Monarch Networking Solutions LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation, picked up the assets instead (and has asserted them, against Charter Communications and Cisco in a case filed in January 2020). For the latest RPX coverage of that state court ownership dispute, and its effect on Monarch's patent infringement suit, see here.
Meanwhile, 2021 seems likely to see yet a few more campaigns from Eggleston and Machen. Gravel Rating Systems LLC is litigating a "knowledge filter" patent, suing Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless, Costco, Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), Lowe's, and Target, all in the Eastern District of Texas. That state's records identify four additional LLCs created last year in that state naming the two as managers: Granite Vehicle Ventures LLC on June 24, 2020; Marble VOIP Partners LLC on July 14, 2020; Cobalt Navigation Ventures LLC on November 19, 2020; and Graphite Charging Company LLC on December 7, 2020.
Jawbone Innovations pleads that it has "at all times complied" with its marking obligations, as have "prior assignees and licensees". The new case has been initially assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap. 5/27, Eastern District of Texas.
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