Backertop Licensing LLC, a plaintiff apparently associated with Texas monetization firm IP Edge LLC, has filed its first litigation, suing Assa Abloy (August Home) ( 1:22-cv-00573), Hampton Products ( 1:22-cv-00574), Smartfrog (Canary Connect) ( 1:22-cv-00572), and Wyze Labs ( 1:22-cv-00570) over the provision of certain smart home security products (e.g., cameras and locks) and related software products. At issue are features including auto-lock and unlock and home/away modes. A single former IBM patent, acquired from another NPE, is at issue in these new complaints, which, while filed in the District of Delaware, have yet to be assigned a judge.

Backertop's asserted patent (9,332,385; 9,654,617; 10,477,011; 10,728,382) broadly concern disabling an application based on the proximity of a mobile device. They belong to a five-member family with grant dates ranging from May 2016 through July 2020 and an estimated priority date back in February 2015. Original assignee IBM transferred them within a portfolio of over 500, to Daedalus Group LLC in December 2019. Daedalus Group subsequently passed ownership of that portfolio to Daedalus Blue LLC in January 2020, Daedalus Blue moving 165 patents to apparent IP Edge entity Terrace Licensing LLC on November 29, 2021.

Backertop pleads ownership of the patents, but no assignment away from Terrace Licensing appears in currently available USPTO records. Several other IP Edge plaintiffs are also now litigating patents from among those that Terrace Licensing received from Daedalus Blue, including Noblewood IP LLC, Pixeltide Pathway LLC and Wikeshire IP LLC. For coverage of those campaigns, see "IP Edge Acquires More Former Operating Company Patents" (February 2022) and "IP Edge Doubles Number of Defendants in Noblewood Campaign" (March 2022).

Having been the director and vice president of Asia for IP Navigation Group, LLC (d/b/a IPNav) in 2012-2013, Lillian Woung created IP Edge in the wake of IPNav's wind-down after founder Erich Spangenberg's departure. She did so with fellow Texas attorneys Gautham (Gau) Bodepudi and Sanjay Pant, first in Nevada and later merging the new monetization firm into Texas. IP Edge has been the top filer of NPE cases over the years since, having initiated over 180 litigation campaigns in total, both right before and of course after its move to Texas and hitting thousands of defendants in the process.

IP Edge typically litigates in file-and-settle fashion, a pattern that activity this year suggests the firm plans to continue throughout 2022, despite some of its pitfalls—see, for example, "NPE's Cut-and-Paste Brief Draws Sanctions . . . and Another Alice Invalidation" (April 2022). However, other developments hint that IP Edge may be looking to augment its general approach to patent monetization. Among them, noting that IP Edge has never taken a district court case to trial, sits the complaint filed before the International Trade Commission (ITC) by complainant (and district court plaintiff) Q3 Networking LLC, which litigated the ITC action through an evidentiary hearing to a final initial determination (issued this past December).

Backertop was formed in Texas on April 11, 2022, naming Lori LaPray as its sole managing member, in typical IP Edge fashion: identifying an apparent longtime resident of Texas, someone with no obvious ties to patent monetization, as the manager of each of its litigating plaintiffs. IP Edge often ignores the disclosure requirements of the courts in which it files. For example, in one of the recently filed Noblewood suits (against Virtucom), the plaintiff filed a "certificate of interested parties", as required in the Northern District of Texas, merely indicating that it has no parent and that no publicly traded company owns ten percent or more of its stock. That court, however, requires a heightened level of disclosure in "a separately signed certificate of interested persons—in a form approved by the clerk—that contains—in addition to the information required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1(a)—a complete list of all persons, associations of persons, firms, partnerships, corporations, guarantors, insurers, affiliates, parent or subsidiary corporations, or other legal entities that are financially interested in the outcome of the case".

District of Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly has recently handed down multiple standing orders that track this Northern District of Texas approach—and go further, requiring the disclosure of any third-party litigation funders and requiring all "nongovernmental joint ventures, limited liability corporations, partnerships or limited liability partnerships" to include in disclosure statements "the name of every owner, member and partner of the party, proceeding up the chain of ownership until the name of every individual and corporation with a direct or indirect interest in the party has been identified". For coverage of these ultra-heightened new disclosure mandates, see "New Delaware Standing Orders Sharply Shift Disclosure Requirements" (April 2022).

As noted, Backertop's new Delaware cases have yet to be assigned to a judge. A top venue for patent plaintiffs, Delaware is experiencing a bit of a backlog, with Judge Leonard P. Stark's elevation to the Federal Circuit bench and the pending nomination of Fox Rothschild partner Gregory B. Williams to replace him. 4/28, District of Delaware.

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