Virtually nothing has happened on the docket of the District of Columbia case that Factor2 Multimedia Systems, LLC filed against ByteDance (TikTok) this past January. The plaintiff has now sued Amazon ( 1:24-cv-00337) and Snap ( 1:24-cv-00336), both in the Western District of Texas, as well as (perhaps) the United States of America (1:24-cv-00475, 1:24-cv-00477), the last two complaints filed in the US Court of Federal Claims but apparently misidentifying Snap as the defendant—twice. The same six authentication patents are asserted across the board, against user verification features, with the US government targeted over "the system which provides two factor authenticated access to: USPTO.gov; MyUSPTO; MyUSPTO account; Patent Electronic System; EFS-Web; PAIR; and Patent Center, including the '2stable' app[,] and distributes content and authenticates users on the USPTO site".
The asserted patents (8,281,129; 9,703,938; 9,727,864; 9,870,453; 10,083,285; 10,769,297) belong to a family of nine that includes a previously invalidated patent (8,266,432). The Federal Circuit summarily affirmed the decision of Eastern District of Virginia Judge Robert G. Doumar (then of senior status) that the asserted claims of the '432 patent are fatally directed to the abstract idea of "using a third party and a random, time-sensitive code to confirm the identity of a participant to a transaction", a decision for which the named inventors unsuccessfully sought en banc review.
The patents belong to a family of nine with issue dates ranging from April 2008 through September 2020. The earliest estimated priority date for the family falls in August 2001. The patents' named inventors are Kamran and Nader Asghari-Kamrani. That Alice invalidation occurred in a case filed by the named inventors in their individual capacities against USAA. Details about that litigation, including formation of Factor2 in Virginia, exploration in past discovery of whether there was third-party litigation funding in play here, and more about the named inventors themselves, can be read at "Patent Family Trimmed by Alice Reappears in Litigation" (January 2024).
Having made recent headlines for replacing Ramey LLP in a host of cases alleged to have been mishandled, Joseph J. Zito represents Factor2, which identified the TikTok defendant on the caption of the January complaint as "TicTok Inc.". That case was assigned to District Judge Rudolph Contreras. Another mishap appears to have occurred with these late March filings, as noted above, given that complaints filed under the -475 and -477 numbers appear to target the US government but apparently misidentify Snap as the defendant in the opening paragraph.
On the TikTok complaint, Zito associates himself with Whitestone Law; on the Amazon complaint, with DNL Zito Castellano; on the Snap complaint, with DNL Zito; and on the apparent US government complaints, with no firm expressly (providing an email address at "dnlzito.com" however). 3/28, United States of America, US Court of Federal Claims; 3/29, Amazon, Snap, Western District of Texas.
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