Patent-holding giant Intellectual Ventures (IV) began enforcing some of its massive stash of patents with lawsuits in 2010. But its first case, against Motorola Mobility, ended in a mistrial last year when a jury couldn't agree on the outcome.
Now that case is teed up again with a different set of patents. IV is claiming that Motorola products infringe patents 7,810,144, "File transfer system for direct transfer between computers," and US Patent No. 7,409,450, which describes a system of "packet-centric wireless point to multi-point." Neither of these patents were in last year's trial, although they were mentioned in the original complaint (PDF).
A third patent, 7,120,462, has a priority date of 1999 and describes a portable computer with a detachable handset. The '462 patent, invented by Rajendra Kumar, was in last year's trial and will feature again. IV claims Motorola used this patent in its defunct Lapdock product.
IV has filed dozens of lawsuits since 2010, and most have settled. In an order (PDF) published on Friday, US District Judge Sue Robinson made it clear that IV won't be allowed to discuss its settlements it has reached with other companies. The order also notes that both sides have agreed not to discuss IV's "business model, including the fact that plaintiffs market and license patents."
The 2014 trial featured testimony from Peter Detkin, IV's most in-the-spotlight executive. IV was founded by ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold in 2000, and the company has raised about $6 billion in investments since then. It's by far the world's biggest "patent troll," with hundreds of employees around the globe.
Intellectual Ventures has already had one jury trial this year, which resulted in an order that Symantec must pay $17 million in patent infringement damages. While IV won that case, the award was less than six percent of the $299 million in damages it sought.
The current proposed verdict form (PDF) doesn't show a damage demand, so damages will be ruled on separately if IV wins. The trial last year lasted nine days, and this one should last a similar period of time.
The trial comes at a time when a "patent troll" bill is again being debated in Congress. A big win for IV could end up being ammunition for reformers, although leaving damages to be decided later means there won't be any headline-grabbing numbers, even if IV does win its case.
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