Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Eastern District of Texas is Where Asian Companies/Patents/Trolls Still Go After TC Heartland

Katana Silicon Technologies



Summary: Proxies of Longhorn IP and KAIST (Katana Silicon Technologies LLC and KAIST IP US LLC, respectively) roam Texas in pursuit of money of out nothing but patents and aggressive litigation; there's also a Microsoft connection

THE decision on TC Heartland (SCOTUS) dealt with the venue at which companies operate and what this means for the venue of litigation (where patent lawsuits get filed). Weeks ago there were some new cases related to this, especially when it comes to foreign (non-US) companies from somewhere like South Korea or Taiwan. We wrote about that.



For those who haven't been keeping track, KAIST has generally become a patent parasite masquerading as "education" or "research" (that's how it's known or recognised around Korea or Seoul, like CSIRO in Australia). Jacob Schindler of IAM (the patent trolls' lobby) now celebrates litigation in the Eastern District of Texas by KAIST's proxy in another country (KAIST IP US LLC). It's a shell entity of an entity that produces nothing. This shell has won the case, but we certainly hope that Samsung will appeal this decision to the Federal Circuit, overriding the notorious biases of the Eastern District of Texas (biases which is openly advertises). As IAM makes clear, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was already involved prior to this. From the summary (outside the paywall) it's made apparent that a nontechnical jury decided on this technical case (we explained many times why such trials may be unsuitable for patents):

Last Friday, a jury in the Eastern District of Texas ordered Samsung Electronics to pay $400 million to the IP licensing arm of South Korea’s top technology university. KAIST IP US LLC, an affiliate of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, saw its patent survive multiple IPRs and a dispute over its proper ownership en route to a courtroom victory over South Korea’s most prominent technology company. While US litigation watchers will be wary of a reversal on appeal, the big award signals that top Asian university IP owners like KAIST cannot be ignored.


We have meanwhile seen/come across yesterday's article titled "Samsung Threatens U.S. Prosperity By Disregarding Intellectual-Property Rights" (this author apparently doesn't know that Samsung has the most US patent grants per annum and held the same title at at the EPO in the past).

Anyway, what's worthy about the above case is that a Korean entity used the US courts to go after another Korean entity, but only because it's the Eastern District of Texas, which openly brags about being friendly towards plaintiffs, welcoming patent trolls such as Dominion Harbor with many Asian patents (almost expired).

It has meanwhile emerged, also based on the patent trolls' lobby (IAM), that a Japanese company has had its patents passed to patent trolls. Guess where...

"Foxconn transfers former Sharp patents to Texas-based NPE," said the tweet and the article said:

Longhorn IP, the Texas-based NPE, has launched its fifth portfolio, a collection of semiconductor patents originally owned by Sharp. The licensing company, run by Khaled Fekih-Romdhane and Chris Dubuc, is calling its new vehicle Katana Silicon Technologies LLC – a name hinting at the Japanese source of the patents, which USPTO assignment records reveal is Sharp.


Notice how Longhorn IP uses shells, as is so typical in Texas (Dominion Harbor does this as well). There's a bit of a connection between those two; at the end of last year IAM said that "Dominion Harbor and Longhorn IP [had] both formed partnerships with Beijing East IP..."

The "Founder and Managing Member" of Longhorn IP/Katana Silicon Technologies LLC used to work for the Microsoft-connected Acacia, according to this page. Dominion Harbor receives the lion's share of patents from the Microsoft-connected Intellectual Ventures. Guess where the other founder came from; he was "Licensing Program lead at Intellectual Ventures."

Recent Techrights' Posts

The "Cool Kids" Are Already Using GNU/Linux, Microsoft is Just Cheating
The future and the present are Linux
IBM Going International (and India)
It's Monday and a national holiday
Microsoft Lunduke Belongs in 4Chan
Assuming Microsoft Lunduke is aware of the full context, he is now trolling not one but two decent organisations
 
IBM's Chronic Neglect Won't Save Anything and It Might Even Get IBM Sued
The problem is likely a lack of manpower, not deliberate shoddiness
Gemini Links 17/02/2025: Ideal OS, AuraRepo Alpha, and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 17/02/2025: War on Dissent and Bloggers, Nationalism a Growing Theme
Links for the day
GeekWire: Microsoft Bribes Us While We Cover Microsoft Affairs (Spin Doctoring), Hence We Are "Independent"
What good is a "journalist" sponsored by the very same company he or she writes about?
The Attacks on LinuxQuestions.org
Going to Clownflare only worsens the problem
The GNU Manifesto Turns 40 Next Month
The guardian of Free software (definition, licences, philosophy, hosting and so on) has managed to endure and persevere for 40 years. Very few others can say the same.
In Europe and in India Richard Stallman Need Not Duck Anymore, People Trying to Cancel His Talk Have No Sway
the last time a talk by Dr. Stallman got canceled was about a year ago
Back From a Short Break
We can now resume and try to stick to the usual pace
Links 17/02/2025: LLMs Failing and Patreon Support Becoming a Burden to Bloggers
Links for the day
Links 17/02/2025: Blogroll Conundrum; Research, Scientists Under Siege
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 16, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 16, 2025
Links 16/02/2025: Nostalgia for Physical Media and the US Government Actively Promotes Pro-Kremlin Politicians in the EU
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/02/2025:Life, Cynicism, and languages
Links for the day
Links 16/02/2025: Oligarchs "Collect Your Data and Control Your World", Global Temperatures Shoot Up
Links for the day
Promoting Microsoft Windows With LLM Slop
What is the policy at BetaNews regarding LLM slop?
Alex Oliva, the Potential 'Successor' of RMS, Has a New Web Site
More freedom for Alex Oliva
Links 16/02/2025: "Microsoft Is Laying Off Employees" and Internal Dissent Brewing at Facebook Over Regime Complicity
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 15, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 15, 2025
Links 15/02/2025: Harms to Health, Public Domain, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: On Autistic People, AuraGem Over HTTPS
Links for the day
The Cyber Show (C|S) Speaks of the "Rise of the Nerd Reich."
This 'Valentine Episode' is quite good
Azure is Turning 17 This Year, Still Losing Money and Staff
Hallmark of pyramid schemes, deriving "value" out of things that do not really exist?
Strong Momentum for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Winter Approaches Its End in Boston or in the Northern Hemisphere
FSF's founder, Richard Stallman, gives another talk in Italy in 9 days from now
The 'Drunken Plagiarists' Are Harming Journalism About GNU/Linux
They lessen the incentive to do real journalism abut GNU/Linux
Female Nazis and racist Swiss women
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Links 15/02/2025: Erasing of American Science and Tesla SLAPPing Critics
Links for the day
IDG 'Reviews' of GNU/Linux Now Contain LLM Slop
It's typically ads or commercials... or sometimes spin disguised as news
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: Spectacles and "Before Sunset", Moving Domains Out of the US
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Only $17,482 Million Left, "Cash on Hand" Sank 40 Billion Dollars in 2 Years
Microsoft runs low on money in the bank
YouTube Layoffs Mean That YouTube is Still Losing a Lot of Money (Net Income or Profit Almost Definitely Negative)
In more recent years Google defunded many vloggers
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025