Seattle Patent Litigation Update January 2009

The Western District saw just one patent case filed last month, Chen v. Unisen, Inc. (2:2009cv00128, assigned to Judge Lasnik). Unisen does business under the name Star Trac. According to the Star Trac web site, Star Trac is "proud to be an international leader in commercial quality fitness equipment. But [it is] far from satisfied." The patent at issue is U.S. 6,745,873 covering a braking device for an exercise cycle.

One patent case file in January 2009 is in stark contrast to the 10 cases that were filed in Washington Federal Courts in January 2008.

In other Seattle patent litigation news, Microsoft settled a dispute over encryption technologies with Maz Technologies. MAZ lodged the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in July, alleging that the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant’s Encrypting File System software, which is part of Microsoft’s Windows operating system products, infringed two patents, U.S. Patent Number 7,096,358, (an encrypting file system issued in August 2006) and U.S. Patent Number 6,185,681 (a method of transparent encryption and decryption for an electronic document management system). The ’681 patent was issued in February 2001, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a re-examination certificate for it in May 2006.

In other news, Nintendo moved quickly last month on the heels of the Federal Circuit's grant of mandamus in the In re TS Tech case, a case finding that the district court in Marshall, Texas abused its discretion in refusing to transfer a case under 28 U.S.C. 1404. On January 26, Nintendo filed a motion seeking to transfer a case brought by Motiva LLC, an entity described by Nintendo in its motion as "a vehicle created for the purpose of this litigation, as it was incorporated less than a year after the patent at issue in this action, U.S. Patent No. 7,292,151 (“the ‛151 patent”) issued and shortly before this case was commenced." Nintendo is seeking to have the case transferred to Seattle.

Finally, Microsoft is set to begin trial shortly in East Texas in a patent case brought by online chat company Paltalk Holdings Inc. alleging that the technology giant's Xbox Live online gaming service infringes two Paltalk patents. On Monday, Judge David Folsom of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas denied Microsoft's motion for partial summary judgment after finding that the company had not met its burden of showing that the two patents were anticipated by clear and convincing evidence. Paltalk Holdings is being represented by Seattle's Brooke Taylor, a partner in the Seattle office of Susman Godfrey. The patents-in-suit are U.S. Patent Numbers 5,822,523 and 6,266,686.