Patent Armory Inc. has sued Adidas ( 6:24-cv-00173) and American Express (6:24-cv-00174) in a campaign that has largely focused on certain routing/triage tools within the defendants' customer service systems—though this latest batch of complaints cites exhibits allegedly detailing the accused products that are missing from their respective dockets. Appearing in the pair of Western District of Texas complaints are the same five patents that Patent Armory has asserted against a long list of defendants, including, at least originally, Hertz. There, Hertz has filed three successive motions for judgment on the pleadings, among other things challenging the patents asserted against it as patent-ineligibly drawn, under Alice, to the abstract idea of "evaluating communications data to make a routing decision".
Hertz filed its first such motion to challenge the patents asserted in Patent Armory's original complaint—three generally related to a communication control system (7,023,979; 7,269,253; 10,491,748) and two to a "matching" system based on evaluation models (9,456,086; 10,237,420)—on that basis and also because the accused customer service system is apparently used only in Europe. The plaintiff then filed a first amended complaint shifting its infringement allegations to the use of Zendesk, but Hertz filed a second motion for judgment on the pleadings, this one noting that Hertz does not use Zendesk. Undeterred, Patent Armory filed a second amended complaint, dropping three patents and focusing on the alleged use of Verint software. The operative motion for judgment on the pleadings challenges that complaint as well, this time only on patent ineligibility.
Since May 2023, Patent Armory has filed more than 90 cases in myriad districts over a wide array of patents. Those suits comprise three litigation campaigns: the first, which has seen over 60 defendants sued over various products ranging from audio devices to customer service platforms; the second, initiated in July 2023 with suits against AMD, Microsoft, and NVIDIA over a single signal processing patent; and the third, launched in August 2023 with suits against 3shape, Artec (Artec Europe), Dental Imaging Technologies, and Scantech Americas over two patents generally related to a scanner for "acquiring an approximation of a surface geometry of a 3-dimensional object". Patent Armory has proceeded in a file-and-settle fashion, with a majority of complaints having been dismissed at the early pleading stages.
It is not just Hertz that has refused to end litigation quickly. For example, Alphabet (Google) has filed a motion to dismiss the case against it, challenging the sufficiency of Patent Armory's pleading with respect to claim terms argued to be presumptively subject to means-plus-function treatment. That motion has been briefed through sur-sur-reply, with a ruling yet to issue.
Patent Armory was formed in Ontario, Canada in February 2015, with Greg Benoit listed in Canadian corporate records as the company's sole director. Benoit describes himself on social media as having served as Patent Armory's "Principal Consultant" since February 2015 and as the president of Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., an NPE that has litigated one of the largest campaigns, having hit over 330 defendants since May 2019. Cedar Lane has followed a file-and-settle approach, very few of its cases extending beyond the pleadings stage. More than 50 patents, of disparate subject matter but all received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), have been asserted, against companies in various industries, albeit with a concentration around products and services that involve image processing, in complaints filed in a wide variety of federal districts.
In its third campaign, Patent Armory's complaints have been assigned to Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly, in whose courtroom April 2022 standing orders impose heightened disclosure requirements on certain litigants. There, the plaintiff has disclosed that its sole owner is patent monetization professional Jeffrey M. Gross. After litigating a patent on which he was a named inventor, Gross appears to have taken to patent monetization more generally through the assertion of acquired patents. NPEs associated with Gross have now launched nearly 75 litigation campaigns—six in 2024 so far. For RPX coverage on those disclosures, Gross, and Patent Armory's litigation activity, see "Judge Connolly's Disclosure Orders Reveal Something Surprising and Gross" (September 2023).
A patent assertion grid for Patent Armory's rapidly growing first campaign is available on RPX Insight. The new West Texas complaints join other cases there before District Judge Alan D. Albright. 4/5, Adidas, American Express, Western District of Texas.
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