Malikie Innovations Limited has added to its litigation over former BlackBerry patents with Eastern District of Texas cases against Apollo Global Management (ADT) (2:25-cv-00554) and NRG Energy (Vivint Smart Home) (2:25-cv-00555), as well as a Western District of Texas suit against Toast (1:25-cv-00716). Those suits fall into an existing campaign that has already hit eight other defendants, while new Malikie cases filed against Core Scientific (2:25-cv-00519), in East Texas, and MARA Holdings (7:25-cv-00222), in West Texas, together comprise a new campaign, this one targeting Bitcoin mining operations and related products (e.g., ASICs, computers, nodes, mining rigs, software, and wallets).
Proceeding alone in its earliest cases, Malikie, as "the successor-in-interest to a substantial patent portfolio created and procured over many years by [BlackBerry]"), now files its cases with coplaintiff Key Patent Innovations Limited (KPI), as "the beneficiary of a trust pursuant to which Malikie owns, holds, and asserts the Asserted Patents". KPI characterizes itself on its public website as "an Irish-based company that identifies and invests in high value patent-based opportunities", listing a team of directors headed by Angela Quinlan.
Quinlan has been in the role of KPI managing director since July 2020, listing past positions with Dublin-based monetization firm Atlantic IP Services Limited ("Vice President of Licensing and Acquisitions" from September 2019 to July 2020); with one of Atlantic IP's portfolio of plaintiffs, Solas OLED Limited ("Vice President of Licensing and Associate General Counsel" from April 2019 to July 2020); and with patent advisory firm IPValue Management (d/b/a IPValue) subsidiary Longitude Licensing Limited (patent attorney from March 2014 through April 2019).
KPI advertises three portfolios, one held by each of Malikie (the former BlackBerry patents), Pictiva Displays International Limited (former OSRAM patents), and Valtrus Innovations Limited (former HP Enterprise (HPE) patents). Valtrus has been litigating its portfolio since early 2022, and in October 2023, Pictiva began litigating, suing Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas. KPI's ownership model for these portfolios—with each litigating plaintiff holding their respective portfolios in trust (under Irish law) for the benefit of KPI—came under pressure in the Valtrus campaign, where District Judge Rodney Gilstrap ultimately rejected a challenge to standing based on that model.
ADT and Vivint Smart Home are targeted over their respective provision of a wide array of products (e.g., applications, doorbell cameras, panels, smart home hubs) that are compliant with various IEEE 802.11 standards, as well as support features related to device update controls, LDPC coding, touchscreen capabilities, user interface rendering.
Against ADT, KPI and Malikie assert three patents familiar to the campaign: the 7,917,829 and RE48,212 patents, broadly directed to "low-density parity-check (LDPC) encoding data"; and the 8,334,847 patent, to an "interface application" to control a touchscreen display. They also debut the 9,075,631 patent, generally related to "rendering a user interface", in the campaign. Against Vivint Smart Home, the coplaintiffs assert the '829 patent as well as the 8,583,980 patent, of similar general subject matter; the '847 patent; and, new to the campaign, the 11,119,756 patent, which broadly concerns receiving "state information" about a device and, if available, triggering an update to the device "without any direct interaction".
The '980, '212, and '847 patents are also in suit against Toast, with KPI and Malikie also asserting the 8,392,259 patent, generally related to "establishing a close-proximity communication link" through a mobile device, transferring payment information from the mobile device to a point of sale terminal, and receiving (on the mobile device) a confirmation of the transaction; and the 8,615,195 and 8,676,116 patents, both broadly directed to a mobile device with a Near Field Communications (NFC) unit. The '259, '195, and '116 patents are newly asserted in litigation.
An assertion grid for this campaign, which has now seen 30 former BlackBerry patents asserted, is available on RPX Empower. The plaintiffs plead that the alleged infringement of ADT, Toast, and Vivint has been willful, citing prior letters (and subsequent emails) regarding the Malikie patent portfolio and licensing opportunities, in May 2024 (ADT), November 2024 (Toast) September 2024 (Vivint). In the complaints against both ADT and Vivint, the plaintiffs plead that these prior communications included notice of infringement of "numerous patents (including the '829, '980, and '847 Patents)", even though the '980 patent is not now in suit against ADT. Malikie also claims to have offered to all three defendants "a specific [reasonable and nondiscriminatory] royalty rate for all patents essential to the IEEE 802.11 standards or that otherwise fall within the commitments to IEEE made by the owner of the patents at the time".
Infringement by Core Scientific and MARA Holdings has also been characterized as willful, the complaints pointing to March 2025 letters. (Core Scientific is further alleged to have responded to a second April 2025 letter with an email stating that it had filed for bankruptcy in December 2022 and emerged from it in January 2024, and that Malikie's letters and actions were "violative of the Order of the Bankruptcy Court in those Chapter 11 Cases".) Against Core Scientific, the plaintiffs assert five patents: the 7,372,960 patent, which is broadly directed to "adding elements of a finite field" for use in a "cryptographic operation"; the 8,532,286 patent, to performing a "Montgomery-style reduction in a cryptographic operation"; the 8,666,062 patent, to "performing a finite field operation on elements of a finite field" for use in a "cryptographic operation"; and the 8,788,827 and 10,284,370 patents, to generating a signer's "public key" using a "signature" received on a message and an "elliptic curve point".
MARA Holdings has been hit with these five patents, as well as a sixth (7,372,961), generally related to "generating a key" for use in a "cryptographic function". The original development work for the patents asserted in this new campaign was conducted at Certicom, which BlackBerry acquired in 2009. BlackBerry asserted the '961 patent in a litigation campaign of its own, spanning nearly 50 patents asserted against nine defendants between July 2016 through late 2021. (MobileIron filed an affirmative patent case against BlackBerry in April 2020; there, it also sought declaratory judgments of noninfringement of multiple BlackBerry-held patents, including the '961 patent.)
Malikie cases remain open, in early stages, against Nintendo (filed last September) and against Bumble, Match Group, and Vantiva (filed this February). It filed the case against Match Group in the Northern District of Texas, the local rules of which impose heightened disclosure requirements. There, the plaintiffs filed a bare corporate disclosure, identifying Malikie as wholly owned by KPI (and KPI as wholly owned by New PP Licensing LLC), further indicating that no publicly held corporation owns ten percent or more of KPI's "stock". As RPX reported shortly thereafter, the plaintiffs had not filed a certified list of interested parties—i.e., one providing "a complete list of all persons, associations of persons, firms, partnerships, corporations, guarantors, insurers, affiliates, parent or subsidiary corporations, or other legal entities that are financially interested in the outcome of the case".
Since that reporting, Malikie filed a "supplemental document" purportedly providing such a "complete list", that list containing BlackBerry in addition to both KPI and New PP Licensing. The terms of the deal by which KPI, through Malikie, acquired its portfolio from BlackBerry is covered in more detail at "Bulk of BlackBerry Patent Portfolio Finds New Home" (March 2023). That deal reportedly included sharing profits from any monetization with BlackBerry.
Reichman Jorgenson Lehman and Feldberg LLP represents KPI/Malikie in this campaign. 5/12, Core Scientific, Eastern District of Texas, MARA Holdings, Toast, Western District of Texas; 5/19, ADT, Vivint Smart Home, Eastern District of Texas.
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