Service Properties Trust T.SVC

RE:RE:Opinion on Lawsuit

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Thanks; Here's a repost of what I was able to determine from theearlier suits by PIL. The three prior extortion? suits took about a year.

I had a brief look at the concept of patent trolls and the record of Packet Intelligence LLC (PIL). Apparently, PIL has launched three prior lawsuits.
 
With Huawei, PIL Claimed infringement of 7 patents. The case was opened on Mar 12, 2013 and closed a year later on Mar 4, 2014.
 
WITH Cisco, the first claimed infringements of 5 of the same patents from the Huawei case. In Dec, 2014, PIL added one more claim of infringement – again a patent from the Huawei case. Both cases were closed in March, 2015.
 
With Sandvine, the claim of infringement repeats 5 of the same patents involved in the Huawei and Cisco cases.
 
All of these suits have been launched in East Texas with the same District Judge, Rodney Gilstrap, East Texas is the most active district court for these kind of cases. What is interesting is that PIL used different law firms for each defendant. In addition, the language used in the suit has improved, probably to address weaknesses in the arguments used in the Huawei and Cisco cases.
 
As expected, PIL ask for damages and fees and costs for their lawyers. This time, however, PIL is only asking for damages from the date of first filing notification. In addition, PIL accuses SVC of operating without good faith and asks for increased damages, possibly to make up for the failures in the other law suits. (my assumption)
 
Key findings of a United Patents report in 2015 show that:

About two-thirds (66.9%) of all patent lawsuits were filed by patent trolls, also called "non-practicing entities" or NPEs. That's up from 61 percent last year.
About two-thirds of patent lawsuits are filed in the high-tech sector. Of the high-tech cases, more than 88 percent involved NPEs.
The Eastern District of Texas has vastly more patent disputes than any other district court, and the high numbers are driven by NPE litigation. In the Eastern District of Texas, 95 percent of patent cases are initiated by NPEs. In total, 44 percent of the nation's patent litigation was filed in there. Nearly all of it was assigned to a single judge, Marshall-based US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap.”

This case against SVC seems to have all the characteristics of this kind of legal mugging attempt. I trust that SVC can deal with it despite the distraction.

Read more at https://www.stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard/bullboard/t.svc/sandvine-corporation#mcSDwRhtWCeVOxJ8.99