Jan Weir, State Bar No

Case 2:17-cv-05266 Document 1 Filed 07/17/17 Page 1 of 18 Page ID #:1 1 Douglas Q. Hahn, State Bar No. 257559 email: [email protected] 2 Salil Bali State Bar No. 263001 email: [email protected] 3 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH A Professional Corporation 4 660 Newport Center Drive, Suite 1600 Newport Beach, CA 92660-6422 5 Telephone: (949) 725-4000 Fax: (949) 725-4100 6 Stefanie T. Scott, California Bar No. 264314 7 email: [email protected] SCOTT SHAH LAW PLLC 8 600 Congress Ave., 14th Floor Austin, Texas 78701 9 Telephone: (512) 596-5170 10 Victor G. Hardy (will seek admission pro hac vice) email: [email protected] 11 HARDY PARRISH YANG, LLP Spicewood Business Center 12 4412 Spicewood Springs Rd., Suite 202 Austin, Texas 78759 13 Phone: (512)520-9407 14 Attorneys For Plaintiff Sockeye Licensing TX LLC 15 16 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 17 FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 18 19 SOCKEYE LICENSING TX LLC, Civil Action No. 20 Plaintiff, COMPLAINT 21 v. Jury Trial Demanded 22 LENOVO (UNITED STATES), 23 INC., 24 Defendant. 25 26 27 28 STRADLING YOCCA CARLSON & RAUTH L AWYERS NEWPORT BEACH LITIOC/2160642v1/104926-0003 Case 2:17-cv-05266 Document 1 Filed 07/17/17 Page 2 of 18 Page ID #:2 1 Plaintiff Sockeye Licensing TX LLC (herein, “Plaintiff” and/or “Sockeye”), 2 by and through its attorneys, for its Complaint against Lenovo (United States), 3 Inc., (herein, “Defendant” and/or “Lenovo”) hereby alleges as follows: 4 I. NATURE OF THE ACTION 5 1. This is a patent infringement action to end Defendant’s direct, joint, 6 contributory and/or induced infringement of Plaintiff Sockeye’s patented 7 inventions, including but not limited to Defendant’s unauthorized and infringing 8 manufacture, use, sale, offering for sale, and/or importation of Plaintiff’s 9 inventions. 10 2. Sockeye holds all substantial rights and interest in and to United 11 States Patent No. 9,547,981 (the “’981 patent”), issued on January 17, 2017, for a 12 “System, method and apparatus for using a wireless device to control other 13 devices.” A true and correct copy of the ’981 patent is attached hereto as 14 Attachment A. 15 3. Plaintiff seeks to prevent Defendant from continuing infringement of 16 Plaintiff’s patent rights. Plaintiff further seeks monetary damages and prejudgment 17 interest for Defendant’s past infringement of the ’981 patent (the “Asserted 18 Patent”). 19 II. THE PARTIES 20 4. Plaintiff Sockeye Licensing TX LLC is a limited liability company 21 organized and existing under the laws of the State of Texas. 22 5. Upon information and belief, Defendant Lenovo (United States), Inc. 23 is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Delaware, 24 with a place of business located at 1009 Think Place, Morrisville, North Carolina 25 27560. Defendant can be served with process by serving its registered agent for 26 service of process in the State of California: C T Corporation System, 818 W 7th 27 St., Ste. 930, Los Angeles, CA 90017. 28 STRADLING YOCCA 1 CARLSON & RAUTH L AWYERS NEWPORT BEACH COMPLAINT LITIOC/2160642v1/104926-0003 Case 2:17-cv-05266 Document 1 Filed 07/17/17 Page 3 of 18 Page ID #:3 1 6. Upon information and belief, Defendant has conducted and regularly 2 conducts business within this District, has purposefully availed itself of the 3 privileges of conducting business in this District, and has sought the protection and 4 benefit of the laws of the State of California. 5 III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE 6 7. This is an action for patent infringement which arises under the Patent 7 Laws of the United States, in particular, 35 U.S.C. §§271, 281, 283, 284, and 285. 8 This Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this action under 28 U.S.C. 9 §§1331 and 1338(a). 10 8. This Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendant because it has 11 committed acts giving rise to this action within the State of California. The 12 Court’s exercise of jurisdiction over Defendant would not offend traditional 13 notions of fair play and substantial justice because Defendant has established 14 minimum contacts with the forum with respect to both general and specific 15 jurisdiction. Upon information and belief, Defendant has place(s) of business 16 within the State of California, has a registered agent for service of process in this 17 judicial district and transacts substantial business in the State of California. 18 9. Further, Defendant has committed acts of infringement in this District, 19 by among other things, knowingly contributing to and/or inducing the infringement 20 of Plaintiff’s patent knowing that the directly infringing devices are sold in the 21 State of California and this Judicial District as well as providing service and 22 support to Defendant’s customers in this District. Plaintiff’s causes of action arise 23 directly from Defendant’s business contacts and other activities in this District. 24 10. Upon information and belief, Defendant has an office within this 25 District in Los Angeles, California, and Defendant posts job opportunities for 26 employment at its Los Angeles office. 27 28 STRADLING YOCCA -2- CARLSON & RAUTH L AWYERS NEWPORT BEACH COMPLAINT LITIOC/2160642v1/104926-0003 Case 2:17-cv-05266 Document 1 Filed 07/17/17 Page 4 of 18 Page ID #:4 1 11. Venue in the Central District of California is proper pursuant to 28 2 U.S.C. § l400(b) because Defendant has committed acts of infringement in this 3 District and has regular and established place(s) of business in this District. 4 IV. BACKGROUND OF THE PATENTED TECHNOLOGY 5 12. Prior to the filing of the parent of the ’981 patent in 2006, the state of 6 the art cell phone designs emphasized their use as standalone devices. Thus, it was 7 widely expected that, as the multimedia capabilities of the cell phone became 8 richer, the cell phone itself would serve as a multimedia player and alternative to 9 traditional modes of viewing video, such as via television screens. Accordingly, 10 cell phone manufacturers at the time of filing focused on developing the “onboard” 11 capabilities of their products, rather than adapting them to connect with and control 12 a higher resolution device. Thus, for example, the Nokia N92 mobile device 13 announced in 2005 was “marketed as a phone for watching TV.” See Nokia N92 14 Wikipedia Article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N92, attached hereto as 15 Attachment B. The Nokia N92, while capable of playing “mobile TV,” was 16 designed as an alternate platform for watching television, and it operated as a 17 standalone device, wholly independent of television sets of the period. The ’981 18 patent goes further. In contrast to the standalone approach of the Nokia N92, the 19 ’981 patent teaches particular methods and systems by which the cell phone could 20 connect with and control a higher resolution display device, streaming video 21 thereto. The state of the art cell phones of the day were not equipped to operate in 22 this way, nor was this their goal. Indeed, as Nokia stated at the time, the “Nokia 23 N92 offers easy access to TV programs without having to sit in front of a television 24 set.” See Presenting the Nokia N92: TV goes Mobile, 25 http://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases/2005/11/02/presenting-the-nokia-n92- 26 tv-goes-mobile (emphasis added), attached hereto as Attachment C. Notably, so- 27 called “[t]hird generation mobile phones” or “3G mobiles” which were capable of 28 “multi-media communication” of this kind—i.e., “viewing TV on a mobile STRADLING YOCCA -3- CARLSON & RAUTH L AWYERS NEWPORT BEACH COMPLAINT LITIOC/2160642v1/104926-0003 Case 2:17-cv-05266 Document 1 Filed 07/17/17 Page 5 of 18 Page ID #:5 1 phone”—were themselves far from the norm in 2006. See NEC 3G Cell Phone 2 Diagram, attached hereto as Attachment D. As NEC stated at the time, although 3 such devices were “expected to be extremely popular,” using a cell phone to view 4 television was itself a “groundbreaking way to use mobile phones.” Id. 5 13. Still more groundbreaking was the inventive approach of the ’981 6 patent, which went beyond the cell phones merely equipped to play television, 7 such as the Nokia N92 and the NEC e636. The ’981 patent teaches particular 8 methods and systems by which the cell phone could connect with and control a 9 higher resolution display device for streaming video. The claimed inventions 10 would have been inoperable on the more sophisticated cell phones of the period, 11 such as the Nokia N92 and NEC e636, because they required significant technical 12 advancements and improvements to the hardware and software “stack” of the cell 13 phone in order to enable their inventive functionality. See NEC e636 14 Specifications, http://www.gsmarena.com/nec_e636-1476.php, attached hereto as 15 Attachment E. 16 14. The ’981 patent teaches the hardware and software “stack” necessary 17 to implement the particular systems and methods claimed in the patent. For 18 example, Figure 3D illustrates the relationships between the hardware and software 19 components of the cell phone itself, as well as the internet and a high-resolution 20 display device, in terms of their hierarchy and I/O requirements and functions. 21 Figure 3D teaches a cell phone operating system that supports TCP/IP services, a 22 desktop browser and operating system within the cell phone, and the device drivers 23 necessary to manage streaming media as it is received from the network, rendered 24 by the operating system, and communicated to external devices.

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