Recently, a federal jury in Texas, USA, ruled that Samsung Electronics had infringed one of the three patent claims asserted by Empire Technology Development LLC (Empire), and ordered Samsung to pay Empire a one-time compensation of US$12.5 million. (Case No.: 2:23-cv-00427)

In this case, plaintiff Empire alleged that certain models of Samsung's Galaxy series smartphones, which purportedly support Qualcomm's Smart Transmit technology and/or 5G compatibility, infringed upon two of Empire's wireless communication patents: “Method and Communication System with Adaptive Mode Selection” and “Insertion and Decoding of Duplicate Data Symbols in Wireless Communication.”

Empire is a subsidiary of Allied Inventors Management, LLC (AIM), which claims in the complaint to be the exclusive licensee of the patents in question. The ownership of the two patents in question belongs to the Board of Regents of The University of Texas System, but Empire claims that it obtained exclusive licensing rights under a Master License Agreement (MLA) signed with an entity under Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) in June 2009. Empire succeeded to the rights under the agreement in June 2017.

It is worth noting that IV's large-scale acquisition and accumulation of patent assets between 2007 and 2010 is well-known in the industry, but the public has limited knowledge of the number of patent assets it has acquired through exclusive licensing agreements.

Procedurally, Judge Roy S. Payne previously recommended dismissing Samsung's motion to dismiss Empire's standing to sue; Samsung has objected to this recommendation, but District Court Judge Rodney Gilstrap has not yet ruled on the matter.