Recently, the Irish non-practising entity (NPE) Key Patent Innovations, together with its affiliates Malikie Innovations (hereinafter referred to as ‘Malikie’) and Valtrus, launched a series of multi-patent infringement lawsuits against seven companies, including Hisense and NTT Global Data, alleging infringement of multiple patents relating to communications and data centres. This marks yet another large-scale litigation campaign by the NPE group since its acquisition of a substantial portfolio of BlackBerry patents in 2023.

On 10 April 2026, relevant court documents revealed that the plaintiffs had formally filed complaints with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, respectively. Hisense is being sued in relation to four multimedia and communications patents; the remaining six companies—STACK, EvoDC, LLC, Netrality Properties, CoreSite, LLC, Prime Data Centers, LLC and Lumen Technologies—are being sued in relation to data centre-related patents.

It is reported that in May 2023, Malikie acquired approximately 32,000 non-core patents and applications relating to mobile devices, messaging and wireless networks from BlackBerry for US$200 million. Another entity, Valtrus, was established by Key Patent Innovations in 2021 to manage and monetise data centre patents acquired from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Both entities have previously initiated patent disputes against numerous companies, including Google, Microsoft, Meta, Nintendo, Canon, D-Link, OPPO and Brother Industries. Among these, the dispute with Nintendo was settled in December 2025; the litigation against OPPO is currently ongoing at the Unified Patent Court (UPC); Just last week, Malikie filed another patent infringement lawsuit against the Japanese printer manufacturer Brother Industries in the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.

It is worth noting that on 9 April 2026, the day before this latest round of litigation was initiated, BlackBerry announced its entry into Sisvel’s new point-of-sale (POS) patent pool and disclosed that its patent licensing revenue for the 2026 financial year stood at US$21 million, a significant decline from the previous year. Meanwhile, Huiya also announced on 8 April that it had joined another of Sisvel’s patent pools as a licensee.

The relevant cases are currently in the pre-trial phase at the US Federal District Court.