Case Filed: Dec 02, 2011
Case Closed: Jun 12, 2013
Judge: Leonard Davis
Other Defendants: Mobile, Casio
America, Google, Leap Wireless International, LG, MetroPCS Communications,
Palm, Radioshack Corporation, Sony, Sprint Nextel Corporation, Sprint
Solutions, T-Mobile USA, United States
Cellular Corporation, Verizon Communications, Virgin Mobile USA, ZTE, Kyocera
Communications, HTC, Motorola Mobility, Huawei Technologies, Pantech Wireless,
Sharp Electronics Corporation, Cellco Partnership (DBA Verizon Wireless) and
STX Wireless Operations
Court: Texas Eastern District
Court
Case Summary:
Garnet Digital sued AT&T,
Apple, Dell, Samsung, RIM and several other defendants for patent infringement
and included a claim for indirect infringement. Garnet Digital accused all of
the defendants of infringing patent US5379421, which is entitled Interactive Terminal for the Access of
Remote Database Information. The patent was issued on Jan 03, 1995 and
expired[i]
on Jan 03, 2012. The patent was last assigned[ii]
to Garnet Digital (source: MaxVal’s Assignment
Database).
The allegations made against each
of the defendants are as follows: "[Defendant] directly or through
intermediaries, made, had made, used, imported, provided, supplied,
distributed, sold, and/or offered for sale products and/or systems (including
at least [Defendant's product(s)]) that infringed one or more claims of the ‘421
patent, and/or induced infringement and/or contributed to the infringement of
one or more of the claims of the 421 patent by its customers." The accused products were iPhones,
Samsung smartphones, Dell Venue smartphones, and BlackBerry smartphones, etc.
The case was ongoing and the defendants consecutively were
dismissed from the case on filing joint motion to dismiss. The last one to
settle the case was Dell, where the parties reached agreement and filed for
dismissal on Jun 10. Upon consideration, the Court ordered all claims and
counter claims be dismissed and each party to bear their own costs and
expenses.
See 6:11-cv-00647 for
more details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation Alerts.
[i] Expected expiration date. Patent Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically
calculates patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.
[ii] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert
service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to
target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.