July 10, 2013 - A U.S. district judge denied a request from a group of smartphone manufacturers - including Motorola Mobility, Sony-Ericsson, HTC, Samsung and four others - to dismiss a patent lawsuit over a patented system for translating binary code.
Cascades Computer Innovation LLC manages and monetizes a portfolio of patents from Russian inventor Boris Babaian, who is credited with helping to invent the supercomputer. Cascades sued several technology companies for infringing U.S. patent number 7,065,750, which covers a process of preserving exceptions in binary code.
Eight of the defendants, including Dell Inc., Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., Pantech Wireless Inc., Sharp Electronics Corp., Sony-Ericsson Mobile Communications Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Acer America Corp., and HTC Corp. argued that Cascades lacked standing to assert Babaian's patents.
However, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly in Chicago disagreed, ruling that Cascades did acquire the right to sue infringers in 2011 when it agreed to monetize Babaian's patent portfolio. (Babaian's company, Elbrus International, sold Cascades the exclusive right to license and monetize his portfolio of over 30 patents.)
Judge Kennelly wrote that "the agreement between the Elbrus entities and Cascades is sufficient to confer all substantial rights to the '750 patent and thus amounts to an assignment, enabling Cascades to sue in its own name."