Patents originally owned by the bankrupt Silicon Valley darling Jawbone are at the center of new lawsuits seeking royalties from Apple and Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Google over noise canceling technology in the sompanies’ ear buds, smartphones and smart home devices.
Susan Decker for Bloomberg News:
Jawbone Innovations LLC, the current owner of the patents, filed the suits Tuesday in federal court in Waco, Texas, a district that’s the most popular in the nation for its patent-friendly judge and juries.
MacDailyNews Take: Rocket docket.
It’s unclear from the suits and Patent and Trademark Office filings who’s behind the company that now owns the patents. Jawbone Innovations is headquartered in a small office building in Waco with no phone number and the lawyers on the case couldn’t immediately be reached.
The eight patents in the case relate to ways to limit background noise in devices, technology that was developed in Jawbone’s early years, when it was contracted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to research noise suppression techniques for the U.S. military, according to the complaints.
MacDailyNews Note: The cases are Jawbone Innovations LLC v. Apple Inc., 21-984, and Jawbone Innovations LLC v Google LLC, 21-985, both U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Waco).
The Rocket Docket was the Eastern District of Texas based in Marshall. Not the Western District based in San Antonio with a divisional court in Waco.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Waco) is “a district that’s the most popular in the nation for its patent-friendly judge and juries.”
In other words: Rocket docket.