Uniloc 2017, a non-practicing entity affiliated with the original Uniloc, sued Paychex, Akamai and athenahealth, accusing each of infringing a pair of patents relating to the management and distribution of application programs to target stations on a network. The patents originally belonged to IBM, and have an odd chain of title through the PTO’s assignment page – it appears that Uniloc assigned a security interest in the patents to Fortress Credit Co. in 2014 without having first obtained title from IBM – that assignment (to Uniloc Luxembourg S.A.) was executed in 2016. The patents each claim priority to a December 1998 filing, so both have expired. The cases are all before Judge Stearns.
