On October 18 Samsung filed a complaint for declaratory judgment for res judicata against defendants IXI (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. And Samsung Electronics America, Inc. v. IXI Mobile (R&D), Ltd. and IXI IP, LLC 3:19-cv-06773). Under res judicata, a case may not be relitigated once it has reached a conclusion. Samsung claimed that IXI cannot open a new case on the claims of the 7,039,033 Patent because the case was closed in 2015. Samsung claimed that it does not infringe the ’033 Patent and said patent is invalid.
In a previous case from 2014, IXI sued Samsung for patent infringement, including patents: 7,039,033, entitled “System, Device and Computer Readable Medium for Providing Networking Services on a Mobile Device.” Apple was also previously sued by IXI under similar claims. In response, Apple has also filed a claim against IXI for declaratory judgment under res judicata, in a similar action to Samsung, claiming that the case has already been closed in regards to the ’033 Patent.
In 2015, filing a petition at the Patent Trial Appeal Board (PTAB) for inter partes review, Samsung and Apple challenged the claims in the ’033 Patent. The PTAB found such claims against the patent valid, thus rendering the ’033 Patent invalid.
In March 2017, in an effort to work around the PTAB’s findings, IXI attempted to reopen the case through ex parte reexamination of the patent. This led to the addition of 68 new claims and the amendment of one current claim that IXI attempted to add to the closed 2014 case against Apple and Samsung. The PTAB denied this action, and declared these claims must be added to a new suit. Both Apple and Samsung have filed complaints to prevent IXI’s re-litigation of the cases in connection with the 7,039,033 Patent. On January 16, the issued Inter Partes Review Certificate canceled multiple parts of the Patent. On March 7, IXI filed to amend its original infringement suit from 2014 to inter alia, to add claims to the ’033 Patent. Samsung argued the motion should be prohibited under res judicata.
Samsung is represented by Kirkland & Ellis in this matter.
