Defendant
5 cases as defendant.
Company overview. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. ("American Honda" or AHM) is the North American sales-and-distribution arm of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (TSE: 7267; ADR: HMC), the Tokyo-based automaker. Founded in 1959 as Honda's first overseas subsidiary, it is headquartered at 1919 Torrance Blvd., Torrance, California. Third-party databases place its headcount at roughly 10,000–30,000 employees and revenue estimates vary widely (from about $5 billion to over $10 billion per some sources; exact figures are not publicly disclosed because it is a private subsidiary of Honda Motor Co.). Parent Honda Motor Co. is a publicly traded global manufacturer with revenue in the hundreds of billions of yen.
Products / services / operations. American Honda is responsible for U.S. sales, marketing, distribution, and support of Honda and Acura brand automobiles; Honda Powersports products (motorcycles, scooters, ATVs); Honda power equipment (generators, lawn mowers); marine engines; and the HondaJet light business jet (through Honda Aircraft Company). It also operates American Honda Finance Corporation (consumer/dealer financing) and, through affiliates, oversees Honda's North American vehicle and powertrain manufacturing footprint in Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.
Patent-litigation posture. American Honda is an operating company and appears in the tracked data as a defendant only: 0 cases as plaintiff, 1 as defendant. That single suit was brought by American Calcar, Inc., an entity characterized in patent-litigation databases (e.g., Ex Parte) as an NPE, which asserted a portfolio of vehicle-computer, navigation, and multimedia system patents. Notably, the case was filed in the Southern District of California — not a plaintiff-friendly venue like the Eastern District of Texas.
Notable cases / context. The tracked matter, American Calcar, Inc. v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. et al. (S.D. Cal., No. 06-cv-02433), involved 15 asserted patents covering in-vehicle navigation, service-provider selection, and vehicle-diagnostic displays. It reached the Federal Circuit twice (651 F.3d 1318 (2011) and 768 F.3d 1185 (2014)), which affirmed that three Calcar patents were unenforceable due to inequitable conduct under the Therasense standard — a defense Honda pursued successfully. The litigation reflects Honda's role as a recurring target of automotive-software patent claims rather than an active patent aggressor.
IDT asserted the '563 Patent against Honda entities. The case was terminated.
ATI sued American Honda, Elesys, and GM in the District of Delaware asserting multiple patents including US 6,757,602. The court denied a motion to transfer to E.D. Mich. on Dec. 21, 2006; final disposition was not verified.
Related '355-family litigation in which the patents that went to trial and through final judgment were 6,330,497, 6,438,465, and 6,542,795, not 6,009,355 itself. The district court held those patents unenforceable for inequitable conduct for failure to disclose the 1996 Acura RL navigation system, and the Federal Circuit affirmed in American Calcar, Inc. v. American Honda Motor Co., 768 F.3d 1185 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
Neo Wireless sued American Honda Motor Co. and others in S.D. Ohio (2:22-cv-01824); the case was transferred into MDL 3034 as 2:22-cv-11403-TGB. It remained pending in the MDL, with the '512 patent asserted.
IDT's patent infringement action against American Honda Motor Co., Inc. et al., indexed to the '956 patent in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database. Status: closed.