Defendant
2 cases as defendant.
Brother International Corporation (BIC) is the Americas arm of Brother Industries, Ltd. (BIL), headquartered at 200 Crossing Boulevard, Bridgewater, New Jersey. BIC was established in 1954 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of BIL, founded in 1908 in Nagoya, Japan, and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (ticker 6448) and Nagoya Exchange. BIL reported FY2026 (ended March 2026) revenue of roughly ¥893 billion (about $6 billion) with approximately 39,500–42,800 employees worldwide; market capitalization has been reported near $7 billion. BIC itself is private, with U.S. operations of roughly 2,000+ employees per third-party directories (unverified by the company).
Products / operations. Brother manufactures and sells printers, multifunction print/copy/scan devices, label makers, scanners, sewing and embroidery machines, and machine tools. BIC handles sales, marketing, customer and technical support, engineering support, assembly, refurbishment, and warehousing for Brother home, office, mobile, and industrial products across the Americas, with U.S. facilities in New Jersey, Illinois, and Tennessee (Bartlett). A sister entity, Brother Industries (U.S.A.), Inc., operates an OEM products facility in Bartlett, Tennessee. BIC also provides mobile and cloud printing solutions (AirPrint, Mopria Print, Brother iPrint&Scan, Web Connect).
Patent-litigation posture. Brother is an operating company and pure defendant in the tracked data: 0 cases as plaintiff, 1 as defendant, in W.D. Tenn. Its single tracked suit, Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Brother Industries (U.S.A.), Inc. et al. (filed April 2022, W.D. Tenn.), was brought by Flexiworld, which Unified Patents and Stanford's NPE Litigation Database characterize as a non-practicing entity (originally a failed startup turned licensor). The venue was Tennessee, not a plaintiff-friendly Texas district, because Flexiworld asserted venue based on Brother's Bartlett, Tennessee distribution and support operations.
Context. Flexiworld asserted wireless/driverless printing and content-transfer patents against multiple printer OEMs. The Brother action was part of four coordinated W.D. Tenn. cases (Nos. 2:22-cv-02236, -02237, -02250, -02251), all terminated by a consent judgment on March 13, 2023. Flexiworld has also sued Roku, LG, and Hisense; Unified Patents has challenged several Flexiworld patents at the PTAB and USPTO. Terms of the Brother resolution are not public.
Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. sued Brother Industries (U.S.A.), Inc. and Brother International Corp. in the Western District of Tennessee. The Stanford NPE Litigation Database lists the case as involving US 11,096,056. The outcome was not retrieved.
Fleet Connect Solutions LLC asserted the '153 patent against Brother Industries, Ltd. and Brother International Corp. in E.D. Tex. The First Amended Complaint pleaded Count II for the '153 patent, with service of P.I.C.s on 2024-05-15. Status: dismissed/settled per portfolio pattern.