Defendant
4 cases as defendant.
Company overview. Walmart Apollo, LLC is a Delaware-registered limited liability company headquartered at Walmart Inc.'s campus at 702 S.W. 8th Street, Bentonville, Arkansas. It is the intellectual-property holding company of Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT), the world's largest retailer, which reported roughly $681 billion in revenue for fiscal 2025 and employs about 2.1 million people globally. Walmart Apollo holds and manages Walmart's patent and trademark assets; its registered marks include brands such as ONN, Member's Mark, and Athletic Works.
Products / services / operations. Walmart Apollo is not an operating company with retail operations — it exists to own, license, and enforce Walmart's IP. Its portfolio spans thousands of patent families (PatSnap lists roughly 8,000+ applications/families) covering Walmart-developed technology such as mobile self-checkout, automated retail supply-chain and inventory systems, and other retail-technology inventions assigned from Walmart and Sam's West, Inc. It also owns insurance-related subsidiaries (e.g., Walmart Insurance Services), per Arkansas news reports citing court filings. As an IP-holding arm of an operating parent, it should not be confused with a third-party patent-assertion entity.
Patent-litigation posture. Walmart Apollo is an active plaintiff: of its three tracked matters, it appears twice as plaintiff and once as defendant. Its sole litigation campaign is enforcement of Sam's Club mobile-checkout patents against warehouse-club competitor BJ's Wholesale Club, filed in the Middle District of Florida (Orlando Division) — a plaintiff-friendly district, though not Eastern District of Texas. Its single defendant appearance is at the PTAB, where BJ's petitioned for inter partes review of the asserted patents — the defensive posture of a patent owner whose portfolio is under challenge.
Notable cases. The core matter is Sam's West, Inc. et al. v. BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. (6:22-cv-00587, M.D. Fla., filed March 2022), asserting U.S. Patent Nos. 10,803,435, 10,121,133, 10,368,187, and 10,368,188 covering mobile self-checkout and services-management technology, targeting BJ's Express Pay mobile app. BJ's filed five IPRs (IPR2022-01471 et seq.); the PTAB found the '435 patent's challenged claims unpatentable while upholding the '187/'188 claims, with appeals before the Federal Circuit (docketed June 2024).
BJ's petitioned for inter partes review of the '435 patent. The PTAB instituted review and issued a final written decision on April 11, 2024, addressing claims 15-19 and finding prior art anticipation/obviousness. Walmart appealed, and the Federal Circuit affirmed.
Inter partes review petitioned by BJ's Wholesale Club challenging all 19 claims of U.S. Patent No. 10,368,188. The PTAB issued a Final Written Decision on April 3, 2024, finding the challenged claims of the '188 patent not unpatentable, and an IPR certificate was issued on July 5, 2024.
BJ's petitioned for inter partes review of the '187 patent. The PTAB instituted review on April 12, 2023, and issued a Final Written Decision on April 4, 2024, not finding the challenged claims unpatentable; an IPR certificate issued July 5, 2024. No Federal Circuit appeal of this IPR decision was identified.
IPR petition challenging claims 1-6 of US Patent 10,121,133. The PTAB denied institution on April 12, 2023, so the proceeding was terminated without a merits review.