Defendant
3 cases as defendant.
Wildseed Mobile LLC is a private, New York-based patent-holding company (c/o Michael Jemal, 1356 Broadway, New York, NY). It is a non-practicing entity: the Stanford NPE Litigation Database categorizes it as a "Non Practicing Entity" asserting "acquired patents," and it has no products, employees, or operations of its own. No revenue or headcount figures are publicly reported, and none are applicable to its shell structure.
The entity is the current owner of patents originally developed by Wildseed Ltd., a venture-funded mobile-software startup founded in Kirkland, Washington in June 2000 by Microsoft veteran Eric Engstrom and acquired by AOL in August 2005. That company made the SmartSkin swappable-cover phone accessory and a Linux-based mobile OS. The patent portfolio migrated from Wildseed Ltd. through Varia Mobil LLC / Varia Holdings LLC before being transferred to Wildseed Mobile LLC in 2021; RPX has noted that the new owner appears to have received third-party litigation funding shared with other recent plaintiffs.
Litigation posture: Wildseed Mobile is an NPE asserting an acquired portfolio — 1 tracked case as plaintiff, 1 as defendant. Its sole district-court suit, Wildseed Mobile LLC v. Google LLC et al., was filed December 1, 2021 in the Western District of Texas (Waco Division), a plaintiff-friendly venue, then transferred to the Northern District of California. Google answered with inter partes review petitions at the PTAB, producing Wildseed's single defendant-side case (Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile, LLC, IPR2023-00245/46/47).
Notable cases: The Waco suit accused Google and YouTube of infringing five patents (Nos. 7,376,414; 9,141,960; 10,251,021; 10,959,040; 10,869,169) covering mobile targeted advertising, venue/event recommendations, and hot links. The district court dismissed three patents as ineligible under § 101, and the PTAB found claims of the '414 and '169 patents obvious. The Federal Circuit affirmed in April 2026 (No. 24-1846) and vacated/remanded in part in February 2026 (No. 24-2178). Related NPE suits by sister entities (Varia Holdings, Smart Skins) have also asserted former Wildseed patents against Apple, Samsung, RIM, and Microsoft.
Google petitioned for inter partes review of claims 1-7 and 9-14 of the '414 patent. The PTAB instituted review and issued a Final Written Decision finding all challenged claims unpatentable as obvious over Frerichs, Kawasaki, and Kauffman; the decision was affirmed on appeal.
Google petitioned for inter partes review of the '040 patent, and the PTAB found the challenged claims unpatentable as obvious, with a partial dissent. The Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's obviousness determination. YouTube, LLC was identified as a real party in interest.
Google and YouTube petitioned for inter partes review of the '021 patent. A Final Written Decision issued, and an inter partes review certificate (K1) was issued on August 19, 2024. Secondary sources indicate the challenged claims were found unpatentable as obvious, though the exact claim-level outcome was not verified from the Final Written Decision text.