Azure Networks LLC is a privately held Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Longview, Texas (related filings list Marshall, TX). It has no public securities, and no public source discloses its founding date, employee count, or revenue. A Taiwanese industry news report (STPI/iKnow) identifies Kevin J. Zilka, a former Texas Instruments IP attorney, as its CEO; Unified Patents' and Stanford's NPE databases classify it by "acquired patents."
Operations. Azure Networks has no discernible operating business — it does not make or sell products. It is a patent-holding and licensing entity whose portfolio was acquired from BBN Technologies (the inventions of Robert J. Donaghey, assigned to BBN in 2007) and covers personal-area-network technology: hub-and-peripheral wireless attachment/detachment, hub-generated device identifiers and MAC addressing. Asserted patents include U.S. 7,756,129 and 8,675,590 ("Personal Area Network with Automatic Attachment and Detachment"), 8,582,570/571, 8,708,815 and 8,732,361 ("Personal Area Network Apparatus"), and 8,683,092/8,732,347 ("Automatic Attachment and Detachment for Hub and Peripheral Devices"). Targets have been wireless-USB, Bluetooth and WLAN chipset makers and device OEMs.
Litigation posture. Azure is a pure plaintiff-side NPE: 1 plaintiff case and 0 defendant cases in our tracked data — and that lone case, Azure Networks LLC et al. v. Texas Instruments Incorporated et al. (6:10-cv-00681, E.D. Tex., Tyler Division, filed 2010-12-22), is representative. Independent databases (Stanford NPE Litigation Database, RPX) show a wider campaign in the same venue against TI, NXP, Freescale, Atmel, Microchip, CSR, Atheros, Broadcom, Marvell, Qualcomm, Ralink, Samsung, LG, HP, ASUS and HTC; RPX-style data place a large 2015 filing wave at roughly 38 defendants. Azure typically sued jointly with Tri-County Excelsior Foundation (TCEF), a nonprofit formed by CASA of Harrison County, to which Azure donated patents in 2010 and then took back an exclusive license.
Notable context. In Azure Networks, LLC v. CSR PLC (Fed. Cir. Nov. 6, 2014), the Federal Circuit affirmed that TCEF lacked standing because it had transferred all substantial rights to Azure, vacating a non-infringement judgment on claim-construction grounds; the Supreme Court later remanded in light of Teva.