Plaintiff
23 cases as plaintiff.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC (PET) is a Texas limited liability company formed in March 2015 and based at 903 E. 18th Street, Suite 224, Plano, Texas. It is a subsidiary of Koba Holdings, LLC, a Delaware entity. No public revenue or headcount figures are available; RPX reported in 2016 that PET's only employee and officer was Bradley D. Liddle, who served as CEO and corporate counsel. It is characterized as a non-practicing entity (NPE) by Stanford's NPE Litigation Database, Unified Patents, and RPX. PET is not public and has no disclosed parent other than Koba Holdings.
Operations. PET has no operating business, products, or services. Its sole activity is licensing and litigating a small acquired patent portfolio. USPTO records indicate it owned at least six patents, four of which originated at Intel; PET acquired four former Intel patents from H2 Partners LLC in March 2015. The asserted patents include U.S. 5,991,399 ("securely distributing data"/tamper-resistant key modules), 5,974,550 (remote security protocol using challenge-response authentication), and 6,587,858. Claims were directed at secure distribution of private keys and authentication between processes.
Litigation posture. PET is a one-way patent asserter: 23 tracked cases as plaintiff versus 10 as defendant. The defendant-side cases are declaratory-judgment actions brought by targets — Jack Henry & Associates, Fidelity National Information Services, Broadway National Bank, and The National Bank of Central Texas — a common defensive response to NPE demand letters. Filings cluster in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, with a second wave in 2016 against general consumer mobile-app operators.
Notable cases. The 2015 wave targeted banks and mobile-banking vendors (including Q2 Holdings, Independent Bank, American Bank of Texas); the 2016 wave named State Farm, J.C. Penney, Groupon, Match.com, Shutterfly, Best Buy, Etsy, and Alkami. State Farm petitioned for inter partes review of the '550 and '399 patents in 2017; the parties settled and dismissed without payment, after a summary judgment of non-infringement on the '550 patent. In early 2019 PET assigned four patents to Honeyman Cipher, a Delaware entity formed in October 2018, which continued the campaign.
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PET infringement action against Groupon, Inc.; dismissed for improper venue after TC Heartland, with noninfringement arguments mooted.
PET infringement action against Match.com, LLC (IAC) in the Eastern District of Texas, part of the campaign involving U.S. 5,974,550.
PET infringement action against State Farm in the Eastern District of Texas; the '550 patent was specifically identified in Count Two, asserting at least claim 20.
PET infringement action against J.C. Penney Company, Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas, part of the campaign involving U.S. 5,974,550.
PET infringement action against Shutterfly, Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas, part of the campaign involving U.S. 5,974,550.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Best Buy Co., Inc. The case was closed on August 25, 2017.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Etsy, Inc. The case was dismissed.
PET infringement action against Alkami Technology, Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas, part of the campaign involving U.S. 5,974,550.
PET infringement action against Guaranty Bank & Trust, N.A. in the Eastern District of Texas, part of the campaign involving U.S. 5,974,550.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Independent Bank. The case was dismissed by court order terminating claims between PET and Independent Bank.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Citizens National Bank for infringement. The case was dismissed, as were the majority of the bank cases, most with prejudice.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued American Bank of Texas, et al. The case was consolidated by order dated October 29, 2015, and subsequently dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC filed an infringement suit against an unidentified banking defendant. The case was dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Q2 Holdings. The case was dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Fidelity National Information Services (FNIS). The case was filed and later dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Alkami Technology. The case was consolidated with Groupon and dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Shutterfly. The case was dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued State Farm. The case was dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued JCPenney. The case was dismissed.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued Groupon. The case was dismissed for improper venue after Groupon's venue motion was granted following TC Heartland; non-infringement arguments were mooted.
Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC sued IAC / Match.com. The case was dismissed.
PET infringement action against Q2 Holdings, Inc. et al. in the Eastern District of Texas, part of the campaign involving U.S. 5,974,550.
PET infringement action against Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas, part of the campaign involving U.S. 5,974,550.