Security First Innovations LLC (SFI) is a privately held entity based in Ashburn, Virginia. It was formed in July 2022, with Leo Guthart as its organizer, and acquired a patent portfolio from Security First Corporation in August 2022. Security First Corporation, established in the early 2000s, developed innovative data security solutions. SFI does not publicly disclose its employee count or revenue.
SFI operates as a non-practicing entity (NPE) that commercializes intellectual property focused on data security. The underlying technology, originally developed by Security First Corporation, includes a multi-layered data security system combining data splitting and encryption. This technology provided end-to-end solutions for various applications, including cloud networks, and was previously licensed to companies like Unisys and IBM. The patents SFI asserts relate to systems for securely storing and retrieving data by cryptographically splitting data into "shares" and distributing them across multiple storage devices.
Security First Innovations LLC's patent litigation posture is that of an NPE asserting its acquired portfolio. While the company appears as a defendant in the two tracked cases at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), these are inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed by other entities challenging SFI's patents. For instance, Unified Patents, an organization known for challenging NPE patents, is a petitioner in one of the tracked PTAB cases. SFI is actively a plaintiff in district court litigation, having launched its "sole litigation campaign" against Google (Alphabet) in March 2023, and subsequently suing IBM in March 2025, both in the Eastern District of Virginia.
The two tracked PTAB cases are International Business Machines Corporation v. Security First Innovations LLC (filed 2025-07-09) and Unified Patents PTAB Data v. Security First Innovations LLC. These IPRs directly challenge the validity of patents asserted by SFI in its district court cases. Specifically, IBM's PTAB petitions challenge patents such as US9135456B2 and US8904194, which SFI has accused IBM of infringing through its Cloud Object Storage system and related products. SFI's organizer, Leo Guthart, is associated with Topspin Partners, an affiliate of Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund, suggesting potential litigation funding for its patent assertion activities.