Plaintiff
3 cases as plaintiff.
Company overview. WhatsApp LLC is the legal entity behind WhatsApp, the messaging and calling service founded in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton. It has been a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) since Facebook's acquisition in February 2014, reported at roughly $19 billion. Corporate addresses are listed in Menlo Park, California (1 Meta Way / 1601 Willow Road); the EEA-facing operations run through WhatsApp Ireland Limited in Dublin. Meta does not break out WhatsApp's standalone headcount or revenue. Meta disclosed that WhatsApp passed 3 billion monthly active users in its Q1 2025 earnings.
Products / services. WhatsApp operates a free, ad-free consumer messaging and voice/video calling app with end-to-end encryption, available on mobile and web. Business offerings include the WhatsApp Business app for small merchants and the WhatsApp Business Platform (an API for enterprises and developers, monetized through paid template/business messages), which Meta said reached roughly a $2 billion annual business-messaging run rate by late 2025. Other features include in-app payments in selected markets and Meta AI integration. WhatsApp also operates as a platform-level service rather than a hardware or component manufacturer.
Patent-litigation posture. The tracked data shows one appearance, as plaintiff/petitioner and zero as defendant. That single appearance reflects participation in Meta's defensive PTAB filings rather than patent assertion: WhatsApp LLC is named as a real party in interest in inter partes reviews seeking to invalidate patents held by a third-party patent holder. On the record here, WhatsApp is an operating company on the defense side, not an active two-way litigant or an NPE.
Notable cases. Meta Platforms, Inc. et al. v. VL Collective IP LLC (PTAB, filed May 2023) — WhatsApp LLC joins Meta Platforms, Instagram, Meta Platforms Technologies, and Giphy as petitioners. The associated reviews include IPR2023-00923 (U.S. 7,266,682) and IPR2023-00924 (U.S. 7,436,980, "graphical object models for detection and tracking"). The patent owner, VL Collective IP LLC, is an entity of VideoLabs, Inc. (parent VL IP Holdings LLC), a licensing/assertion operation. The reviews parallel VideoLabs, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-00680 (D. Del., filed May 24, 2022).
Sources: Meta Q1 2025 earnings coverage; Crunchbase/PitchBook company profiles; PTAB and Federal Circuit filings in IPR2023-00923/-00924; Unified Patents and Stanford NPE database entries on VL Collective IP/VideoLabs.
Watchlist
Email-only, free, anonymous. We'll notify you when WhatsApp LLC files another patent-infringement lawsuit. One-click unsubscribe from any alert.
Inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 7,266,682. The Board granted institution and issued a final written decision holding all challenged claims unpatentable; an IPR certificate issued August 18, 2025.
Meta entities petitioned for inter partes review of U.S. 7,436,980 B2. The PTAB instituted review on Dec. 6, 2023, and issued a Final Written Decision on Dec. 5, 2024 holding the challenged claims unpatentable; the proceeding was terminated and appealed to the Federal Circuit.
Facebook filed an inter partes review challenging claims 1, 4-6, 8, 9, and 12-14 of U.S. Patent No. 8,677,250. The Board instituted review on November 14, 2019, and issued a final written decision on November 12, 2020, finding that the petitioner had not shown the challenged claims unpatentable.