Marathon Patent Group Announces Ruling in TLI Communications Patent Litigation

Marathon Patent Group, Inc. MARA ("Marathon"), a patent licensing company, announced today a ruling in its wholly-owned subsidiary TLI Communications LLC patent litigation. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis ruled, "ORDER, for the reasons stated in the accompanying memorandum opinion of even date, that defendants' consolidated motion to dismiss is GRANTED; that all of the remaining member cases are DISMISSED. In view of the result reached with respect defendants' consolidated motion to dismiss, it is unnecessary to reach or decide any of the disputed claim terms pursuant to Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc." "We intend to appeal this ruling at the Federal Circuit. In the interim, our German counterpart TLI Communications GmbH has already started asserting our patent rights in a jurisdiction that is not affected by the Supreme Court's decision in Alice," said Doug Croxall, Marathon's Founder and CEO. As announced Monday, Marathon's wholly-owned subsidiary TLI Communications GmbH filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple Inc., Apple Distribution International and Apple Retail Germany GmbH in the Regional Court of Munich in Germany. TLI Communications GmbH is asserting the German part of European patent 0 814 611 B1 against the defendants' iCloud service, as well as the defendants' iPhone and iPad devices, which include the "iCloud photo sharing" function. Croxall concluded, "While we have had numerous favorable rulings in recent months, our business model was founded on the understanding and expectation that there may be an adverse ruling from time to time. It's for that reason we have built a highly diversified asset base including both US and international patents that help serve to mitigate risk from a single specific ruling."