SAN FRANCISCO — A Delaware federal judge on Thursday tossed out extortion claims against a company that has styled itself as a defensive patent aggregator but which others have tagged as a so-called PTAB troll. Ruling from the bench, Judge Leonard Stark granted a motion to dismiss the suit and didn’t issue his reasoning. The plaintiff, a non-practicing entity called Chinook Licensing, claimed in its rackeetering suit that Iron Dome had threatened to file an inter partes review against one of Chinook’s patents unless Chinook would settle.
After about an hour of arguments Thursday, Stark dismissed the suit. The judge determined that Iron Dome’s letter was a settlement offer rather than a threat, and that in any event a threat of litigation cannot constitute extortion, according to Iron Dome’s attorney, David Finger of Delaware firm Finger & Slanina.
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