Facts

Plaintiff Twitter Inc. sued defendant VoIP-Pal.com Inc. for a declaration of non-infringement and invalidity of U.S. Patent No. 10,218,606 ('606). VoIP-Pal owns a portfolio of patents relating to Internet Protocol-based communication. In a series of cases in 2016, 2018 and 2020, VoIP filed suit against Twitter, Apple, AT&T and Verizon for infringement of certain patents which shared a common specification, title, parent application, inventors and owners with the '606 patent in this case. VoIP filed a motion to dismiss which granted Twitter a covenant not to sue for infringement of any claim of the '606 patent.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS: Twitter contended that the the '606 patent is invalid and the covenant is insufficient to divest the court of subject matter jurisdiction.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS: VoIP contended that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because VoIP granted Twitter a covenant not to sue.

Result

The court granted defendant VoIP's motion to dismiss and agreed with VoIP that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction in the instant case based on its covenant not to sue.