Uniloc filed suit in June, asserting two patents against Akamai. In September, Akamai discovered that Uniloc had been assigned the two patents from IBM, with IBM reserving a license and a right to grant sublicenses to strategic partners. Uniloc conceded that Akamai is one such strategic partner, but nevertheless sought to dismiss the case without prejudice, maintaining that its suit is viable because Akamai had not asserted that it had received a license from IBM. Judge Sorokin agreed that the case should be dismissed, finding that the assignment agreement designates Akamai as a third party beneficiary that Uniloc is bound to indemnify against infringement suits. He dismissed the case with prejudice pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(B), however, because a prior iteration of Uniloc had already voluntarily dismissed identical claims against Akamai in 2017.
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