This page tracks two suits by Malikie Innovations Ltd. and Key Patent Innovations Ltd.: Malikie Innovations Ltd. v. Antpool Technologies Limited, No. 7:26-cv-00371, and Malikie Innovations Ltd. v. ViaBTC Technology Limited, No. 7:26-cv-00372. Both complaints target mining-pool operations, wallets, and encrypted communications, both demand a jury, and both list Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP as counsel for the plaintiffs, with Cherry Johnson Siegmund James, PC as of counsel. The Antpool case is assigned to Judge David Counts.
Related matters and latest status
| Forum | Case / investigation | Last event | Next watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| W.D. Tex. Midland | Malikie et al. v. Antpool, No. 7:26-cv-00371 | Filed September 9, 2026 on four patents. Summons returned executed, docketed September 28. | Answers or early motions, including on jurisdiction, service, or transfer; any settlement or voluntary dismissal. |
| W.D. Tex. Midland | Malikie et al. v. ViaBTC, No. 7:26-cv-00372 | Filed September 9, 2026 on five patents. Summons returned executed, docketed September 18. | Answer or early motions, including on jurisdiction, service, or transfer; any settlement or voluntary dismissal. |
The Antpool complaint
The Antpool complaint names Antpool Technologies Limited and Antpool Technologies Pte. Ltd. and asserts U.S. Patent 8,788,827; U.S. Patent 8,532,286; U.S. Patent 8,712,039; and U.S. Patent 8,694,769. It alleges that Antpool mining-pool operations, related sites and apps, wallets, and transaction handling practice the asserted cryptography technology. It alleges that Malikie sent Antpool Pte. a notice letter with a license offer on August 1, 2025, followed by emails over the next seven months, and that Antpool never responded. It pleads notice of the '827, '286, and '039 patents since at least that date, although its '039 inducement allegation pleads knowledge only from the filing of the complaint, and it asks for a finding that infringement of those three patents was willful. For the '039 patent it pleads both direct infringement and inducement, and it names five pool members that, on information and belief, mine in the United States.
The ViaBTC complaint
The ViaBTC complaint names one defendant, ViaBTC Technology Limited. It alleges, on information and belief, that ViaBTC is a Hong Kong corporation that owns and operates the ViaBTC bitcoin mining pool and the viabtc.com website and publishes the ViaBTC mobile app. It describes Malikie as an Irish entity and successor in interest to a BlackBerry patent portfolio, and Key Patent Innovations as an Irish entity and the beneficiary of a trust under which Malikie owns, holds, and asserts the patents. In both cases, the plaintiffs' Rule 7 disclosure statement identifies New PP Licensing LLC as the corporate parent of Key Patent Innovations.
The complaint alleges that ViaBTC ranks third among bitcoin mining pools worldwide, that its average hashrate reached about 121.5 EH/s by June 2025, and that it mined 3,680 blocks, 13.88% of all blocks, in the first half of 2025. It says ViaBTC settles and pays out each day, distributing block rewards and transaction fees to members under PPS+, PPLNS, and SOLO payout methods, less its fee, and that ViaBTC launched its bitcoin pool in 2016.
What ViaBTC is accused of
The counts for the '827, '197, and '286 patents accuse hardware and software that comply with the Bitcoin protocol, such as bitcoin mining equipment and wallets. The supporting allegations, many made on information and belief, describe ViaBTC signing payout transactions to members with ECDSA over the secp256k1 curve, verifying signatures when its full nodes assemble candidate blocks, including by recovering the signer's public key, and mining with double SHA-256. For the '769 patent, the complaint accuses the pool servers, stratum servers, nodes, computers, and software that establish and secure links with miners. It alleges, on information and belief, that ViaBTC uses TLS to secure miner connections, pointing to the dedicated SSL addresses ViaBTC publishes, such as btc-ssl.viabtc.io:551. It also alleges, on information and belief, that ViaBTC secures links the same way on its other pools, including Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, ZCash, DASH, HNS, CKB, and KAS, and that several of those coins run client software derived from Bitcoin Core that calls the same secp256k1 library.
Each count relies on at least one claim and attaches an exemplary chart: claim 1 of the '827, '197, '286, and '039 patents, in Exhibits 6 through 9, and claim 13 of the '769 patent, in Exhibit 10. The '827, '197, '286, and '769 counts plead direct infringement. The '039 count is pleaded as inducement under 35 U.S.C. 271(b): it alleges, on information and belief, that pool members operating mining machines in the United States perform the claimed hashing method, and it alleges that ViaBTC encourages that use through mining guides and tutorials, published pool addresses and ports, stratum servers that assign work, hashrate monitoring, and payouts.
Exhibits 6 and 7 are the charts for the '827 and '197 patents. Both cite Bitcoin's message-signing standard, BIP 137, and the recoverable-signature functions of the secp256k1 library. The '827 chart points to recovering a public key from a signature. The '197 chart points to creating a recoverable signature and identifies its recovery ID, or recid, as the claimed indicator. It also cites source code from ViaWallet, a wallet app the chart attributes to ViaBTC Technology Limited and says was rebranded CoinEx Wallet on January 12, 2024. The charts for the '286, '039, and '769 patents are Exhibits 8 through 10.
Jurisdiction, notice, and relief
U.S. activity matters here for both infringement, which requires acts in the United States, and personal jurisdiction over a Hong Kong company, and the complaint pleads much of it on information and belief. It cites a published analysis reporting that ViaBTC's block-propagation software runs on Amazon Web Services IP ranges in different AWS regions, and alleges, on information and belief, that the AWS regions where ViaBTC deploys its stratum servers and nodes include one or more U.S. regions. It argues that pool economics point to U.S. servers, because shares that arrive late are rejected as stale. It also points to ViaBTC's app on the U.S. App Store and Google Play, U.S. mining partners listed on its site, including one in Texas, mining farms in Georgia, Kentucky, and North Carolina listed on its Mining Farms page, business development personnel in California, U.S. phone numbers for account verification, and exhibiting at conferences in Las Vegas, Miami, and Austin. The complaint pleads personal jurisdiction under the Texas long-arm statute and venue under 28 U.S.C. 1391(c)(3), which allows a defendant not resident in the United States to be sued in any district.
Each ViaBTC count pleads notice since at least the filing of the complaint. The prayer seeks damages for past infringement of all five patents; present and future damages, and an injunction or ongoing royalties, on the '286 and '039 patents only; enhanced damages under 35 U.S.C. 284; and a finding that the case is exceptional under 35 U.S.C. 285. The Antpool prayer also asks for a willfulness finding on the '827, '286, and '039 patents.
Docket activity so far
The ViaBTC docket shows a summons issued September 11 and a summons returned executed on September 18. In the Antpool case, summonses issued September 16 for both defendants, and a summons returned executed was docketed September 28. On September 10, the Antpool docket records a clerk's deficiency notice about the complaint's signature block and a corrected complaint filed as an attachment, and the ViaBTC docket shows a deficiency notice and an attachment the same day. The allegations summarized here are from the complaints filed September 9.
What the patents cover
U.S. Patent 8,788,827 concerns accelerated verification of digital signatures and public keys. U.S. Patent 8,806,197, asserted against ViaBTC but not Antpool, shares the '827 patent's title, specification, inventors, and priority claim; the complaint describes it as directed to generating a digital signature with an indicator that identifies which value recoverable from the first signature component is the ephemeral public key. U.S. Patent 8,532,286 concerns Montgomery-style reduction for cryptographic computation. U.S. Patent 8,694,769 concerns controlling encrypted data communications between a server and a client. U.S. Patent 8,712,039 concerns efficient implementation of a hash algorithm on a processor.
Patent status
The ViaBTC complaint alleges that the '827 and '197 patents expired on January 18, 2026, that the '769 patent expired on February 3, 2026, and that the '286 and '039 patents remain in force. Google Patents lists the same January 18, 2026 date for the '827 patent but adjusted expirations of May 4, 2026 for the '197 patent and May 2, 2026 for the '769 patent. Those differences bear on the length of any damages period.
The Official Gazette for March 10, 2026, lists requests for ex parte reexamination of the '827 patent, Control No. 90/015,818, requested December 22, 2025, and of the '286 patent, Control No. 90/015,830, requested January 5, 2026.
What to watch next
Watch for answers or early motions in both Midland cases, including any challenge to personal jurisdiction or service, any motion to transfer, and any response to the allegations that ViaBTC runs servers in the United States. Watch the two reexamination requests, any inter partes review petitions, and how the parties treat the three patents the ViaBTC complaint says have expired. Either case can also end at any point, for example through a settlement or the plaintiffs' voluntary dismissal.