Patent litigation attorney

Charles Everingham IV

46 tracked appearances — 37 plaintiff · 9 defendant.

Specialty & background

Charles "Chad" Everingham IV — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty and side. Everingham is an Eastern District of Texas patent litigator focused on infringement disputes involving wireless communications, consumer electronics, software, telecommunications, and automotive technology (e.g., Headwater's wireless device-management patents, Xifi/Innovative Display's Wi-Fi and display patents, RFCyber's mobile-payment patents, DivX video codecs). His tracked docket runs heavily to the plaintiff side — 36 of 45 appearances for patent owners, nearly all NPE/PAE plaintiffs (Headwater, DivX, Atlas Global, Innovative Display, RFCyber) — with 9 appearances defending operating companies (Samsung, IBM, Comcast, Hyundai, Dell, Verizon). Firm materials confirm he "represents plaintiffs and defendants in patent infringement cases" across consumer electronics, telecommunications, energy, hospitality, and software (Miller Fair Henry; Ward, Smith & Hill).

Firm context and background. Everingham is currently Of Counsel at Miller Fair Henry PLLC in Longview, Texas, and was previously a partner at Ward, Smith & Hill (the firm founded by Judge T. John Ward, for whom Everingham clerked for seven years) and at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Before private practice he served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Texas (2007–2011), handling 140+ Markman hearings and trying more than 20 complex patent cases; he was instrumental in developing that court's docket-control and discovery procedures. He began his career clerking for Judge Howell Cobb and as an associate at Brown McCarroll & Oaks.

Notable cases and IPR exposure. His highest-profile tracked matter is Headwater Research v. Samsung (defense side), in which an East Texas jury returned a $279 million verdict in April 2025 (one of Texas's ten largest verdicts of 2025 per the firm); the PTAB later invalidated claims in one of the two patents at issue (Law360, July 2025), and the parties settled in September 2025 (Reuters). He also appears in Headwater's settled suits against AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, in DivX v. TCL (E.D. Tex.), and in Cobblestone Wireless v. Cisco/HPE (E.D. Tex.), where a stay pending IPR was litigated. His IPR exposure is meaningful but mostly district-court-adjacent — e.g., the Parus Holdings v. Google W.D. Tex. litigation paired with IPR2022-00805, and PTAB invalidity rulings affecting his Headwater cases — rather than a heavy stand-alone IPR practice.

Recognition and credentials. Everingham has been ranked by Chambers USA for IP litigation since 2014 and was named Best Lawyers' 2026 Tyler-Longview "Lawyer of the Year" for patent litigation. He holds a B.A. from Stephen F. Austin State University (1989, cum laude) and a J.D. from Baylor Law School (1993, cum laude, highest-ranked in his class), and has been a Texas-barred litigator since 1993, admitted to the Fifth Circuit, Federal Circuit, and E.D. Tex.

Firms

Roles

  • local counsel14
  • Of Counsel11
  • of counsel8
  • of counsel, local counsel2
  • counsel2
  • attorney1
  • attorney for plaintiff1
  • Appearing Counsel1
  • Attorney1
  • Local Counsel1
  • lead counsel1
  • local counsel, of counsel1
  • counsel of record1

Cases (46)