Christopher M. Joe

Professional Summary: Christopher M. Joe

Date: 2026-05-01

Christopher M. Joe is a founding member of the Dallas-based intellectual property boutique Buether Joe & Counselors, LLC. His practice focuses on patent infringement litigation, exclusively representing plaintiffs. The authoritative case list shows Mr. Joe has recently represented patent-holding companies in asserting their portfolios against operating companies in federal courts. His litigation work has involved technologies in the software, e-commerce, and telecommunications sectors.

Mr. Joe's practice consistently involves representing patent assertion entities. For instance, he represented Monticello Enterprises, LLC, described as a non-practicing entity (NPE), in a case against Starbucks concerning mobile payment patents. That litigation was consolidated with a larger campaign in the Western District of Texas. One of the patents asserted in the broader Monticello campaign was later found to have all its challenged claims finally rejected in an ex parte reexamination by the USPTO. Mr. Joe also appears as local counsel for Authentixx LLC, an entity that has filed a number of infringement suits related to web authentication technology.

A notable outcome in Mr. Joe's recent work is the case RFC Lenders of Texas, LLC v. Samsara Inc. (The case proceeded against Smart Chemical Solutions, LLC). As lead counsel for RFC Lenders, Mr. Joe appealed a district court's dismissal of the suit to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The district court had ruled the patent, which covered a system for monitoring vehicle usage, was ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In April 2026, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's finding that the patent claims were directed to an abstract idea without an inventive concept. In a separate matter in February 2026, Mr. Joe and other attorneys at his firm were sanctioned by a federal judge in Kansas for submitting briefs containing AI-generated, nonexistent legal citations in Lexos Media IP, LLC v. Overstock.com, Inc.

Admitted to the Texas bar in 1993, Mr. Joe holds a J.D. from Southern Methodist University School of Law (1993) and an A.B. from Duke University (1990). Prior to establishing his own firm, his career included positions as a partner at Greenberg Traurig and Godwin Gruber, LLP, and as a senior associate at McKool Smith, P.C. No record of direct appearances before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in inter partes review proceedings was found in publicly available sources.