Untitled case

This patent infringement litigation, Case No. 2:25-cv-00534, is ongoing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The plaintiff is Atlas Global Technologies LLC, a patent assertion entity (PAE) and a subsidiary of the publicly traded Acacia Research Corporation. The defendant is Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE), a multinational enterprise information technology company that offers servers, storage, networking, converged systems, software, services, and cloud solutions.

The litigation asserts U.S. Patent No. 10,348,471, among others. This patent generally relates to memory module architecture and data buffering technology, which is critical for high-performance memory modules used in enterprise servers and data centers. The accused products are certain Wi-Fi 6-compliant devices offered by HPE.

The case is being heard in the Eastern District of Texas by Judge Rodney Gilstrap. This venue is historically significant for patent litigation due to its reputation for plaintiff-friendly procedural rules, accelerated trial schedules, and a high success rate for patent owners. While the Supreme Court's TC Heartland decision aimed to restrict patent venue, plaintiffs have employed strategies, such as suing foreign affiliates, to maintain venue in the EDTX. The case is notable as part of Acacia Research's broader strategy of asserting a portfolio of patents, including those acquired from NEWRACOM, against companies providing Wi-Fi 6-compliant devices. The ongoing nature of this litigation highlights the active landscape of patent enforcement by NPEs in the high-tech memory and wireless communication sectors.

Key Legal Developments and Outcome for Atlas Global Technologies LLC v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Case: Atlas Global Technologies LLC v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company
Case number: 2:25-cv-00534
Court: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
Status: Active
Patents at issue: 10348471

The patent infringement litigation, Atlas Global Technologies LLC v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Case No. 2:25-cv-00534, was filed in the Eastern District of Texas. The patent at issue in this case is U.S. Patent No. 10348471.

As of June 1, 2026, the case is active, and detailed docket information beyond initial filing records is not readily available through public web searches without direct PACER access. The provided search results offer a high-level overview of the case identification but do not delve into granular docket entries for specific motions, claim construction, discovery, or trial events.

Chronological Summary of Legal Developments:

• Filing & Initial Pleadings:

  • Complaint Filed: The case was filed on May 16, 2025, by Plaintiff Atlas Global Technologies LLC against Defendant Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company in the Eastern District of Texas. Further details regarding the specific allegations in the complaint, or the filing of an answer and counterclaims, are not publicly available through the performed searches.

• Pre-trial Motions of Substance:

  • Information on specific pre-trial motions such as motions to dismiss, transfer, or stay pending IPR, or any rulings thereon, is not publicly available from the conducted searches. Given the case's filing date of May 2025, it is likely that initial procedural motions have occurred or are underway.

• Claim Construction (Markman) Outcomes:

  • No information regarding a Markman hearing or claim construction order is publicly available. Given the case's age (just over one year since filing), it may not have reached this stage yet, or the orders are not publicly indexed in the searched databases.

• Discovery Milestones:

  • No specific discovery milestones or disputes with strategic significance are publicly available from the conducted searches.

• Trial Events, Verdict, and Post-trial Motions:

  • The case is still active and has not reached trial, verdict, or post-trial motions as of the current date.

• Settlement, Dismissal, Judgment, or Appeal:

  • The case is currently active and no final disposition (settlement, dismissal, or judgment) has been publicly reported.

• Parallel PTAB IPR/PGR Proceedings:

  • A search for U.S. Patent No. 10348471 in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) databases (P-TACTS and Decisions) did not yield any currently instituted or concluded IPR or PGR proceedings for this specific patent. Therefore, there is no known effect of parallel PTAB proceedings on this litigation at this time.

I'll research the plaintiff's counsel of record for this case.

Important finding — the docket shows the Nelson Bumgardner attorneys appearing for Atlas Global (plaintiff), not HPE. Let me verify this and identify all plaintiff counsel.

Let me pull the full docket sheet and the complaint's signature block.

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff Atlas Global Technologies LLC

Atlas Global Technologies LLC v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., No. 2:25-cv-00534-JRG (E.D. Tex.)

⚠️ Correction to a previously generated section first

The earlier "Defendant representatives" section is wrong on a material point. It lists Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC attorneys (Edward R. Nelson, III; Carder W. Brooks; Christopher G. Granaghan; Jinming Zhang; Janson Westmoreland) as counsel for HPE. They are plaintiff-side counsel for Atlas Global. The Justia docket text is explicit — each of Dkts. 5–8 reads "on behalf of Atlas Global Technologies LLC," and Edward Nelson is the filer (signature block) on Atlas's own papers (Dkt. 27 First Amended Complaint; Dkt. 34 opposition; Dkt. 36 sur-reply). PacerMonitor's party list also places Brooks, Zhang, Granaghan, Nelson, and Westmoreland under the Plaintiff's "Represented By" heading. The prior section appears to have relied on a jumbled PacerMonitor extraction. (PacerMonitor case page; Justia docket, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2025cv00534/[237998](/patent/237998).)

The HPE-side roster in that section is only partly right: Haltom & Doan (Jennifer Haltom Doan, Joshua Reed Thane, Haleigh Ann Hashem — Dkts. 10, 11, 26) and Winston & Strawn's Robert N. Kang (Dkt. 19; designated attorney in charge for HPE at Dkt. 37) are defendant counsel. The Nelson Bumgardner names should be moved to the plaintiff side.

Also flagging a second contradiction: the case overview describes the '471 patent as "memory module architecture." The complaint and the patent itself show it is U.S. Pat. No. 10,348,471, "Control Information for Multi-User Transmissions in WLAN Systems" — a Wi-Fi 6 (IEEE 802.11ax) HE-SIG-B resource-allocation patent, consistent with the Atlas/NEWRACOM WLAN portfolio. The "memory module" description is unsupported.

---

Plaintiff's counsel of record

Firm of record: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC (a/k/a Nelson Bumgardner PC), patent-litigation boutique with its principal office at 3131 W. 7th Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, TX 76107, and an additional office in Orland Park, Illinois (15020 S. Ravinia Ave., Suite 29). PacerMonitor lists the firm for plaintiff as "Nelson Bumgardner Conroy Pc – Fort Worth."

Corroborating source for the firm-level identification: the complaint-analysis record for this docket states "Plaintiff's Counsel: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC." (https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/2:25-cv-00534/doc/analysis/1; complaint PDF at https://ai-lab.exparte.com/documents/dct/[4572204](/patent/4572204)/2-25-cv-00534_txed_complaint_exparte.pdf.)

Firm-level experience datapoint (verified, but not specific to these individuals): Nelson Bumgardner Conroy P.C. served as Patent Owner's counsel in Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., IPR2023-00845 (U.S. Pat. 7,609,402), where Charles Austin Ginnings was lead counsel and Brent Bumgardner and Timothy E. Grochocinski were back-up counsel (Patent Owner's Power of Attorney, PTAB P-TACTS). I did not find a well-sourced, case-specific litigation résumé for Brooks, Westmoreland, Zhang, or Granaghan, so I am not attributing particular past matters to them.

What is not in the record (explicitly)

• No local counsel for plaintiff has appeared. Unlike HPE (which added Haltom & Doan of Texarkana as E.D. Tex. local counsel), the docket as retrieved shows no separate local-counsel firm or Tyler/Marshall-based attorney for Atlas. All plaintiff appearances are from the Fort Worth boutique.
• No appearance by Heim, Payne & Chorush LLP, Susman Godfrey LLP, or Miller Fair Henry — the firms that represented Atlas entities in the earlier Atlas Global v. TP-Link Wi-Fi litigation (the $37.48M Aug. 14, 2023 verdict, affirmed on appeal; see heimpc.com and millerfairhenry.com case listings). Those firms were not on this docket as retrieved. If they are involved here, they had not entered an appearance as of the last retrieved docket (Mar. 6, 2026).
• No in-house counsel appearance for Atlas. Atlas Global Technologies LLC is an Acacia Research Corporation subsidiary; no Acacia in-house attorney appears on the docket.
• Attorney admission / pro hac vice status for the Nelson Bumgardner attorneys is not shown in the docket text I could retrieve; treat as unverified.
• The docket was last retrieved March 6, 2026 on Justia, so later appearances (2026) may exist but are not reflected here. The most recent plaintiff-signed filing I can source is Dkt. 36 (Sept. 22, 2025); the last docket event retrieved is Dkt. 45, the Memorandum Opinion and Order of Mar. 6, 2026 granting HPE's motion to dismiss (Dkt. 33) on the parties' agreement that pre-suit indirect and willful infringement "do not exist" in the case — an outcome that materially narrows Atlas's claims but does not change counsel.

If you want, I can next verify via PACER/RPX whether Atlas has since substituted or added counsel (e.g., after the Mar. 2026 dismissal order) and whether any plaintiff attorney-in-charge designation was ever filed.

The following attorneys have appeared on behalf of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) in Atlas Global Technologies LLC v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Case No. 2:25-cv-00534, in the Eastern District of Texas:

Lead Counsel / Firm Counsel:

• Robert N. Kang
  • Firm: Winston & Strawn LLP.
  • Mr. Kang is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company in this case. Winston & Strawn has a notable intellectual property practice, frequently representing technology companies in patent litigation.
• Edward R. Nelson, III
  • Firm: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC, Fort Worth, TX.
  • Mr. Nelson is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. His firm, Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC, is known for its patent litigation work, particularly in the Eastern District of Texas.
• Carder W. Brooks
  • Firm: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC, Fort Worth, TX.
  • Mr. Brooks is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.
• Christopher G. Granaghan
  • Firm: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC, Fort Worth, TX.
  • Mr. Granaghan is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.
• Jinming Zhang
  • Firm: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC.
  • Mr. Zhang is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.
• Janson Westmoreland
  • Firm: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC.
  • Mr. Westmoreland is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.

Local Counsel:

• Jennifer Haltom Doan
  • Firm: Haltom & Doan.
  • Ms. Doan is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. Haltom & Doan is a prominent local counsel firm in the Eastern District of Texas for patent litigation.
• Joshua Reed Thane
  • Firm: Haltom & Doan.
  • Mr. Thane is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.
• Haleigh Ann Hashem
  • Firm: Haltom & Doan.
  • Ms. Hashem is listed as counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.

In-House Counsel (General IP Litigation Roles at HPE - specific appearance in this case not confirmed by search results but likely involved in strategy and outside counsel management):

While specific docket entries confirming their individual appearances in this particular case were not explicitly found in the provided search snippets, the following individuals hold significant in-house IP litigation roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and would likely be involved in managing the defense strategy:

• Brett Alten
  • Role: Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
  • Mr. Alten is responsible for all aspects of HPE's intellectual property strategy, including patent portfolio development, monetization, and litigation. He has prior experience at Tesla, Dropbox, and Apple, as well as firms like Morrison & Foerster LLP and Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP.
• Grant Ritz
  • Role: Director and AGC for IP Transactions at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
  • Mr. Ritz manages a team of patent attorneys supporting IP-intensive transactions and has held various roles at HP/HPE involving patent development, transactions, disputes, and IP litigation.
• Angela Johnson
  • Role: IP Litigation Counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
  • Ms. Johnson focuses on patent litigation and collaborates with joint defense groups.
• Abigail Yull
  • Role: Litigation Counsel (New Attorney Program Class of 2018) at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
  • Ms. Yull works on a variety of matters, including patent disputes.