Untitled case

Case Overview and Background: IPR2025-01570

This case, IPR2025-01570, is an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenging the validity of U.S. Patent No. 10,788,690. The petitioner in this IPR is Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. (CIG USA), a Delaware corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, which manufactures fiber-optic communication products. The patent owner is Applied Optoelectronics Inc. (AOI), a vertically integrated provider of fiber-optic networking products for various markets, including internet data centers, cable television (CATV), telecommunications, and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). AOI designs and manufactures optical components, modules, and complete turn-key equipment, including optical transceivers crucial for high-speed data transmission in AI-driven hyperscale data centers.

U.S. Patent No. 10,788,690, titled "Optical isolator array for use in an optical subassembly module," describes an optical isolator array designed for integration into optical subassembly modules. The patent details a magnetic base on which a desired number of optical isolators, such as Faraday isolators, can be uniformly mounted along the same axis. These isolators may include an angled light-receiving surface to manage channel wavelengths from associated laser diodes. The technology generally aims to improve the structural integrity and performance of optical communication components.

The procedural posture of this case is an inter partes review before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, initiated on April 1, 2025. The case is currently in the "Instituted" status, meaning the PTAB has agreed to review the patentability of the challenged claims. This IPR is part of a broader legal dispute, as CIG USA filed petitions for IPRs against AOI patents that were asserted in an infringement action pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The PTAB provides a specialized forum for challenging patent validity, offering a potentially faster and less expensive alternative to district court litigation for resolving validity disputes. The outcome of this IPR could significantly impact the ongoing district court litigation, potentially invalidating AOI's asserted patent claims and influencing the competitive landscape in the fiber-optic networking product market.

I'll research the litigation timeline, the parallel PTAB proceedings, and any appeals.

Rich results. Let me dig deeper into the district court docket, the PTAB outcomes, and related cases.

Let me pin down the district court docket details, the PTAB institution/denial outcomes, and any appeal.

Key Legal Developments and Outcome — IPR2025-01570 / U.S. Patent 10,788,690 and the Underlying Litigation

Scope note. IPR2025-01570 is the PTAB docket named in the case metadata, but as the prior sections established, that proceeding was an Accelight Technologies joinder petition that the Board merged into the lead proceeding, IPR2025-00437 (CIG USA v. AOI, '690 patent). The "litigation" that matters for a chronology is therefore three-layered: (1) the flagship district court case AOI v. Cambridge Industries USA, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-01010-JD (N.D. Cal., Judge James Donato); (2) the PTAB IPR series on AOI's asserted patents; and (3) the Federal Circuit mandamus proceeding. I also note two companion AOI enforcement actions that the Board and the Federal Circuit treated as related proceedings.

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I. Chronology — District Court (N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-01010-JD)

Complaint/answer/counterclaims. I located the April 11, 2024 motion to dismiss and the amended complaint, but no answer, counterclaim, or amended answer on the retrieved docket excerpts. The Justia docket snapshot ends at April 2024 (Dkt. 18), and later entries (40, 41) are known only through the parties' PTAB exhibits. I therefore cannot confirm whether CIG USA answered or pleaded invalidity counterclaims, and I am not going to assert either way. (Note: CIG USA did serve invalidity contentions, at least in the Accelight case — see § III.)

Claim construction. The case never reached Markman: the April 10, 2025 hearing was vacated by the stay, and the Board recorded that "no dispositive judgment or claim construction orders have been issued" in either N.D. Cal. case. This is a strategically important point — the district court's claim construction inputs were never made, so the PTAB proceedings have been the sole vehicle for construing the '690 claims.

Discovery milestones of significance. The most significant discovery event with cross-proceeding effect was AOI's infringement contentions (served August 2024 in the CIG case), which CIG USA later weaponized in the IPRs — e.g., arguing to the Board that AOI's own contentions construed "substrate" broadly for infringement while AOI urged a narrow construction for validity in the IPR (the classic infringement/validity construction squeeze). In the Accelight case, AOI served infringement contentions 2025-04-15, which drove Accelight's invalidity contentions.

Present posture. The case remains stayed as of the most recent verified disclosure. CIG Shanghai's 2026-08-25 litigation disclosure to the Shenzhen exchange states the U.S. district court case is expected to stay stayed pending the IPRs and any appeal, and that no material adverse effect is presently expected. No verdict, judgment, settlement, or dismissal has been identified. Joint status reports are due on a 90-day cadence from 2025-07-07 (i.e., roughly Oct 2025, Jan 2026, Apr 2026, Jul 2026); I could not retrieve the contents of any of them.

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II. Parallel PTAB Proceedings and Their Effect on the Litigation

The CIG USA IPR series (all filed 2025-01-17)

Director's decision of 2025-06-27 (Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. v. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc., IPR2025-00434/-00436/-00437, Paper 10, Acting Under Secretary Coke Morgan Stewart): AOI's requests for discretionary denial were denied as to the '301, '024 and '690 proceedings (patents issued 2019–2020, "no strong settled expectations"; the parallel litigation had no scheduled trial date after the stay and the Markman hearing had been vacated), but discretionary denial was appropriate as to the '826 and '116 proceedings. The decision also rejected AOI's § 325(d) and "over-reliance on expert testimony" arguments. (Decision PDF via Gemini Law)

Institution of IPR2025-00437 (2025-08-26) — Panel: Administrative Patent Judges Weatherly (opinion author), Ullagaddi, and Ahmed. Challenged claims 1–19. Two grounds:

• Ground 1 — claims 1–10 anticipated under § 102 by Wang (CN 208421455U);
• Ground 2 — claims 11–19 obvious under § 103 over Wang in view of Xiong (U.S. Pat. No. 9,563,073).

AOI did not file a preliminary response on the merits. (Institution decision)

Final written decision (2026-07-27) — the pivotal outcome. A divided (2–1) panel held that CIG USA (and joined petitioner Accelight) failed to show that any of the challenged claims of the '690 patent are unpatentable. All challenged claims survived. The Board was unpersuaded by the Wang/Xiong combination as to claims 11–19 — notwithstanding Petitioner's argument that AOI "failed to address the obviousness of claims 11–19 in view of the combination of Wang with the admitted prior art disclosed in FIG. 1 of Xiong." Reported by Law360 (headline dated 2026-07-28) and summarized in the Inoreader/PTAB round-up: "Cambridge Industries USA Inc. v. Applied Optoelectronics Inc., P.T.A.B., IPR 2025-00437, 7/27/26."

Effect on the litigation. Pending the '690 IPR, Judge Donato froze the entire case. The FWD vindicated the '690 patent's claims rather than knocking them out, which removes the possibility that the stay would resolve the whole case through cancellation of the '690 claims — one of the eight asserted patents. CIG Shanghai's 2026-08-25 disclosure states the company plans to appeal the FWD and expects the district court case to remain stayed pending that appeal and the still-pending IPRs (see § III).

IPR2025-01570 (Accelight joinder) — the instant docket

• Accelight Technologies, Inc. filed a petition against the '690 patent together with a motion for joinder under 35 U.S.C. § 315(c) / 37 C.F.R. § 42.122(b), within one month of the 2025-08-26 institution of IPR2025-00437. The Board accorded the Accelight petition a filing date of 2025-09-25 — which is why the docket number falls late in the FY2025 series. Accelight stipulated that it would not file a separate IPR petition if joinder was granted, asserted no new grounds, and represented no impact on the existing schedule. Accelight was served in the Accelight district court case on 2024-12-18 and was therefore not time-barred under § 315(b). (Accelight joinder motion)
• Joinder was granted, and the Board's decision superseded the IPR2025-01570 schedule and directed all further filings into IPR2025-00437. That is confirmed by the July 27, 2026 FWD being captioned to both CIG USA and Accelight.
• Flagged metadata conflict (carried forward and sharpened): the case metadata's "filed 2025-04-01" is inconsistent with the Board's own record (Accelight petition accorded 2025-09-25), and "Instituted 2026-05-06" does not match the operative events (CIG petition instituted 2025-08-26; joinder granted thereafter and merged). I could not verify a 2026-05-06 event; it may correspond to the joinder decision itself. The status "Pending – Instituted" is stale: IPR2025-01570 was merged into IPR2025-00437, which terminated with a final written decision on 2026-07-27 and is now headed to the Federal Circuit.

Federal Circuit — In re Cambridge Industries USA, Inc., No. 2026-101

• 2025-10-10 — CIG USA (through Cozen O'Connor, Pisano and Worley) petitions for a writ of mandamus directing the PTO to reconsider its non-institution decisions in IPR2025-00433 and IPR2025-00435, challenging the Office's use of "settled expectations" (patent age) as a discretionary-denial factor. (Petition)
• 2025-12-09 — The Federal Circuit (Prost, Chen, Hughes) denies mandamus in a nonprecedential order: the Director's § 314(d) institution determination is final and non-appealable; CIG failed to show a clear and indisputable right to relief, an inadequate alternative remedy, or that the writ was appropriate. (Order 2026-101)
• Net effect: the '826 and '116 patents will not be reviewed by the PTAB, so they remain live assertions in the district court case.

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III. Companion AOI Enforcement Actions (treated as related proceedings by the Board)

AOI v. Accelight Technologies, Inc., No. 4:24-cv-09041-HSG (N.D. Cal., Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., Oakland) — complaint filed 2024-12-13 (announced 2024-12-17), asserting six patents ('826, '116, '367, '301, '024, '690) against ATI transceivers (100G QSFP LR4, 400G QSFP-DD SR8, 100G QSFP28 CWDM4, 400G QSFP-DD FR4, 400G QSFP-DD DR4); AOI sought damages and a permanent injunction.

• 2025-02-06 — Accelight moves to dismiss portions of the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) (Dkt. 16), attacking (a) infringement allegations for non-charted products, (b) pre-suit damages for failure to plead compliance with the marking statute, 35 U.S.C. § 287(a), and (c) any reassertion of DOE/indirect infringement.
• 2025-02-07 — Hearing re-noticed; argued 2025-03-27 (Dkts. 19–20).
• Ruling (2025; exact date not verified): the court declined to dismiss the marking-based attack, holding the defendant must first identify unmarked patented articles and that plaintiff need only plead pro forma compliance; the court also noted it "did not have an opportunity to consider the merits of Defendant's initial motion to dismiss," rendering that reliance misplaced. (CourtListener opinion)
• 2025-04-15 — AOI serves infringement contentions; Accelight's invalidity contentions followed ('116 claims 1–4, 10–13, 15–16; '301 claims 1–4; '690 claims 1–6, 8–15, 17–19; '826 claims 1–7; '367 claims 1–5; '024 claims 1–2, 5, 7, 10–12).
• 2025-04-22/23 — At the CMC the court indicated the case would proceed and entered a scheduling order: invalidity contentions 2025-05-30; claim construction hearing 2025-10-31 (with technical tutorial 2025-10-17). Outcome of that Markman not verified.
• Sept–Oct 2025 — Accelight files its own IPR petitions on AOI patents ('301, '116, '367, '826; notices of filing date accorded 2025-10-07 for one), supported by the declaration of Dr. Michael Lebby. AOI filed Requests for Director discretionary denial on 2025-12-04 ('301, '116), 2025-12-16 ('367), and by 2026-01-13 ('826). These are the "ongoing IPRs" referenced by CIG Shanghai in August 2026 — a PTAB-side development that shares patents with both the CIG and Accelight litigations.

AOI v. Eoptolink Technology USA Inc., No. 5:24-cv-08165 (N.D. Cal., Judge Noel Wise, San Jose) — filed 2024-11-19 on six different patents ('367, '433, '470, '818, '890, '887); Eoptolink's partial Rule 12(b)(6) motion argued 2025-04-30 on the same marking/non-charted-product theories. This is the "another case involving a third party" that the CIG Shanghai disclosure links to Accelight's ongoing IPRs.

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IV. Bottom Line — Outcome and Present Posture as of 2026-09-27

1. No merits adjudication in district court. AOI v. Cambridge Industries (3:24-cv-01010-JD) was filed 2024-02-20, the only dispositive motion filed (CIG's motion to dismiss, Dkt. 18) was mooted without a merits ruling when AOI amended, and the case was stayed in its entirety on 2025-04-04 (Dkt. 41) before any Markman ruling, dispositive motion, trial, or verdict. It remains stayed.
2. The PTAB phase produced a mixed but net AOI-favorable result. AOI defeated institution on the '826 and '116 patents via the Director's "settled expectations" discretionary denial (2025-06-27), and the Federal Circuit refused to disturb that (2025-12-09). AOI also won institution-stage denials on the '301 and '024 petitions (Jul–Aug 2025). The one instituted IPR — the '690 — went to AOI on the merits: the Board's 2–1 final written decision of 2026-07-27 held CIG USA/Accelight failed to prove any challenged claim unpatentable.
3. The next development is an appeal. CIG Shanghai's disclosure states CIG USA plans to appeal the IPR2025-00437 FWD to the Federal Circuit. I have not verified a filed notice of appeal as of today's date — treat "appeal filed" as unconfirmed; "appeal announced" as confirmed.
4. The stay is expected to persist. Because (a) the '690 IPR is on appeal and (b) Accelight's IPRs on other shared patents remain pending, the N.D. Cal. case is expected to remain stayed. The practical consequence is that the '690 patent is presently validated but unenforced, and AOI's eight-patent case remains in limbo roughly 2.5 years after filing, with the original June 8, 2026 trial date long since abandoned.

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V. Explicit Contradictions and Unverified Items (flagged, not asserted)

Key sources: PTAB IPR2025-00437 institution decision and related PTACTS filings (ptacts.uspto.gov); Acting Director's Decision Denying Discretionary Denial, IPR2025-00434/-00436/-00437 (2025-06-27) (geminilaw.com mirror); In re Cambridge Industries USA, Inc., No. 2026-101 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 9, 2025); CIG USA mandamus petition (2025-10-10); N.D. Cal. dockets 3:24-cv-01010-JD (Justia/RPX) and 4:24-cv-09041-HSG (Justia/CourtListener); Law360 IP/Telecom feed headline dated 2026-07-28 (FWD coverage); Shanghai Cambridge Technology Co., Ltd. Shenzhen-exchange litigation disclosures dated 2025-08-19, 2026-04-03 (2025 annual report) and 2026-08-25 (10jqka.com.cn; money.finance.sina.com.cn).

I'll research counsel for the party bringing this action — the petitioner, Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. (and the corresponding plaintiff-side alignment in the parallel district court case) — and cross-check against the docket.

I have strong leads. Let me pull the IPR2025-01570 docket and mandatory notices to identify the exact counsel of record for the petitioner.

Counsel of Record — Petitioner / Plaintiff-Side Party in IPR2025-01570

Threshold clarification (important): This proceeding's docket does not line up cleanly with the "plaintiff" label in the task prompt, and the metadata conflicts with the Board's own record in a way that changes the answer:

• In the IPR itself, the party occupying the plaintiff/petitioner role is Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. (CIG USA), with Accelight Technologies, Inc. as a joinder petitioner. AOI is the patent owner/respondent.
• In the underlying infringement action (Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. v. Cambridge Industries USA, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-01010-JD, N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 20, 2024), the plaintiff is AOI and CIG USA is the defendant. AOI's plaintiff-side counsel are the Weintraub Tobin attorneys already covered in the earlier "Defendant representatives" section — I do not repeat them here, but note the caption/role inversion.
• Flagged contradiction with case metadata: the metadata states IPR2025-01570 was filed 2025-04-01 and instituted 2026-05-06. The Board's Decision on Petitioner's Motion for Joinder in IPR2025-01570 states that the Accelight petition (filed with the joinder motion) was "accorded a filing date of September 25, 2025," and that the earlier CIG USA petition is IPR2025-00437, filed January 17, 2025 and instituted August 26, 2025. The joinder decision supersedes the IPR2025-01570 scheduling order and directs all further filings to be made in IPR2025-00437 (PTAB joinder decision, IPR2025-01570). The metadata's April 1, 2025 filing date and May 6, 2026 institution date could not be corroborated and should be treated as suspect.

Below I identify counsel for the petitioner-side parties (the functional "plaintiffs" in this IPR).

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A. Counsel of record for the petitioner in IPR2025-01570 proper — Accelight Technologies, Inc.

The Board's joinder decision identifies petitioner-side counsel as Perkins Coie LLP:

Source: PTAB, Decision — Petitioner's Motion for Joinder, IPR2025-01570 (listing "Arpita Bhattacharyya / Aaron E. Schindler, PERKINS COIE LLP" as a party's counsel), ptacts.uspto.gov. Note that because joinder was granted, the lead proceeding for this patent is now IPR2025-00437, and filings in IPR2025-01570 are superseded.

Caveat: the Board's decision does not label the Perkins Coie attorneys as "lead" or "backup" under 37 C.F.R. § 42.10(a); I have not located the IPR2025-01570 mandatory notice/power of attorney document itself, so the lead/backup designation is inferred from the order of listing. Flagging as not fully verified.

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B. Counsel of record for Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. (co-petitioner / petitioner of the joined IPR2025-00437)

Cozen O'Connor — all based in the firm's San Diego, CA office, now at 12255 El Camino Real, Suite 150, San Diego, CA 92130 (earlier filings list 501 W. Broadway, Suite 1610, San Diego, CA 92101):

Sources: Petitioner's Updated Power of Attorney, Jan. 7, 2026; In re Cambridge Industries USA, Inc., Fed. Cir. mandamus petition (Oct. 10, 2025); Cozen O'Connor press release (July 28, 2025); N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-01010 docket entries 15–17, 40.

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C. Related counsel noted on the docket (role not fully verified)

• Gerald G. Wong — submitted a declaration (Declaration of Gerald G. Wong, Dkt. 23-1, May 9, 2024) in support of CIG USA's motion to dismiss/12(c) motion in N.D. Cal. 3:24-cv-01010. Whether he is Cozen O'Connor counsel or CIG USA in-house personnel is not confirmed from the sources retrieved. Do not list him as counsel of record without a docket/firm check.
• No in-house counsel for either the petitioner or the patent owner has been identified in any retrieved filing.

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D. Consistency check against the earlier "Defendant representatives" section

The prior section identified AOI's counsel as Jo Dale Carothers and Eric A. Caligiuri of "Weintraub Genshlea Chediak Sproul," located in Sacramento. Two corrections are warranted:

1. The firm name used in the actual filings is Weintraub Tobin Chediak Coleman Grodin Law Corporation ("Weintraub Tobin"), and the service address on the pleadings is 475 Sansome Street, Suite 510, San Francisco, CA 94111 — not Sacramento. Sacramento may be where individual attorneys are based, but the office of record is San Francisco.
2. The same two attorneys are listed as Patent Owner's counsel in the IPR2025-01570 joinder decision (Weintraub Tobin, jcarothers@weintraub.com, ecaligiuri@weintraub.com) — consistent with the prior section, so that part holds.

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Summary

For the party that brought this challenge (the "plaintiff" side of IPR2025-01570):

• Accelight Technologies, Inc. (joinder petitioner in IPR2025-01570): Arpita Bhattacharyya and Aaron E. Schindler, Perkins Coie LLP (office not stated in the filing caption).
• Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. (petitioner of the joined lead proceeding, IPR2025-00437, and defendant/plaintiff-side counterpart in N.D. Cal.): Nicola A. Pisano (lead) and Regis C. Worley, Jr. (backup), Cozen O'Connor, San Diego; Scott A. Penner on the district court team.

What I could not verify and therefore am not asserting: the exact office locations for the Perkins Coie attorneys; the lead/backup PTAB designation for Perkins Coie; Jose L. Patino's appearance; Gerald G. Wong's employer/role; and the metadata's stated filing (2025-04-01) and institution (2026-05-06) dates for IPR2025-01570, which conflict with the Board's joinder decision.

I'll research the counsel of record, starting with the IPR itself and the parallel district court case.

Key finding already: the IPR's patent owner (AOI) is represented by Weintraub Tobin, and petitioner's counsel appears to be Eversheds Sutherland — which contradicts the prior section. Let me verify and also pull the district court docket.

I have strong conflicting data on petitioner's counsel. Let me verify the firm affiliations and pull more docket detail.

Counsel of Record — Defendant Side

Threshold flag: the metadata and the record point in opposite directions

The case metadata for IPR2025-01570 lists Applied Optoelectronics Inc. ("AOI") as the Defendant(s). That designation does not match the underlying record, and the mismatch appears to be an artifact of how this docket was labeled:

• In the underlying infringement action, AOI is the plaintiff and Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. ("CIG USA") is the defendant — Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. v. Cambridge Industries USA, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-01010-JD (N.D. Cal., San Francisco Div., Judge James Donato; complaint filed Feb. 20, 2024). See the parties' own caption in their "Notice to Court of Filing of Petitions for Inter Partes Review," reproduced in the '690 petition papers (PTAB petition file).
• In the IPR itself, CIG USA is the petitioner and AOI is the patent owner (i.e., the responding party).

Because the earlier "Plaintiff representatives" section already covered the petitioner side, this section profiles counsel for AOI (the party the metadata labels "Defendant") and, for completeness, counsel for CIG USA as the actual named defendant in the infringement case.

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1. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. — patent owner (IPR2025-01570) and plaintiff (3:24-cv-01010-JD)

These two names are taken directly from the "FOR PATENT OWNER" block of the IPR2025-01570 petition papers (Weintraub Tobin listed for Patent Owner) and from AOI's Mandatory Notices in the companion IPRs, which list Carothers as lead and Caligiuri as back-up with service to jcarothers@weintraub.com and ecaligiuri@weintraub.com (PTAB petition file).

In-house: AOI's executive disclosures have historically identified Dr. David C. Kuo as General Counsel / VP & Corporate Secretary, but the records I located are from ~2013–2015 and I could not verify his current status or any appearance in this matter. No AOI in-house attorney appears in the PTAB or district court papers I reviewed. Treat as unverified.

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2. Cambridge Industries USA, Inc. — named defendant in 3:24-cv-01010-JD (and petitioner in the IPR)

CIG USA appeared in the district court through Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP, San Diego (Dkts. 15–17, notices of appearance filed March 11, 2024; Rule 7.1 disclosure identifying parent CIG Shanghai Co., Ltd. at Dkt. 14) — Justia docket, 3:24-cv-01010. The same three lawyers signed CIG's Jan. 17, 2025 IPR petitions.

The Eversheds→Cozen move is documented in Law.com, July 28, 2025 ("Pisano joined Cozen O'Connor as a shareholder on July 23 from Eversheds Sutherland. Member Scott Penner… joined the firm Monday, while member Regis Worley will be joining the firm on Thursday").

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3. Cross-checks and explicit contradictions with the earlier sections

1. Prior section's firm attribution is time-dependent, not wrong. The earlier "Plaintiff representatives" section attributed petitioner's counsel (Worley and Pisano) to Cozen O'Connor. The IPR papers themselves list them at Eversheds Sutherland — e.g., the Jan. 17, 2025 counsel table (Pisano lead, Worley back-up, both at Eversheds Sutherland San Diego, PTAB petition file) and AOI's March 7, 2025 service block (same two names, same Eversheds address). Resolution: the names were right; the firm changed mid-proceeding. Any firm label for these three attorneys must be tied to a date — Eversheds Sutherland through ~July 2025, Cozen O'Connor thereafter.
2. Case number. The earlier sections use "5:24-cv-01010" (from AOI's Feb. 22, 2024 press release). The court docket and the parties' own filings use 3:24-cv-01010-JD. The "5:24" designation appears to be an error in the press release; the authoritative number is the 3:24 San Francisco case before Judge Donato.
3. No substitution papers located. I did not find a notice of substitution/withdrawal on the N.D. Cal. docket reflecting the July 2025 firm move, nor any new appearance since the April 4, 2025 stay. That is expected given the stay, but it means the current "of record" designations in the district court may still read Eversheds Sutherland. This is unverified — a PACER pull of the live docket sheet (post-July-2025 entries) would be needed to confirm. I could not retrieve a full PACER docket sheet (paywalled); my counsel list rests on the Justia docket entries (Dkts. 14–17) and the PTAB filings.
4. Posture conflict to verify separately. The earlier section states institution of IPR2025-01570 was granted May 6, 2026 and that a final written decision is pending. A Law360 headline dated July 28, 2026 reports a divided PTAB panel holding that CIG USA "failed to show that any challenged claims are invalid in an Applied Optoelectronics Inc. patent," and CIG Shanghai's disclosure to the Shenzhen exchange describes a July 27, 2026 final written decision (2–1 for AOI) with an appeal planned. If that FWD is the one in IPR2025-01570, the metadata's "Pending–Instituted" status is stale; if it belongs to a different '690-series or sibling IPR, the metadata stands. I could not resolve which IPR received that FWD — flagging rather than asserting.

4. What I could not confirm

• Whether Cozen O'Connor has formally appeared in 3:24-cv-01010-JD or in IPR2025-01570 (no substitution document surfaced).
• Whether any additional counsel (e.g., other Cozen IP litigators, or local counsel) has entered since the case was stayed; no such filing was found.
• Any sealed filings that might name counsel not otherwise disclosed — none identified, but PACER access was indirect.