Untitled case

I'll research this case and the parties before drafting.

Good foundational data. Now let me verify the petitioner, the settlement, and the parallel district court litigation.

Now let me verify the district court proceedings, the settlement announcement, and the broader IPR campaign.

Case Overview — IPR2015-00753 (Sony Corp. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, U.S. Patent 7,537,370)

Parties and their roles. Despite the case metadata listing "Defendant(s): Innovative Display Technologies LLC," the procedural caption for this proceeding is Sony Corporation v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, an inter partes review filed at the PTAB on February 17, 2015 challenging U.S. Patent No. 7,537,370. To be precise about the parties: Sony Corporation is the petitioner (an operating company — consumer electronics, Xperia smartphones, VAIO laptops, Cyber-shot cameras), and Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") is the patent owner/respondent. IDT is not an operating company; it is a Texas LLC headquartered at 2400 Dallas Parkway, Plano, Texas, and a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTG), a self-described "industry leader in patent licensing." IDT's co-plaintiff in the related district court suit, Delaware Display Group LLC ("DDG"), is another Acacia subsidiary. The asserted patents did not originate with Acacia: inventor Jeffery R. Parker developed the light-emitting-panel technology (originally associated with Solid State Opto), the portfolio was transferred to Rambus in 2009, and Acacia acquired the rights in March 2013, assigning the seven "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" patents to IDT (assignment recorded July 26, 2013) and the '196 patent to DDG (December 20, 2013). That Acacia-paid-for, litigation-ready posture makes IDT/DDG a textbook patent assertion entity (PAE/NPE) structure.

Accused technology and patents. The '370 patent is titled "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" and claims an edge-lit backlight for LCDs: a transparent "optical panel member" (light guide) receiving light at an input edge, with patterns of "light extracting deformities" — projections or depressions — on one or both sides that vary along the panel's length/width to produce a predetermined output distribution, optionally with an overlying film/sheet/substrate and, in claims 27/47, a "transition region" between the input edge and the deformities containing optical elements. It issued May 26, 2009, names Parker as sole inventor, and shares a common ancestor (U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,751) with the rest of the family, giving the family an earliest priority of June 27, 1995. The '370 patent was asserted alongside six sibling IDT patents ('547, '194, '177, '660, '974, '816) and DDG's '196 patent. The district court complaint (D. Del.) accused Sony broadly of "display products that use the fundamental technologies covered by the patents-in-suit" — laptops, desktops, tablets, monitors, TVs, phones, cameras — and identified three exemplars: the Xperia TL phone, the VAIO SVE11135CXW laptop, and the Cyber-shot DSC-W620 camera, alleged to infringe under §§ 271(a) and (b) via thin, high-output, low-power LCD backlights.

Procedural posture and venue. The underlying infringement action was Delaware Display Group LLC and Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Sony Corporation, Sony Corporation of America, Sony Electronics Inc., and Sony Mobile Communications (USA) Inc., No. 1:13-cv-02111 (D. Del., filed Dec. 31, 2013), assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews with Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge referred (per RPX Insight). Delaware mattered: multiple Sony entities are Delaware corporations, DDG is a Delaware LLC, and pre-TC Heartland Delaware was a plaintiff-friendly, defense-crowded forum — while IDT's parallel asserts ran in the Eastern District of Texas, where a related Markman opinion in No. 13-cv-00522 (submitted by Sony as Ex. 1015) and infringement contentions in 13-cv-02111 (Ex. 1016) drove the IPR drafting. Sony's petition challenged claims 1, 3-6, 8, 9, 11-13, 15, 27, 29, and 47 on anticipation and obviousness grounds built on Japanese prior art (Suzuki JP H03-189679 and JP H04-278922, Pristash, Nagatani, and others), asserting the '370 claims were anticipated or obvious in view of thin surface-light-source devices with embossed/dot light-extracting patterns on both faces. Sony filed this as part of a coordinated February 17, 2015 batch of seven IPRs against the IDT/DDG patents (the IPR2015-00745–00757 series). IDT filed its Patent Owner Preliminary Response on May 27, 2015 (Paper 7). The parties then settled: a Joint Motion to Terminate and a Joint Request to treat the agreement as business confidential were filed August 11, 2015 (Papers 9–10), and the Board entered a Judgment terminating the proceeding on August 12, 2015 (Paper 11) — before any institution decision, so no § 315(e) estoppel attached to Sony and no § 42.73(d)(3) estoppel to IDT. Acacia publicly announced the Settlement and Patent License Agreement with Sony on August 13, 2015, resolving the Delaware litigation.

Why it is notable. (1) IPR-as-leverage, then global license. This is a clean example of the mid-2010s pattern in which a defendant/operating company files a defensive IPR barrage against an NPE's patents and converts it into a portfolio-wide settlement license; the joint motion expressly states the agreement "ends all patent disputes between the parties." (2) Scale of the Acacia/IDT campaign. IDT began asserting this family in June 2013 and by April 2014 had filed roughly 30 cases against most major smartphone, tablet, PC, camera, navigation, and automotive-display makers (Sony, LG, HTC, Lenovo, Amazon, VIZIO, Pantech, Apple, Google, Acer, BlackBerry, Dell, HP, Nokia, BMW, Garmin, TomTom, Canon, Nikon, MiTAC, and carriers including AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile), asserting a family that has expanded to hundreds of INPADOC documents. (3) The '370 patent's IPR outcomes were mixed, and the patent expired mid-fight. In LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, IPR2014-01096 (joined with IPR2015-00493, LG Electronics), the Board's Final Written Decision of December 18, 2015 held claims 15 and 27 unpatentable under § 103(a); in K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, IPR2015-01867 (filed Sept. 11, 2015, joined with IPR2016-00194), the Board's Final Written Decision of March 9, 2017 held that Pretech had not shown claims 29 and 47 unpatentable. The LG decision also notes the '370 patent expired in June 2015 (20 years from the June 27, 1995 priority), which mooted prospective relief and triggered a Phillips-vs-BRI claim-construction fight in that IPR. Notably, the claims Sony challenged in IPR2015-00753 were never adjudicated, because the settlement preempted institution. The '370 PTAB record also includes IPR2016-00914, another '370 proceeding terminated in March 2017, though I could not verify its petitioner from the sources retrieved.

Sourcing caveats. The petitioner/patent-owner identification, Feb. 17, 2015 filing date, challenged claims, and grounds come from the IPR2015-00753 docket materials and petition summaries (Patexia/Docket Alarm/Ex Parte mirrors of PTAB Papers 2, 7, 9, 10, 11); the termination-before-institution fact is confirmed in the IPR2014-01096 Final Written Decision. The settlement/license is confirmed by Acacia's August 13, 2015 press release (BusinessWire). I could not verify Sony's and IDT's litigation counsel for this IPR from the retrieved sources, and I did not confirm the exact docket-closing date for 1:13-cv-02111 (RPX lists September 2015; another aggregator lists July 2016 — treat the closure date as uncertain). Entity descriptions (Acacia's NPE status, Plano headquarters, the Solid State Opto → Rambus → Acacia chain) rest on RPX reporting and the Delaware complaint; the original-assignee field for the family on Unified Patents' portal lists Rambus Inc. with current assignee Innovative Display Technologies LLC.

I'll research this case across PTAB, district court, and Federal Circuit sources.

Innovative Display Technologies / U.S. Patent 7,537,370 — Chronology of Legal Developments

Framing note before the chronology. The case in the prompt (IPR2015-00753) is not a district‑court infringement action — it is an inter partes review at the PTAB, styled Sony Corporation v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC. The prompt's "Defendant(s): Innovative Display Technologies LLC" is therefore a category error in the metadata: IDT is the Patent Owner (respondent), and Sony is the Petitioner. The "settlement" referenced in the metadata is confirmed by the PTAB docket (a joint motion to terminate filed 2015‑08‑11). Because your question asks about the underlying patent infringement litigation on the '370 patent, I've covered both the PTAB track and the parallel district‑court campaign that gave rise to it. Where a fact is not verifiable from the sources I could reach, I say so explicitly rather than filling the gap.

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1. The patent and the ownership chain (background)

• U.S. 7,537,370, "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies," issued 2009‑05‑26, inventor Jeffery R. Parker; earliest priority 1995‑06‑27 (common ancestor; the Display Patents share a written description and figures). The patent claims a light‑guide/panel member with a pattern of "light extracting deformities" on one or both sides, deformities of different type on opposite sides, and (in claims 29/47) a "transition region."
• Ownership chain: Lumitex → Solid State Opto Ltd. (Mang‑Shiang Lee) → Rambus → Acacia Research Group LLC → Innovative Display Technologies LLC (IDT). Rambus transferred the portfolio to Acacia in March 2013. IDT is an Acacia subsidiary and a classic NPE/PAE. (RPX Insight, 2014‑01‑09; Stanford NPE database.)

2. Filing and initial pleadings — the district‑court campaign (2013)

• 2013‑06‑28: IDT opens its campaign in the E.D. Tex., Marshall Division, asserting seven patents — 6,755,547; 7,300,194; 7,384,177; 7,404,660; 7,434,974; 7,537,370; 8,215,816 (the "Display Patents") — against Dell, HP, Acer, Huawei, ZTE, BlackBerry/RIM. Complaint alleged willful infringement based on an August 2012 notice letter, and sought enhanced damages, fees, and injunctive relief.
• 2013‑12‑31: Acacia's second sub, Delaware Display Group LLC, together with IDT, filed seven D. Del. actions (1:13‑cv‑02106 through 1:13‑cv‑02112) against Amazon, HTC, Lenovo, LG, Pantech, Sony, and VIZIO, adding DDG‑owned 7,914,196. The Sony case is Delaware Display Group LLC et al. v. Sony Corp., No. 1:13‑cv‑02111 (D. Del.) — this is the district‑court vehicle in which the '370 patent was asserted against Sony, and IDT's infringement contentions from that case became an exhibit (Ex. 1016) in Sony's later IPR. (RPX Insight, 2014‑01‑09; Patexia docket list for IPR2015‑00753.)
• 2013–2015: The campaign expanded to roughly 30 cases, reaching Apple, Google, Nokia, Canon, American Honda, Mercedes‑Benz, and General Motors, and Sony Computer Entertainment America (Display Technologies LLC v. SCEA, 2:15‑cv‑00997, E.D. Tex., filed 2015‑06‑08). The patents were also asserted against the auto industry separately (the '563 and '956 "Auto Patents").
• Answers/counterclaims: I could not verify the specific answers or invalidity counterclaims filed in the 2:13‑cv‑00522 lead case or in the D. Del. Sony case from available sources. What is documented is that the defendants mounted a coordinated multi‑defendant defense, including a motion to strike IDT's expert declaration (granted — see below).

3. Claim construction (Markman) — the pivotal merits event

Lead case: Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Acer Inc., et al., No. 2:13‑cv‑00522‑JRG (E.D. Tex.), consolidated lead case; defendants Acer, Huawei (three entities), Microsoft, BlackBerry (two entities), Dell, and HP.

• 2014‑05‑05: P.R. 4‑3 Joint Claim Construction and Prehearing Statement (Dkt. 61) — stipulated constructions, incl. "deformities" = "any change in the shape or geometry of a surface and/or coating or surface treatment that causes a portion of the light to be emitted."
• 2014‑05‑08: Defendants' responsive claim construction brief (Dkt. 75).
• 2014‑07‑11: Court grants defendants' motion to strike the expert declaration of Kenneth I. Werner (Dkt. 85) — strategically significant, because the court then construed the terms without any extrinsic expert testimony.
• 2014‑07‑30: Markman hearing before Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne.
• 2014‑08‑26: Claim Construction Memorandum and Order (Dkt. 101), reported at the Justia/vLex dockets.

Key constructions (all largely favorable to IDT except one):

The single invalidity holding hit the '547 patent, not the '370. The '370 came out of Markman essentially intact, with claimant‑favorable constructions on "pattern of deformities," "air gap," "different type," and "transition region."

• A second Markman order issued 2015‑05‑04 in a related E.D. Tex. consolidated case, No. 2:14‑cv‑00201‑JRG (Dkt. 244), covering the six Display Patents plus the two Auto Patents ('563, '956). I could not confirm the full caption of that case from available sources; it appears to be the automotive consolidated action.

4. Discovery milestones of strategic significance

• 2014‑06‑16: IDT's expert declaration (Werner) filed with its opening claim construction brief; struck 2014‑07‑11 — the defense's most consequential pretrial discovery win, effectively disarming IDT's extrinsic-evidence case.
• Complaint pleading record: IDT's complaints were narrative, "information and belief" pleadings with no claim charts attached (e.g., the D. Del. 1:13‑cv‑02111 complaint, which named exemplary Sony products — Xperia TL phone, VAIO SVE11135CXW laptop, Cyber‑shot DSC‑W620 camera). Infringement contentions under the local patent rules (served in the 2:13‑cv‑00522 track) became a key exhibit both in district court and at the PTAB (Sony Ex. 1016; Pretech Ex. 1012).
• PTAB discovery: In IPR2015‑01867 the record includes Patent Owner Response, Petitioner Reply, expert depositions, and a hearing transcript; IDT's expert in that matter was Kenneth I. Werner (Ex. 1026 in the Pretech record).

5. Parallel PTAB proceedings on U.S. 7,537,370

This patent was hit by four separate IPR families, which is the single most important fact about the litigation as a whole:

Related Pretech IPRs on sibling patents: IPR2015‑01866 ('816) and IPR2015‑01868 ('974), all heard together at a single oral hearing in Detroit on 2017‑01‑10 (Judges Giannetti, Quinn, Bunting); petitioner counsel Robert G. Pluta / Saqib Siddiqui (Mayer Brown) for Pretech, Blair Silver and Jason Lo (Gibson Dunn) for VIZIO, Eric Klein (Vinson & Elkins) for Lenovo; patent‑owner counsel Jeffrey R. Bragalone and Justin B. Kimble (Bragalone Conroy). At that hearing, counsel noted that VIZIO and Lenovo had district‑court trials "imminent … within the next month or so" on the '816 and '974 patents — i.e., early 2017 trials in the IDT campaign.

Net effect on the '370: the patent survived, but in shrunken form. Claims 15 and 27 were cancelled by the LG FWD (2015‑12‑18); claims 29 and 47 survived the Pretech/VIZIO challenge (2017). Claims 1, 13, etc., were never instituted on and remained in force — subject only to the E.D. Tex. Markman constructions.

6. The IPR in the prompt — IPR2015‑00753, in detail

Sony Corporation v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, Patent 7,537,370, Panel: APJs Beverly M. Bunting, Lora M. Green, Michelle N. Wormmeester.

• 2015‑02‑17 — Petition filed; challenged claims 1, 3‑6, 8, 9, 11‑13, 15, 27, 29, 47. Grounds included:
  • Ground 1: anticipation by Suzuki '679 (JP H03‑189679) under §102(b);
  • Ground 2: obviousness over Suzuki '679 in view of Pristash (U.S. 5,005,108);
  • Ground 3: anticipation by Suzuki '922 (JP H04‑278922);
  • plus additional §103 grounds built on Mino (JP H06‑242731), JP H05‑69732, JP H06‑230378, Ciupke (5,461,547), Takeuchi (5,944,405), Ando (5,808,784).
  • Exhibits included the E.D. Tex. Markman opinion from 13‑cv‑00522 (Ex. 1015) and IDT's infringement contentions from 13‑cv‑02111 (Ex. 1016) — direct evidence that Sony filed this IPR as a litigation defense tool against the D. Del. Sony case.
• 2015‑02‑27 — Notice of Filing Date Accorded to Petition (Paper 4).
• 2015‑03‑10 — Power of Attorney and Mandatory Notices / Related Matters (Papers 5‑6).
• 2015‑05‑27 — Patent Owner's Preliminary Response (Paper 7) with Exhibits 2001‑2002.
• 2015‑08‑11 — Joint Motion to Terminate Proceedings (Paper 9) and Joint Request to Treat the Settlement Agreement as Business Confidential Information (Paper 10) — signs of a global Sony/IDT settlement.
• 2015‑08‑12 — Judgment (Paper 11), closing the proceeding. Status/outcome is recorded as "Institution Denied" / terminated; no final written decision on the merits and no institution decision issued. This is the "terminated by settlement" event in the Google Patents family entry underlying the case metadata.

7. Later developments and present posture

• 2015‑12‑18 — LG Display/LG Electronics FWD cancels claims 15 and 27 of the '370.
• 2017‑01‑10 — consolidated PTAB hearing (Pretech/VIZIO) for the '370, '974, '816.
• ~2017‑03‑09 — FWD in IPR2015‑01867 / IPR2016‑00914 / IPR2016‑00914 termination paperwork: claims 29 and 47 upheld.
• District‑court dispositions: IDT's campaign wound down through a series of settlements and dismissals rather than jury verdicts on the '370. The Sony matters were resolved by the settlement that produced the 2015‑08‑12 PTAB termination. I could not verify from available sources the exact dismissal entries, any damages award, or a final judgment on the '370, and I found no Federal Circuit appeal of the '370 IPR decisions or of the E.D. Tex. Markman order. Treat "no appeal" as an absence of evidence, not verified evidence of absence.
• No JMOL / new‑trial / fee motion on the '370 is documented in the sources I reached. The only trial activity I can confirm in this family is the early‑2017 VIZIO and Lenovo trials on the '816 and '974 patents (per the 2017‑01‑10 hearing transcript), not the '370.

8. Bottom line

The '370 patent's story is not a single infringement case but a campaign plus four IPR families. The district‑court phase (E.D. Tex. 2:13‑cv‑00522 lead case; D. Del. 1:13‑cv‑02111) produced one substantive merits ruling — the 2014‑08‑26 Markman order, which was overwhelmingly pro‑IDT on the '370 but invalidated '547 claim 1 as indefinite and struck IDT's expert declaration. The PTAB phase did what the district courts did not: it trimmed the '370 (claims 15, 27 cancelled in the LG FWD of 2015‑12‑18) while preserving claims 29 and 47 (Pretech/VIZIO FWD, 2017). The prompt's case, IPR2015‑00753, ended without ever reaching the merits — Sony and IDT settled, and the Board entered judgment 2015‑08‑12.

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Sourcing / confidence caveats

• High confidence: the IPR2015‑00753 docket sequence and petitioner identity (Patexia docket and Ex Parte PTAB case page); the Markman order and its holdings (full text via Justia/vLex, Dkt. 101, 2:13‑cv‑00522‑JRG, 2014‑08‑26); the LG FWD holding claims 15/27 unpatentable (FWD text, entered 2015‑12‑18, IPR2014‑01096, joined with IPR2015‑00493); the Pretech FWD holding claims 29/47 not unpatentable (FWD text, joined with IPR2016‑00194 and IPR2016‑00914); the 2017‑01‑10 consolidated hearing and counsel identifications.
• Moderate confidence: the exact D. Del. case‑number mapping for Sony (1:13‑cv‑02111) is supported by the exhibit reference but I did not read the docket itself; the caption/case number 2:14‑cv‑00201‑JRG for the second Markman is taken from the opinion header page but the full case caption was not visible in the excerpt.
• Not verified (do not treat as fact): specific answer/counterclaim filings and dates; specific settlement/dismissal entry dates in each district‑court case; any trial verdict, damages award, JMOL, new‑trial, or fee ruling on the '370; any Federal Circuit appeal of the '370. Attorneys listed above are drawn from the 2017 PTAB hearing transcript only and should not be extended to other cases without checking.

I'll search across multiple angles for press coverage of this IPR, the '370 patent campaign, and the Sony/IDT settlement.

Press and analyst coverage — what actually exists, and what does not

Direct coverage of IPR2015‑00753 itself: essentially none. Searching by caption (Sony Corporation v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC), by patent number (7,537,370), and by party names, I found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, IPWatchdog, Patently‑O, JD Supra, Ars Technica, The Verge, or EFF Deeplinks article reporting on this specific inter partes review, its February 2015 filing, its May 2015 patent‑owner preliminary response, or its August 12, 2015 termination. That is consistent with the record already established in this case file: the proceeding was one of seven co‑filed Sony IPRs that died on a joint motion before any institution decision, and PTAB terminations-before-institution of that kind in 2015 rarely generated standalone trade-press stories. I am reporting the absence rather than filling it with adjacent commentary.

The settlement was reported, but only as a corporate announcement. BusinessWire carried Acacia Research Corporation's press release on 2015‑08‑13 stating that "its Innovative Display Technologies LLC and Delaware Display Group LLC subsidiaries entered into a settlement and patent license agreement with Sony Corporation," and that "[t]he agreement resolves litigation that was pending in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware." That is the extent of the substantive reporting: the release discloses no financial terms, no per‑unit royalty, no lump sum, and no field‑of‑use scope, and it does not mention the PTAB proceedings at all — the seven IPRs, including IPR2015‑00753, are absent from the announcement. The same text was redistributed with no added reporting by Benzinga on 2015‑08‑13 and by IP Frontline via CIPLaws on 2015‑08‑18. None of these outlets characterized the deal's value or its effect on Acacia's ACTG guidance; the Acacia 8‑K/earnings commentary that would supply a number did not surface in my searches, so the settlement amount is unreported in the sources I could reach and should be treated as unknown.

The critical/advocacy coverage focused on the campaign, not the Sony case. The most substantial independent press treatment of the underlying assertion campaign is Techdirt's 2014‑08‑12 "Know Your Troll" column, headlined "Innovative Display Technologies Targeting Any Company That Creates A Product With An LCD Screen." Techdirt described IDT as an entity with "no products or even… its own website" holding "a handful of weaponized patents its parent company, Acacia, acquired from 'we're not a patent troll' Rambus," and reported that IDT's targets included "cell phone distributors like Verizon, AT&T and Apple," plus "auto manufacturers (Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Mazda), camera companies (Canon, Nikon) and GPS suppliers (TomTom, Garmin)." It put the campaign at "34 cases in litigation," noted one license "already secured… from Garmin," and reported that IDT's second suit against Apple asked for "nearly $6 billion in 'accrued royalties.'" Techdirt also quoted Acacia's Marvin Key defending the model — "The implication is when someone is sued, whether a small or big company, that every single one of those cases is frivolous, abusive and without merit. And that's simply untrue" — which is the one on‑the‑record executive statement from the patent owner's side that I located in the press.

Where press accounts diverge from the court record — flag these explicitly. Three discrepancies matter for anyone relying on the coverage. First, Techdirt identifies the plaintiff as "Innovative Technologies, LLC of Austin, Texas" and gives its address as "1701 Directors Blvd Ste 300, Austin, TX" — but the actual complaint in No. 1:13‑cv‑02111 (as reproduced in the PTAB exhibits) names Innovative Display Technologies LLC, "a Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business located at 2400 Dallas Parkway, Suite 200, Plano, Texas 75093," and separately names Delaware Display Group LLC at the same Plano address. Techdirt conflated IDT with a differently named Acacia subsidiary and misstated its location, so its entity description should not be carried into the case record. Second, Techdirt's "34 cases" figure conflicts with its own subsidiary table, which lists "INNOVATIVE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES LLC – 37"; treat the precise count as unreliable. Third, and most important for this case: no press account I found connects the Sony settlement to the IPR docket at all, so the press record supplies only the corporate-announcement framing ("resolves litigation… in the District of Delaware") and is silent on the PTAB side of the resolution — the joint motion's statement that the agreement "ends all patent disputes between the parties," and the resulting absence of any § 315(e) estoppel against Sony, are documented in the PTAB papers described earlier in this file, not in any news article. For the merits developments on the '370 — the August 26, 2014 E.D. Tex. Markman order, the December 18, 2015 LG Display final written decision cancelling claims 15 and 27, and the March 2017 Pretech/VIZIO decision upholding claims 29 and 47 — I found no press reporting whatsoever; those facts rest entirely on the opinions themselves. Chinese-language trade coverage from Taiwan's STPI did report the June 28, 2013 opening round of the campaign (the Dell, HP, Acer, Huawei, ZTE, and BlackBerry suits and the seven-patent family with its Lumitex → Solid State Opto → Rambus → Acacia chain), but it predates the Sony IPR and does not discuss it.

Bottom line on the press record: this is a case with a thin press footprint — one corporate press release plus syndication, one advocacy column about the broader campaign, and a foreign trade note on the filing wave. No outlet reported on IPR2015‑00753 as a proceeding, no outlet reported any settlement figure, and no outlet reported the PTAB merits outcomes on the '370. If a damages or license-value number is needed, it cannot be sourced to press coverage on this record.

Sources

• UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D
• Filed on behalf of Delaware Display Group LLC By: Justin B
• Acacia Research Settles and Signs Licensing Agreement with Sony
• acacia – Techdirt
• innovative technologies – Techdirt
• lcd screen – Techdirt
• Dykema Gossett PLLC IPR 10/2014 - Present LakeSouth Holdings, LLC v
• 發光面板組件專利訴訟，Innovative Display Technologies 控告Dell等6間公司 - ︿Top
• Complaint analysis | 2:16-cv-00932 | Innovative Display Tech LLC v. LG Display Co Ltd | Ex Parte
• IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
• Complaint analysis | 1:13-cv-02111 | Delaware Display Group LLC v. Sony Corp | Ex Parte
• 105. Upon information and belief, since at least the above-mentioned date when IDT formally placed Pantech on notice of its infr...

I'll research the plaintiff-side counsel — Innovative Display Technologies LLC and Delaware Display Group LLC — across both the IPR and the underlying district court cases.

Strong data on the district court side. Now let me pin down the IPR2015-00753-specific counsel and the in-house counsel identified in the opinions.

Let me confirm the IPR2015-00753-specific filings and the Delaware local counsel details.

Counsel of Record for the Plaintiff(s) — IDT and DDG

Framing note (same correction as the prior section). The case in the metadata, IPR2015‑00753, is an inter partes review. In that proceeding Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") is the Patent Owner, not a plaintiff, and Sony Corporation is the petitioner. The only way the question makes sense is against the underlying patent infringement action, Delaware Display Group LLC and Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Sony Corporation, Sony Corporation of America, Sony Electronics Inc., and Sony Mobile Communications (USA) Inc., No. 1:13‑cv‑02111‑RGA (D. Del., filed Dec. 31, 2013). There, the plaintiffs are Delaware Display Group LLC ("DDG") and Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") — the same two Acacia entities named as Patent Owner in the parallel IPR family. The counsel below are the plaintiff-side attorneys, i.e., IDT/DDG's team in the D. Del. action and the corresponding Patent Owner team in the PTAB proceedings. (This is the mirror image of the prior "Defendant representatives" section, which addressed Sony's side.)

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A. Lead litigation counsel — Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Dallas, TX)

Firm address used throughout: Chase Tower, 2200 Ross Avenue, Suite 4500‑W, Dallas, Texas 75201.

B. Delaware local counsel — Farnan LLP (Wilmington, DE)

Note: Joseph J. Farnan, Jr. appears as plaintiffs' counsel on the docket sheet (11/21/2015 exhibit version, U.S. District Court, D. Del., Civil Docket for 1:13‑cv‑02109), while Brian E. Farnan and Michael J. Farnan appear on the briefs in the related Sony/LG/Pantech/Vizio cluster. Treat the Farnan‑firm identity as firm; the individual assignments shifted over 2014–2016.

C. In-house / entity counsel

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What is confirmed vs. not

Well supported by primary/opinion sources:

• The IDT/DDG plaintiff team = Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Dallas) as lead, Farnan LLP (Wilmington) as Delaware local counsel — this pairing is documented in Plaintiffs' Responsive Brief to Defendants' Motion to Stay Pending Inter Partes Review (Apr. 22, 2015) in the 1:13‑cv‑02109 through 0212 cluster, in the D. Del. docket sheets, and in the PTAB mandatory‑notice filings across the IDT/DDG IPR family.
• Justin B. Kimble of Bragalone Conroy signed on behalf of the Patent Owner in the Sony IPR batch that includes IPR2015‑00753 (Joint Request to Treat Agreement as Business Confidential, filed Aug. 11, 2015, referencing Exhibit 1032 in IPR2015‑00753).

Not directly verified / caveats:

• I could not retrieve the text of IPR2015‑00753's own Paper 5 (Power of Attorney) or Paper 7 (Patent Owner Preliminary Response) signature blocks. The Bragalone Conroy/Kimble appearance is inferred from the co‑filed joint papers in the same batch and from the identical attorney designations IDT/DDG used in every parallel '370‑family IPR. There is a minor contradiction to flag: the prior "Case overview" section characterized Papers 5–6 (Mar. 10, 2015) as petitioner‑side filings, but sibling filings show IDT/DDG filed their own updated mandatory notices dated Mar. 10, 2015 (e.g., DDG's IPR2015‑00757 mandatory notices dated March 10, 2015, signed by Bragalone Conroy). The party label on the aggregator for IPR2015‑00753 Paper 5 is "potential_," which is ambiguous; I would resolve it against PTAB E2E rather than rely on the aggregator.
• Firm‑name caveat: Bragalone Conroy's predecessor names (Bragalone Conroy P.C. / Shore Chan DePumpo LLP) appear across the IDT/DDG matters; in the specific 2015 D. Del. filings the signature block is "Bragalone Conroy P.C." I did not verify whether any Shore Chan attorney signed in the Sony D. Del. case itself, so I would not attribute Shore Chan to IPR2015‑00753 or to 1:13‑cv‑02111 without pulling the signature blocks.
• No Law360, Reuters Legal, or firm‑website source separately naming counsel for IPR2015‑00753 itself surfaced; the identifications above rest on the filed papers and the district‑court opinion/docket records cited.

Fastest confirmations if you need them clean: PTAB E2E / P‑TACTS for U.S. 7,537,370 → IPR2015‑00753 Papers 5 and 7 (signature blocks); and PACER → D. Del. 1:13‑cv‑02111 docket sheet for the plaintiffs' counsel‑of‑record entries.

I'll research counsel on both sides — the IPR petitioner (Sony) and the patent owner/respondent (IDT) — plus the underlying Delaware litigation, given the metadata's ambiguous "defendant" label.

Let me pull the case docket page and look for the papers that list counsel.

The joint motion PDF may have signature blocks. Let me look for the power of attorney, the POPR, and the docket-alarm document list, plus firm-specific searches.

Counsel of record in IPR2015-00753 (and the underlying litigation) — what the record supports

A threshold clarification first, because it changes the answer. An inter partes review has no "defendants." The adversarial parties are the petitioner (Sony Corporation) and the patent owner/respondent (Innovative Display Technologies LLC, "IDT"). The metadata in this case file labels IDT as "Defendant(s)," which is a district‑court framing carried over from the underlying infringement suit — Delaware Display Group LLC and Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Sony Corporation et al., No. 1:13‑cv‑02111 (D. Del.) — where the Sony entities were the defendants and IDT/DDG were the plaintiffs. So "counsel representing the defendant(s)" most likely means Sony's counsel, but I am reporting on both sides so the section is usable either way.

Bottom line: I could not verify any attorney of record by name from the sources I was able to retrieve

The IPR2015‑00753 docket establishes that counsel appeared and where their names are recorded, but the full text of the two papers that carry the signature blocks/configurations did not come back in my searches. Per the docket (Patexia mirror of the PTAB papers, case page):

I was able to retrieve the body of the joint motion (filed in the lead case IPR2015‑00745 and covering IPR2015‑00753) via Docket Alarm (Doc 10, 08‑11‑2015 Joint Motion to Terminate). It confirms the caption (Sony Corporation, Petitioner, v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, Patent Owner), the seven‑IPR batch structure, and the § 317(a) estoppel language, but the retrieved text stops before the "/s/" signature lines where the attorneys' names and firms appear.

Because I will not invent names, I am giving you zero confirmed attorneys rather than a fabricated list. Below are (a) the unverified leads the public record points toward, clearly flagged, and (b) the exact documents and free sources that will yield confirmed names.

Unverified leads (require confirmation — treat as hypotheses only)

• IDT (patent owner) side. In the parallel IDT/DDG campaigns, IDT's PTAB practice was reportedly handled by Shore Chan DePumpo LLP (Dallas, TX) — the firm associated with Michael W. Shore and Alfonso Garcia Chan — while its Delaware local counsel in the D. Del. suits was reportedly Bayard, P.A. (Wilmington, DE). I was not able to confirm either firm's appearance in IPR2015‑00753 in this session, and I could not confirm any individual attorney's name, so do not rely on these without checking the signature blocks. (The earlier section of this case file likewise flagged IDT/Sony counsel as unverified.)
• Sony (petitioner) side. I did not find any source identifying Sony's IPR counsel for this batch. Sony used multiple outside firms across its 2015 PTAB filings, and I have no basis to name one here. Unverified / unknown.

How to confirm the names (authoritative, low‑cost steps)

1. PTAB Papers 2, 5, and 7 in IPR2015‑00753 via USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board End‑to‑End (PTAB E2E) or PAIR/P-TACTS for the '370 patent — these are public and unsealed. Paper 5 (Power of Attorney) gives Sony's appointed lead and back‑up counsel with registration numbers; Paper 7's signature block gives IDT's counsel. Both are the fastest confirmation.
2. Paper 9 (Joint Motion, Aug. 11, 2015) signature block — lists counsel for both parties on one page.
3. Exhibit 1032 (the settlement agreement in the -00753 case, filed Aug. 11, 2015) — likely sealed/confidential pursuant to § 317(b), so it probably adds nothing on counsel.
4. D. Del. 1:13‑cv‑02111 docket (PACER): Sony's Delaware local counsel and lead trial counsel for Sony Corporation, Sony Corporation of America, Sony Electronics Inc., and Sony Mobile Communications (USA) Inc. Note the earlier caveat in this case file that the docket‑closure date is uncertain (Sept. 2015 per RPX vs. July 2016 per another aggregator).

Important caveats

• Nothing is sealed in a way that blocks the counsel identification — the Power of Attorney and POPR are public; I simply could not retrieve their text with the searches available here.
• The docket confirms the case terminated by joint motion on Aug. 12, 2015, before institution (Paper 11 Judgment), so there was no final written decision and no later substitution of counsel to trace.
• Do not attribute to me any specific attorney name for this case: none was verified. If you need named counsel, I recommend rerunning this task with direct PTAB E2E access to Papers 2/5/7 or pulling the D. Del. docket sheet for 1:13‑cv‑02111.