Untitled case

I'll research this case across the sources you named.

Good — I have the core IPR facts. Now let me verify the district court litigation and the patent itself.

Let me pin down the patent itself, the Federal Circuit outcome, and the district court posture.

I'll research IPR2022-01004, the '943 patent, and any parallel district court litigation.

Key facts emerging. Let me dig into the Federal Circuit appeal and the parallel district court litigation.

Now let me research the parallel W.D. Tex. district court cases in detail.

Scope note

The case in the metadata (IPR2022-01004) is an inter partes review at the PTAB, not a district court action. So the "patent infringement litigation" involving U.S. 9,614,943 ("the '943 patent") is the parallel district court campaign that Smart Mobile Technologies LLC waged against Apple and Samsung in the W.D. Tex. (Waco Division) — and the IPR is the defensive PTAB track. I've structured the chronology accordingly and flagged where the public record I could reach is thin.

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1. The parallel district court litigation (W.D. Tex., Judge Alan D. Albright)

Filing & pleadings

• 2021-06-11 — Smart Mobile Technologies LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00603-ADA (W.D. Tex., Waco). Complaint asserts 13 patents, including the '943 patent, against iPhone/iPod/Apple Watch products. (Order denying stay, WDTX, reciting "Smart Mobile filed suit against Apple on June 11, 2021," ECF No. 1.)
• 2021-07-01 / docketed 2021-07-02 — Smart Mobile Technologies LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.), No. 6:21-cv-00701-ADA. Asserts 12 patents including the '943 and '291 patents.
• Asserted '943 claims: 1–2, 5–9, 12–17, 19–20 (Samsung) and 1, 2, 5–9, 12–17, 18, 19, 20 (Apple) — per the Bims declaration (Exhibit 1 to Defendants' Opening Claim Construction Brief, executed 2022-06-08).
• I could not verify the answers/counterclaims (e.g., invalidity, non-infringement, inequitable conduct) from the sources reached. Treat that as a gap.

Pre-trial motions of substance

• Motion to transfer (§1404(a)): Apple moved to move the Apple case to the N.D. Cal. The court granted transfer, analyzing the private/public interest factors and Apple's ten identified N.D. Cal./Seattle witnesses (MPTCP and MIMO engineering personnel). The transfer order appears at ECF No. 135 in the Apple case, docketed 2023-08-28. (WDTX opinion via CourtListener.) Caveat: I could not confirm the resulting N.D. Cal. case number.
• Motion to stay pending IPR: Defendants filed an opposed motion to stay on 2023-02-17 (Apple case ECF No. 99; Samsung case ECF No. 88); Smart Mobile opposed 2023-03-03; Defendants replied 2023-03-10. The WDTX DENIED the stay (order at ECF No. 128 in the Apple case; ECF No. 127 in the Samsung case, docketed 2023-08-28 / 2023-09-11). This is a notable pro-patent-owner ruling: the court declined to wait for the PTAB despite six parallel IPRs.
• Reported posture per Law360 (Chinese-language summary of the article): the Apple case was transferred to California and stayed pending the IPRs in September 2023; the Samsung case remained in W.D. Tex. and was proceeding. I could not independently confirm the N.D. Cal. stay date.

Claim construction (Markman)

• A claim construction order was entered in both W.D. Tex. cases in late August/early September 2023 (joint Markman order reproduced at edtexweblog, docketed 2023-09-02). Among the '943 terms construed was "channel" (claims 1–2, 5, 8, 12), where Defendants proposed "one or more communication paths between a transmitter and receiver … dedicated to one or more pre-defined subtasks" and the court adopted plain-and-ordinary meaning. At least one indefiniteness challenge across the asserted patents was rejected ("Not indefinite").
• Caveat: the table I retrieved is garbled; I'd verify term-by-term constructions against the actual order before relying on them.

Discovery / trial

• No discovery milestone, trial date, verdict, JMOL, or fee motion for the '943 patent is confirmed in the sources I reached. Given the transfer/stay of the Apple case and the partial cancellation of the asserted '943 claims at the PTAB, the practical trajectory was toward a stay-and-wait posture on the Apple side. No settlement, dismissal, or judgment on the '943 patent is confirmed.

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2. PTAB proceeding — IPR2022-01004 (the case in the metadata)

Counsel: Petitioners — Fish & Richardson P.C. (W. Karl Renner, Jeremy J. Monaldo, Hyun Jin In, Sangki Park) and Haynes and Boone, LLP (Andrew S. Ehmke, Clint S. Wilkins). Patent Owner — Skiermont Derby LLP (Rex Hwang, Todd Martin, Steve Udick) and Graves & Shaw LLP (Philip Graves, Greer Shaw).

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3. Federal Circuit appeal — No. 24-1623

• 2024-03-29 — Apple's notice of appeal docketed (received 2024-03-28). Caption: Apple Inc. v. Smart Mobile Technologies LLC. Samsung was no longer a party on appeal (Fed. Cir. opinion, citing ECF Nos. 22, 24 and the Board's Decision).
• 2026-02-27 — Nonprecedential opinion AFFIRMING the PTAB. Panel: Taranto (author), Cunningham; Judge Dyk concurring-in-part and dissenting-in-part. Held: substantial evidence supported (i) the Board's no-motivation-to-combine finding on Byrne + WO748 (VPN limitation), and (ii) the Board's no-reasonable-expectation-of-success finding for the Raleigh–Byrne telephone implementation. Court declined to disturb the Board's interpretation of the petition; Apple's "scalability" argument forfeited. (Apple Inc. v. Smart Mobile Technologies LLC, No. 24-1623 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 27, 2026); IPWatchdog, 2026-03-02; Bloomberg Law/IP Law Daily, 2026-02-27.)

Net outcome for the '943 patent: claims 1, 5–9, 12–14 cancelled; claims 2–4 and 15–20 survived after the FWD was affirmed on appeal. Note the oddity that claims 2–4 depend from cancelled claim 1 but were separately not shown unpatentable (Apple's claim 2–4 challenge ran through the Raleigh–Byrne ground, which failed).

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4. Sibling PTAB proceedings on the same Smart Mobile portfolio

• IPR2022-00766 (related patent) — instituted 2022-10-26.
• IPR2022-01005 — companion challenge to another related patent (per the '943 institution decision).
• IPR2022-00979 (Apple + Samsung v. Smart Mobile, U.S. Pat. 9,049,119) — FWD 2023-11-28: all challenged claims unpatentable as obvious over "Regnier" and "Wilson."
• IPR2022-01248 (Samsung v. Smart Mobile) — Samsung's parallel petition.
• Law360 reported (via the 2023-11-28 summary) that by then the PTAB had ruled in five of six IPRs Apple/Samsung filed against Smart Mobile; four went entirely against Smart Mobile, and Smart Mobile won one (a wireless-system patent, all challenged claims upheld).
• U.S. Pat. 9,191,083 IPR — 2026-01-13: the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the FWD because the Board adopted Smart Mobile's claim construction (raised post-institution) and refused to let Apple respond, violating the APA and Axonics v. Medtronic. (Proceeding number not confirmed in the sources reached.)

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5. Present posture

• The '943 IPR is final: FWD 2023-12-04, Director Review denied 2024-01-30, affirmed in relevant part on 2026-02-27. Claims 1, 5–9, 12–14 are cancelled; claims 2–4, 15–20 remain.
• The Apple infringement case was transferred to the N.D. Cal. and (per secondary reporting) stayed pending the IPRs; the Samsung case remained in W.D. Tex. No verdict, judgment, settlement, or dismissal on the '943 patent is confirmed in the sources I could reach.
• I also encountered an unverified Law360 headline, "Fed. Circ. Hands Losses To Apple On 3 Smart Mobile Patents" (dated ~2026-08-26/27), which may cover companion appeals from other Smart Mobile IPRs. I could not verify its contents or which patents it addresses.

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Verification gaps (please treat as open)

1. Answers/counterclaims and any IPR-estoppel or §315(b) motions in the WDTX cases.
2. Exact N.D. Cal. case number and the date/scope of the stay order.
3. The complete Markman constructions for the '943 patent (only "channel" and one indefiniteness ruling surfaced).
4. Any damages/discovery milestones, mediation, or license.
5. Whether Samsung or Apple pursued any remaining live claims (e.g., '943 claims 2, 15–17, 19–20) after the FWD.
6. The proceeding number for the '083 patent IPR vacated on 2026-01-13.

If you want, I can drill into the WDTX dockets (6:21-cv-603 / 6:21-cv-701), the N.D. Cal. stayed case, or the sibling IPRs to close items 1–6.

I'll research this now. Note up front: IPR2022-01004 is a PTAB proceeding, not a district court case with "plaintiffs" — so I need to identify both the IPR parties' counsel and the underlying district court plaintiff's counsel.

Good. I now have the IPR parties and PTAB counsel. But the task asks about the plaintiff in the infringement case — that's Smart Mobile Technologies LLC in district court. Let me pull the parallel litigation.

Now let me pin down the district court plaintiff's counsel of record and local counsel, plus the lead trial team.

Threshold point: there is no "plaintiff" in IPR2022-01004

Before naming anyone, one framing correction that matters for how you use this. IPR2022-01004 is a PTAB trial, not a patent infringement action. Its parties are styled Petitioner (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Apple Inc.) and Patent Owner (Smart Mobile Technologies LLC). There is no complaint, no plaintiff, and no defendant in the IPR itself. So "plaintiff's counsel" has to be answered on two levels: (a) the patent-owner side in the IPR, which is the functional equivalent of plaintiff-side counsel for the '943 patent, and (b) the actual plaintiff of record in the underlying infringement suits — Smart Mobile Technologies LLC in W.D. Tex. I give both below.

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1. Patent Owner (plaintiff-side) counsel of record — IPR2022-01004

This is the roster exactly as it appears in the Board's final papers. The counsel block on Paper 42 (Order Denying Director Review, Jan. 30, 2024) — the last counsel listing of record — reads: Rex Hwang, Todd Martin, Steve Udick (Skiermont Derby LLP) and Philip Graves, Greer Shaw (Graves & Shaw LLP) for Patent Owner. The Power of Attorney filed Aug. 12, 2022 (Paper 5) designates the lead/back-up structure below.

One nuance worth flagging: Smart Mobile did not use one uniform firm across the patent family. In the sibling IPR2022-01002 the Patent Owner's lead/back-up was Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP (Kenneth J. Weatherwax, lead, Reg. No. 54,528; Nathan Lowenstein, Parham Hendifar, Colette Woo, Vinson Lin), alongside Graves & Shaw. For IPR2022-01004 specifically the Skiermont Derby + Graves & Shaw team above is the one of record.

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2. Plaintiff's counsel of record — the underlying infringement suits

Smart Mobile Technologies LLC is the plaintiff in the two W.D. Tex. actions identified as related matters in the IPR:

• Smart Mobile Technologies LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00603-ADA (W.D. Tex.) — suit filed June 11, 2021 (Complaint attached as Ex. 1033 in IPR2022-00979).
• Smart Mobile Technologies LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00701-ADA (W.D. Tex.) — filed July 2, 2021.
• Both before Judge Alan D. Albright, Waco Division. Claim construction entered Sept. 2, 2023 (6:21-cv-00701, Dkt. 126), covering the '943 patent among the '434 family.

Counsel of record for Smart Mobile in those cases, consistent with the IPR roster:

• Philip J. Graves (Graves & Shaw LLP, Los Angeles) — lead trial counsel; docket entries show him filing on Smart Mobile's behalf in W.D. Tex., and he is the attorney of record on the Federal Circuit appeal.
• Greer N. Shaw (Graves & Shaw LLP, Los Angeles) — trial counsel; e.g., Dkt. 95/96 (sealed opposition to Apple's § 1404(a) transfer motion and supporting declarations), Dkt. 115 (Joint Claim Construction Statement), Dkt. 114 (supplemental claim-construction notice).
• Rex Hwang, Todd Martin, and Steven J. Udick (Skiermont Derby LLP) — the IPR team; Udick expressly declared he is counsel to Smart Mobile in both 6:21-cv-00603 and 6:21-cv-00701.

Additional forum: Smart Mobile also litigates against Apple in N.D. Cal., No. 4:23-cv-04168, where both Graves and Shaw have appeared for plaintiff (CourtListener docket 67698985).

Local counsel (W.D. Tex.)

Craig D. Cherry (Waco, Texas) appears as local counsel for Smart Mobile — the UniCourt docket for the Apple case shows Cherry filing the pro hac vice motions for Greer N. Shaw (Dkt. 3) and Philip J. Graves (Dkt. 2) and the summons request. That is the classic W.D. Tex. local-counsel function (sponsoring out-of-district counsel). ⚠️ I could not independently confirm Cherry's firm affiliation from the sources reviewed — flagging rather than asserting it.

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3. Adverse-side counsel (for completeness)

Paper 42 lists Petitioner's counsel as W. Karl Renner, Jeremy J. Monaldo, Hyun Jin In, Sagki Park — Fish & Richardson P.C. and Andrew S. Ehmke, Clint S. Wilkins — Haynes and Boone, LLP. On the Federal Circuit appeal, Debra Janece McComas (Haynes and Boone, LLP) argued for Apple. (The record lists both firms collectively for Petitioner; Haynes and Boone is the firm that appeared for Apple on appeal.)

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4. Contradictions / updates to the prior sections

The earlier-generated background said: "A Final Written Decision is listed in the patent's litigation record, but the petitioner and outcome were not confirmed in the narrative," and the metadata status reads "Final Written Decision; details unconfirmed." Those details are now confirmed and should be corrected:

• Petitioner: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Apple Inc. (Decision Granting Institution, Dec. 5, 2022 — claims 1–9, 12–20 instituted).
• FWD: Dec. 4, 2023 (Panel: Jung, Engels, Ullagaddi; Jung writing). Claims 1, 5–9, 12–14 held unpatentable; claims 2–4 and 15–20 upheld (Byrne–WO748 VPN theory and Raleigh–Byrne grounds rejected for lack of motivation / reasonable expectation of success).
• Director Review: denied Jan. 30, 2024 (Paper 42) — the FWD is the final agency decision.
• Appeal: Apple Inc. v. Smart Mobile Technologies LLC, No. 24-1623 (Fed. Cir.); affirmed Feb. 27, 2026 (nonprecedential). Reported at IPWatchdog, Mar. 2, 2026.

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5. Sourcing caveats

• Counsel rosters above are grounded in Paper 42 (Jan. 30, 2024) and Paper 5, Power of Attorney (Aug. 12, 2022) in IPR2022-01004, plus docket filings in 6:21-cv-00603/00701 and the Federal Circuit opinion.
• Not confirmed: Craig Cherry's firm; whether the Skiermont Derby team's appearance has been formally updated post-FWD; and the identity behind a PTAB filing bio listing an individual affiliated with Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro (2020–2022) then Graves & Shaw (2022–present) in the Smart Mobile matters — it is unclear from the excerpt whether that person is counsel of record or a retained expert, so I have not named them.
• No sealed-counsel issue here: counsel have appeared and the rosters are public.

I'll research this case. Note upfront: IPR2022-01004 is a PTAB proceeding, which has a petitioner and patent owner — not "defendants." I'll identify counsel for both sides (and the parallel district court defendant if one exists).

Now let me identify the parallel district court litigation and its counsel — that's where "defendants" exist.

I have the key parties. Let me verify counsel attribution and firm affiliations.

Threshold correction: there is no "defendant" in IPR2022-01004

IPR2022-01004 is a PTAB trial, not a district court infringement action. It has a Petitioner and a Patent Owner, not defendants. The caption is Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Apple Inc. v. Smart Mobile Technologies LLC, Patent 9,614,943 B1 (PTAB, filed May 19, 2022; FWD Dec. 4, 2023; Director Review denied Jan. 30, 2024). This also corrects the earlier section of this case summary, which described the petitioner as unconfirmed and (in one passage) treated the challenge as Apple-only — the petition was filed jointly by Apple and both Samsung entities, with all three named as real parties in interest. (Institution Decision; Director Review denial, Paper 42)

The "defendants" exist in the parallel W.D. Tex. infringement suits that the Board identified as related matters:

• Smart Mobile Technologies LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00603 (W.D. Tex., filed June 11, 2021) (Judge Alan D. Albright)
• Smart Mobile Technologies LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00701 (W.D. Tex., filed July 1, 2021) (Judge Albright)

The '943 patent is one of 13–14 patents-in-suit in each case. (Complaint, 6:21-cv-00603; Stay denial, 6:21-cv-701 ECF 128)

I give you both sets below.

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A. PTAB — counsel for Petitioner (the challenger side, functionally the "defendant" side in the IPR)

Per the Final Written Decision's and Director Review order's counsel listings (Paper 42):

Caveat on firm-to-party attribution: the Board's orders list Fish & Richardson and Haynes and Boone jointly under a single "For PETITIONER" heading. The public papers I could retrieve do not cleanly break out which firm represents Apple versus Samsung. The inference (Fish ≈ Samsung; Haynes and Boone ≈ Apple) is plausible but not confirmed by a sourced filing, so treat it as unverified.

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B. District court defendants and their counsel

1. Apple Inc. — Smart Mobile Techs. LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00603-ADA (W.D. Tex.)

Apple's counsel of record is DLA Piper LLP (US). Confirmed from the certificate of service in Plaintiff's Preliminary Disclosure of Priority Dates (Jan. 12, 2022) and Amended Disclosure (Apr. 13, 2022), both reproduced as PTAB exhibits (Ex. 1039; Ex. 1047-603):

Related Apple case: Smart Mobile Technologies LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 3:23-cv-04168-WHA (N.D. Cal.) — same DLA Piper team (Fowler, Jay, Padmanabhan, Miller, Huang). Judge Alsup granted Apple's unopposed motion to stay that case pending the IPRs, vacating the Sept. 26 case-management conference and Oct. 24, 2023 hearing (proposed stay order).

2. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. — No. 6:21-cv-00701-ADA (W.D. Tex.)

This is the weakest link in the public record, and I want to be explicit about it. I retrieved a signature block reading "ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANTS SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. and SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC." naming Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (Steven J. Routh, Sten Jensen, T. Vann Pearce, Jr. — Washington, D.C.) with Eric H. Findlay, Findlay Craft, P.C. (Tyler, TX) as local counsel, but the excerpt I have does not bear a case caption tying it to 6:21-cv-00701. I cannot confirm it from a sourced filing in this docket, so I am flagging it as unconfirmed for this case rather than asserting it. (See also the Docket Alarm docket sheet for 6:21-cv-00701, which shows activity through Docs. 115, 126, 127, 128 but whose counsel entries I could not open within my search budget.)

For what it is worth, the public docket confirms Samsung litigated actively through 2023 — the Court denied Apple's and Samsung's opposed motion to stay pending IPR on the merits (Feb./Mar. 2023 briefing; order at 6:21-cv-701 ECF 128), and the Markman order issued Sept. 2, 2023 (ECF 126).

If counsel-of-record certainty matters for your purposes, pull the docket sheet directly from PACER for 6:21-cv-00701-ADA and check the "attorneys" tab; my sources are PTAB exhibits, Docket Alarm, and CourtListener, not a live PACER query.

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C. Contrast: Patent Owner / plaintiff-side counsel (for completeness, since these names recur across the PTAB and district court dockets)

Smart Mobile (the patent owner / district court plaintiff) is represented by two overlapping teams:

• Skiermont Derby LLP — Rex Hwang (lead, Reg. No. 56,206, Los Angeles), Todd Martin (Reg. No. 78,642, Dallas), Steven J. Ulick/Udick (Dallas, PHV)
• Graves & Shaw LLP — Philip J. Graves and Greer N. Shaw (Los Angeles, PHV; both also appear as Smart Mobile's district court counsel alongside Craig D. Cherry, Steckler Wayne Cochran Cherry, PLLC, Waco)

Note the strategy split: in the Apple-only IPRs (e.g., IPR2022-00979/00980/00981) Smart Mobile designated Skiermont Derby as lead; in the earlier-filed Samsung-side IPRs (IPR2022-00766 et al., and the original July 20, 2022 mandatory notice for IPR2022-01002) the lead was Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP (Kenneth J. Weatherwax, Nathan Lowenstein, Parham Hendifar, Colette Woo, Vinson Lin), with Graves & Shaw as back-up. The change reflects mid-2022 substitution of Skiermont Derby for Lowenstein & Weatherwax on the Smart Mobile side.

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D. What I could not verify

1. The actual case caption for this task. The prompt asks about "defendant(s)" in "this patent infringement case," but the case metadata (IPR2022-01004, PTAB) describes an IPR. I have answered for both the PTAB petitioners and the W.D. Tex. defendants; please tell me which proceeding you mean and I will tighten the list.
2. Samsung's counsel of record in 6:21-cv-00701 — signature block found, caption unconfirmed (see §B.2).
3. Any in-house counsel for Apple, Samsung, or Smart Mobile — none appears in the public filings I reviewed; I will not guess at names.
4. Post-2023 substitution/withdrawal of any counsel. The material dates I can source are Dec. 2022–Sept. 2023 (PTAB) and June 2021–Sept. 2023 (district court). Given that this is now Sept. 2026 and the Federal Circuit affirmed the FWD in March 2026, the district court teams may well have changed — a current PACER pull is the only reliable way to confirm.

One more metadata flag: the Board's institution decision contains a clerical error referring to "the '291 patent" in a parenthetical in the background section while the case is about the '943 patent. This is a typo in Paper 14, not a different patent.