Amazon.com, Inc. v. Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

I'll verify the case details and surrounding context before drafting.

Good grounding. Now let me verify the parallel litigation outcome, the reason for dismissal, and the other IPRs on the '087 patent.

Let me pin down the settlement/dismissal timeline, the parallel IPRs on the same patent, and the broader Avago/Broadcom assertion campaign.

Case overview — Amazon.com, Inc. v. Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., IPR2017-01816

A threshold correction on framing. The docket in this matter is not a district-court infringement action; it is an inter partes review before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, filed July 18, 2017 by Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon Web Services, Inc. as petitioners against Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. as patent owner, on a single patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,870,087. The infringement litigation this IPR was tethered to is Broadcom Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. SACV 16-01774-JVS (JCGx) (C.D. Cal.), filed September 23, 2016. On the party side, Amazon is the quintessential operating company/accused infringer — a retailer-and-cloud-hyperscaler that also designs Fire tablets, Fire TV, Kindle and Echo hardware and runs AWS — while Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) is the patent-holding arm of the Broadcom/Avago corporate family (Avago Technologies Ltd. acquired LSI Corp. in 2014 and Broadcom Corp. in 2016), i.e., a large semiconductor operating-company portfolio monetized through a dedicated IP-holding entity rather than a classic NPE/PAE. Avago's complaint traces the portfolio to LSI and to Agere Systems, Lucent, AT&T and Bell Labs lineage, and describes pre-suit licensing outreach (including a June 22, 2016 meeting request Amazon did not answer) preceding the suit. (Complaint, Dkt. 1; Amazon 2017 Form 10-K)

The patent and the accused technology. The '087 patent, "MPEG Decoder System and Method Having a Unified Memory for Transport Decode and System Controller Function," inventor Kwok Kit Chau, filed November 13, 1996 and issued February 9, 1999, claims an MPEG decoder system in which one shared ("unified") memory serves three functions at once: the transport/demultiplexing logic, the MPEG video decoder, and the system controller (which also stores its code and data there). In plain terms, it is an early unified-memory-architecture claim for set-top/DTV/video-decode chips — the architectural trick of eliminating separate frame and host buffers. Avago asserted at least claim 1 against the Amazon Fire HD 10 (MediaTek MT8135 SoC with PowerVR G6200 GPU), and on information and belief against the Fire HD 8, Fire, Fire HDX 8.9, Fire HD 7/6, Kindle Fire HD 7/8.9, and Fire TV, plus induced infringement via customers, alleging notice since April 30, 2013 and willfulness. In the IPR, Amazon's grounds tracked the same prior-art set the other challengers used — U.S. Patent 5,898,695 (Fujii) as anticipatory, and combinations of Fujii/Maturi (U.S. 5,559,999) with Bheda (6,002,441), Lam (5,960,464), Yao's Microprocessor Report UMA article (June 19, 1995), the VESA UMA standard announcement (March 8, 1996) and the ITU-T H.262 (MPEG-2 video) standard — supported by the declaration of Dr. Claudio Silva. (Petition, Paper 2)

Posture, venue and why it matters. The IPR was accorded a filing date on August 10, 2017 (Paper 3), saw housekeeping activity (APJ Arpin granting substitution of Amazon's back-up counsel, Fisch Sigler's David M. Saunders, replaced by Richard Z. Zhang, Paper 6, Aug. 18, 2017), and never reached an institution decision

I'll research this case across PACER, PTAB, and legal media sources.

Now let me dig into the underlying district court case and the PTAB docket.

Let me check the parallel PTAB proceedings on the '087 patent and the claim construction details.

Legal Developments & Outcome — Amazon v. Avago (IPR2017-01816) and the Underlying '087 Litigation

Threshold framing (important)

The metadata case

I'll research the docket and counsel for this PTAB proceeding.

Good — the docket shows petitioner's counsel. Let me confirm the petition's original counsel listing and firm details.

Let me pull the IPR2017-01816 docket document list and the petition's mandatory notices page.

Scope note (important)

The case metadata describes this as a "patent infringement case," but IPR2017-01816 is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district-court infringement action. So the "plaintiff" here is the petitioner, and there is no "local counsel" or pro hac vice admission in the district-court sense — PTAB practice (37 C.F.R. § 42.10) requires only a lead counsel and a back-up counsel, both USPTO-registered practitioners. The caption in the Board's own papers is *Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon Web Services, Inc., Petitioner v. Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.* (Paper 6), and the petition was dismissed on petitioner's own motion on 2017‑11‑06 (Paper 11), with a refund notice entered 2017‑11‑16 (Paper 13).

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Counsel of record for Petitioner Amazon.com, Inc. (and AWS)

Source: P.T.A.B., Amazon.com, Inc. v. Avago Techs. Gen. IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., IPR2017-01816, Paper 6, Decision – Motion to Withdraw (Aug. 18, 2017) (docketalarm copy); Petitioner Power of Attorney (July 18, 2017), reproduced at ptacts.uspto.gov petition 1483355; docket index at Docket Alarm.

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What I could not verify (stated rather than inferred)

• No in-house Amazon attorney appears as counsel of record in any IPR2017-01816 paper I could retrieve. The Power of Attorney names only outside counsel (Edell). Amazon's mandatory notices in this proceeding may have identified an in-house attorney, but I could not retrieve that page of the petition, so I am not naming one.
• No appearance by Alan M. Fisch or R. William Sigler in this IPR. They were Fisch Sigler's lead attorneys for Amazon/AWS in the underlying C.D. Cal. litigation (below), and Fisch/Sigler appear as pro hac vice counsel in later Amazon-related PTAB matters, but the IPR2017-01816 papers show only Edell, Saunders, and Zhang.
• No local counsel, because none is required at the PTAB. The only "local counsel" appointment in the related dispute was in district court (L. Katie Machado, designated local counsel for Amazon in Broadcom Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 8:16-cv-01774 (C.D. Cal.), per the Feb. 24, 2017 pro hac vice order for Roy William Sigler).
• I did not independently confirm Zhang's USPTO registration number or current firm status; the only record-sourced facts are that the Board recognized him as back-up counsel and described him as a registered patent attorney at Fisch Sigler.

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Context: the same team in the co-pending district-court case

This IPR was one of four Amazon petitions against Avago patents filed in the same window and handled by the same Fisch Sigler team — IPR2017-00963 ('387 patent), IPR2017-00964 ('663), IPR2017-01112 ('375), and IPR2017-01816 ('087) — which the Board consolidated for purposes of the counsel-withdrawal decision (Paper 6). They paralleled Broadcom Corp. et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al., No. 8:16-cv-01774 (C.D. Cal., filed Sept. 23, 2016), Avago/Broadcom's infringement suit asserting the '087 patent (among others) against Amazon's Fire tablet products. In that litigation, Amazon's counsel of record included Alan M. Fisch and Jeffrey M. Saltman (Fisch Sigler, Washington, DC; pro hac vice) and L. Katie Machado as local counsel — a useful cross-reference if you need the infringement-defense team, but again, not the counsel of record in IPR2017-01816.

If you want, I can next pull the petition's full mandatory-notices section (37 C.F.R. § 42.8(b)(3)–(4)) from PTAB E2E to confirm whether an Amazon in-house attorney was listed, and check whether Zhang remained at Fisch Sigler afterward.

I'll research the counsel of record for Avago (the patent owner / defendant-side party) in IPR2017-01816 and in the parallel district court litigation.

I found the key PTAB paper listing Patent Owner's counsel. Let me confirm with the full PTAB docket and check the parallel district court docket for Avago/Broadcom's litigation counsel.

The PTAB decision gives me the Patent Owner's counsel block. Let me confirm the full IPR docket and gather attorney background details.

Threshold point: who is the "defendant" here

Flagging a party-role mismatch before naming anyone, because it changes whose counsel is responsive to your question.

• IPR2017-01816 is not an infringement action. It is a PTAB inter partes review captioned Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon Web Services, Inc. v. Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., and Avago is the Patent Owner / respondent, not a defendant. (Note the metadata caption omits AWS as a co-petitioner; the Board's papers list both Amazon entities.)
• In the parallel infringement case, Avago was the plaintiff. Broadcom Corp. et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al., No. 8:16-cv-01774-JVS-JCGx (C.D. Cal., filed 2016-09-23; Judge James V. Selna), with Avago and Broadcom as plaintiffs and Amazon/AWS as defendants. That case was dismissed on settlement on 2017-10-06 (Dkt. 125).

So the responsive answer covers (a) Avago's counsel of record in the IPR, and (b) Avago's counsel of record in the C.D. Cal. suit. I am deliberately not listing Amazon's counsel as "defendant's counsel" here; if that is what you need, say so and I'll pull the Fisch Sigler / Doll Amir & Eley appearances.

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A. Avago's counsel of record in IPR2017-01816

The authoritative listing is the Board's caption in Paper 6, Decision on Motion to Withdraw, entered 2017-08-18 (IPR2017-01816, Paper 6; issued jointly in IPR2017-00963, -00964, -01112, -01816), which closes with a "PATENT OWNER:" block naming four attorneys:

Grounding / verification:

• The four-name block appears verbatim in the Paper 6 caption with the e-mail addresses jangell@fawlaw.com, gcherng@fawlaw.com, dyoung@sbiplaw.com, cking@sbiplaw.com. Source: PTAB Paper 6 (Aug. 18, 2017), mirrored at Docket Alarm (docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2017-01816/.../08-18-2017-Board/Other_Not_for_motions-6-Decision_on_Motion_to_Withdraw.pdf).
• Paper 9, Joint Motion to Dismiss (Oct. 25, 2017) is signed "/Jason S. Angell/ Jason S. Angell (Reg. No. 51,408) Lead Counsel for Patent Owner," confirming Angell as the sole signing lead for Avago at termination. Amazon's side was signed by Joseph F. Edell (Reg. No. 67,625), Fisch Sigler LLP, Washington, DC.
• The firm address and Angell's Reg. No. 51408 are independently confirmed in Avago's own "Patent Owner's Mandatory Notice and Notice of Lead and Backup Counsel" filed in a companion Avago IPR (May 4, 2017), which lists Angell as Lead and Cherng as Back-Up at the Redwood Shores address.

Important limitations on this record:

1. Counsel appeared only in the caption, not through an adversarial filing. The proceeding was terminated on Paper 11 (Nov. 6, 2017), granting the joint motion to dismiss, before the three-month preliminary-response deadline. Avago never filed a Patent Owner Preliminary Response, and no Patent Owner Power of Attorney is reflected in the docket entries I could verify (Papers 3, 6, 9, 11, 13). So the caption block plus the Paper 9 signature are the whole of Avago's appearance record.
2. No in-house counsel appears of record. I found no Avago/Broadcom in-house attorney listed on this docket, and I will not guess at one. Avago's real parties-in-interest were identified as Broadcom Ltd., Broadcom Corporation, Avago Technologies Limited, and Avago Technologies U.S., Inc.
3. No local counsel was designated in the PTAB (not required), and the Board's papers do not assign "of counsel" titles beyond lead/back-up.
4. The docket is not sealed as to the caption, but Avago filed no substantive papers, so there is no sealed-filing issue affecting the counsel list.

B. Avago's counsel of record in the underlying C.D. Cal. infringement case (8:16-cv-01774)

For completeness, since the "defendant" framing points at the district court case: Avago and Broadcom were represented by Freitas Angell & Weinberg LLP —

• Robert E. Freitas — lead trial counsel of record (named in the complaint and press coverage of the filing).
• Jason S. Angell — of record; filed the complaint (Dkt. 1), the joint appendix (Dkt. 98), the opening claim construction brief (Dkt. 100), the notice of settlement (Dkt. 124).
• Jessica N. Leal — of record (Dkt. 112, notice of lodging).
• Joshua L. Young — notice of appearance for plaintiffs, Nov. 10, 2016 (Dkt. 19). Firm affiliation not confirmed in the sources I could access; do not assume he was at FAW.

Complaint filing coverage (NorCal Record) independently names "Robert E. Freitas, Jason S. Angell and Jessica N. Leal of Freitas Angell & Weinberg LLP in Redwood Shores."

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Suggested correction to the case write-up

The prior "Legal Developments" section in my prompt is truncated mid-sentence ("Threshold framing (important) The metadata case"), and it framed the matter as an infringement case with Avago as defendant. I'd revise the header to: "IPR2017-01816 — Amazon.com, Inc. & Amazon Web Services, Inc. v. Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (Patent Owner), terminated pre-institution on joint motion, Nov. 6, 2017; Avago was plaintiff, not defendant, in the parallel C.D. Cal. suit No. 8:16-cv-01774-JVS-JCGx."

If you want, I can next pull the Amazon-side appearances (Fisch Sigler LLP: Joseph F. Edell, Richard Z. Zhang, David M. Saunders; and C.D. Cal. local counsel Doll Amir & Eley — Gregory L. Doll, L. Katie Machado, Roy William Sigler) with the same level of sourcing.