Amazon.com, Inc. v. WAG Acquisition, L.L.C.

I'll research this case thoroughly. Let me start with several searches.

Let me dig deeper into the specific IPR docket, the underlying district court litigation, and WAG Acquisition's background.

Case Overview: Amazon.com, Inc. v. WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. (IPR2022-01433)

A threshold clarification on case type. Although framed as "patent infringement litigation," the case identified in the case metadata is actually an inter partes review before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board—IPR2022-01433, filed by Amazon.com, Inc. on August 23, 2022, challenging U.S. Patent No. 9,762,636. It is the validity front of a broader infringement campaign that WAG Acquisition brought against Amazon and other major streaming providers. The parallel district court infringement case is WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. v. Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon Web Services, Inc., and Amazon.com Services LLC, No. 2:22-cv-01424-JLR (W.D. Wash.), which WAG originally filed in the Western District of Texas on August 6, 2021 and which was transferred to the Western District of Washington (Seattle) on October 6, 2022, before Judge James L. Robart (UniCourt docket; CourtListener stay order).

The parties and the accused technology. WAG Acquisition, L.L.C.—a Delaware LLC based in Flanders, New Jersey and the assignee of record of the Price streaming-media patent family—is a patent-assertion entity (characterized as an NPE/small company in RPX/Unified Patents-derived sources) rather than an operating company; its sole inventor of record is Harold Edward Price. Amazon is the accused operating company: WAG alleged that Amazon's streaming platform (used for pre-recorded video-on-demand and live streaming for Amazon and third-party content owners) infringes by encoding programs into "media data elements" (e.g., mp4 segments) assigned serial numeric identifiers, storing them in server data structures, and serving them to media players in response to individual HTTP "GET" requests over data connections faster than playback rate—a client-driven "pull" streaming architecture (see Ex Parte complaint analysis of 2:22-cv-01424). The patent at issue in IPR2022-01433, U.S. Patent No. 9,762,636, titled "Streaming Media Delivery System" (issued September 12, 2017, with priority tracing to a September 2000 provisional application), claims server-side delivery of streaming media in which serially identified media data elements are sent to clients only in response to repeated per-element requests, without the server maintaining a per-user record of the last element sent—and, in certain claims, where the media is supplied to the server from a live source (Google Patents; PTAB Patent Owner response exhibit describing the '636 claims). WAG's Amazon complaint asserted the '636 together with two related family members, U.S. Patent Nos. 9,729,594 and 9,742,824, also "Streaming Media Delivery System" patents (Studicata summary; Federal Circuit brief).

Procedural posture, IPR linkage, and significance. In IPR2022-01433, the PTAB panel—reported by a docket aggregator as Administrative Patent Judges Hubert Lorin, John Hudalla, and Steven Amundson—issued a Final Written Decision on February 15, 2024 finding all challenged claims of the '636 patent unpatentable as obvious, principally over the prior-art Carmel reference (alone or in combination with Feig), the Federal Circuit's later appellee brief confirming that "the Board's determination in the Amazon IPRs that the challenged claims would have been obvious in view of Carmel alone is supported by substantial evidence" (PTAB docket listing, IPR2022-01433; Amazon CAFC brief). WAG appealed, and on March 9, 2026 a Federal Circuit panel (Lourie, Wallach, and Chen) affirmed in a Rule 36 summary judgment the Board's decisions in six consolidated appeals, including IPR2022-01433 (CAFC Rule 36 judgment, March 9, 2026; Law360, "Fed. Circ. Backs Google, Amazon Wins Over Streaming IP," Mar. 9, 2026). Venue dynamics mattered considerably: Amazon succeeded in moving the infringement case out of the W.D. Tex. rocket docket to its home district of Seattle (Casetext transfer decision), and Judge Robart then stayed the entire case pending resolution of the IPR petitions, reasoning from PTAB statistics that the nine coordinated petitions (filed by Amazon, Google, and Disney/Netflix/Hulu across the three related patents) made invalidation of at least some asserted claims "far more likely" than not (CourtListener stay order). The case is notable as part of a broader WAG NPE pattern: the same Price family has been asserted against Amazon, Google (YouTube), Netflix, Hulu, and Disney, litigated in multiple forums including an ITC investigation (337-TA-1265) and earlier PTAB challenges (e.g., WebPower v. WAG Acquisition, IPR2016-01238), such that the PTAB's invalidation of the entire challenged claim sets—now affirmed at the Federal Circuit—eliminated substantial royalty exposure over what WAG contended were core pull-based streaming delivery techniques used across the modern streaming industry.

Sourcing caveats. Several specifics rest on docket-aggregator and secondary sources rather than direct PACER confirmation: the exact challenged claim numbers in IPR2022-01433, the composition of the PTAB panel, and the FWD date of February 15, 2024 (reported by the PTAB docket aggregator as the termination date with "Final Written Decision – Appealed" status). The identities of the "Carmel" and "Feig" prior-art references and the precise basis of the Board's obviousness holding are described only generally here, consistent with the Federal Circuit briefing located in the searches. The W.D. Tex. case number of the original Amazon complaint was not confirmed in the sources retrieved.

I'll research the underlying district court litigation and related PTAB proceedings.

The searches surfaced the key related cases. Now let me dig into the underlying district court dockets: the W.D. Tex. case (6:21-cv-00815-ADA) and the W.D. Wash. case (2:22-cv-01424), plus related IPR numbers.

I now have the core structure. Let me verify additional details: the final disposition of the W.D. Wash. case post-FWD, Amazon's companion IPR2022-01430 FWD, and the transfer order citation.

I've reached my search limit for this turn, so I'll synthesize from the confirmed record. Note upfront on coverage: the docket entry you provided (IPR2022-01433) is a PTAB IPR, not the infringement suit itself. The infringement suit WAG brought against Amazon is the underlying case described below, and its entire trajectory was shaped by the parallel IPRs.

Key Legal Developments — WAG Acquisition v. Amazon (streaming-media patents, including U.S. Patent No. 9,762,636)

1. District-court filing and initial pleadings (W.D. Tex., Waco)

• 2021-08-06 — WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. filed suit against Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon Web Services, Inc., and Amazon.com Services LLC in the Western District of Texas, Waco Division (No. 6:21-cv-00815-ADA, before Judge Alan D. Albright). The complaint asserted infringement of three related streaming-media patents sharing a common specification: U.S. Patent Nos. 9,729,594, 9,742,824, and 9,762,636 (the '636 patent is the live-media patent at issue in IPR2022-01433). (Justia docket; complaint docketed 2021-08-06, ECF No. 1.)
• 2021-08 to 2021-09 — Summons issued (2021-08-10); Amazon entities served 2021-08-25/26; Amazon received an unopposed extension, making its answer due 2021-11-01. Amazon answered and appeared through Fenwick & West and local Texas counsel. No counterclaims of substance appear in the record surfaced.
• 2022-01-06 — Amazon moved to transfer venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) to the Western District of Washington (ECF No. 30), arguing Seattle was clearly more convenient (witnesses, sources of proof, and related WAG litigation in WDWA). WAG opposed (ECF No. 45), arguing Amazon waived transfer by omitting it from the Case Readiness Status Report and that Waco was proper. Judge Albright rejected the waiver argument (Amazon filed 21 weeks before the scheduled Markman hearing) and weighed the Fifth Circuit Volkswagen factors.

2. Venue outcome — transfer to Seattle

• Judge Albright granted Amazon's transfer motion (sealed order, ECF No. 66; redacted order filed ~2022-10-14), and the case was transferred out of W.D. Tex. on 2022-10-06. (Justia docket notation "[Transferred from txwd on 10/6/2022]"; CourtListener opinion 10214478.)
• The case reopened in the Western District of Washington as No. 2:22-cv-01424-JLR, assigned to Judge James L. Robart.

3. Case management, claim construction, and the scheduled trial in Seattle

• Judge Robart entered a scheduling order with a Markman hearing set for 2023-02-27 and a jury trial set for 2024-05-06 (8 days). Claim construction briefing and a joint claim chart were completed in late 2022/early 2023, and the parties had exchanged technology tutorials. (Justia/UniCourt docket; Dkt. 103–108.)
• No Markman ruling was ever issued — the hearing was stricken when the case was stayed (below), so the case never reached a claim-construction order or trial.

4. Parallel PTAB proceedings (the decisive front)

• 2022-08-23 — Amazon petitioned for IPR of the '636 patent (IPR2022-01433, filed 2022-08-23), plus a companion Amazon IPR on the '824 patent (IPR2022-01430) and a third Amazon petition on the '594 patent, challenging all asserted claims of all three patents-in-suit. Amazon's IPR team was Fenwick & West (J. David Hadden, Saina Shamilov, Brian Hoffman, et al.); WAG was represented by Liston Abramson (Ronald Abramson, Ari Jaffess, M. Michael Lewis).
• Around the same time, Disney (IPR2022-01227/01228) and Google (IPR2022-01412/01413) filed parallel IPRs on the same three patents, yielding nine total IPR petitions challenging all asserted claims (per the stay-order record). The prior art centerpiece was the "Carmel" reference, with "Feig" as a secondary reference.
• 2023-02-03 / 2023-02-06 — PTAB instituted trial on the '636 patent (IPR2022-01433) and the '824 patent (IPR2022-01430), among others (USPTO Patent Center "Request for Trial Granted" notices).

5. Stay of the infringement litigation pending IPR

• 2023-02-06 — Judge Robart sua sponte ordered the parties to show cause why the Markman hearing should not be stricken and the case stayed pending the IPRs.
• 2023-02-14 — Judge Robart granted a stay of the entire case until final resolution of all nine IPR petitions (WAG Acquisition, LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. C22-1424, 2023 WL 1991888 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 14, 2023)). Applying the Pacific Biosciences factors, he found (a) the IPRs would substantially simplify the case (PTAB FY2022 stats: ~67% institution; ~66% all-claims-invalidated FWDs); (b) the case was still early (claim construction not decided; trial 15 months out); and (c) no undue prejudice because the parties are not competitors and money damages would suffice. All deadlines — including the 2023-02-27 Markman hearing — were vacated. This is the pivotal strategic development: it froze the infringement case while Amazon, Disney, and Google litigated validity at the PTAB.

6. Final Written Decisions

• 2024-02-15 — In IPR2022-01433, the PTAB (panel: Lorin, Hudalla, Amundson) issued its Final Written Decision (Paper 26) determining all challenged claims of the '636 patent unpatentable as obvious over Carmel (alone and/or in view of Feig). Amazon's companion IPR2022-01430 produced a parallel FWD against the '824 patent; WAG's expert (W. Leo Hoarty) and validity arguments were rejected.

7. Federal Circuit appeal and affirmance (final outcome)

• WAG appealed the Amazon, Disney, and Google FWDs. The appeals were consolidated as WAG Acquisition, LLC v. The Walt Disney Co., et al., Fed. Cir. Nos. 2024-1627, -1628, -1631, -1632, -1633, covering PTAB cases IPR2022-01227, -01228, -01412, -01413, -01430, and -01433. Amazon's appellee brief was filed 2024-11-04, arguing the Board's obviousness findings were supported by substantial evidence (including that Carmel's HTTP separate-file embodiment would be understood as a client "pull" system and that multiple credited motivations supported the Carmel–Feig combination).
• 2026-03-09 — The Federal Circuit entered a per curiam judgment AFFIRMING the PTAB (Judges Lourie, Wallach, and Chen; nonprecedential). The affirmance solidifies invalidation of the asserted claims of the '636, '824, and '594 patents across the Amazon, Disney, and Google IPRs.

8. Present posture / final disposition of the litigation

• The infringement action never went to trial, and there was no verdict, JMOL, or fee award. WAG's case in W.D. Wash. remained stayed through the PTAB FWDs and the Federal Circuit appeal. With the 2026-03-09 affirmance, the asserted claims are finally invalid, so WAG's infringement claims are effectively dead — it cannot assert the canceled claims, and no damages or injunction phase ever occurred. I did not locate (within my search budget) a docket entry showing a formal stipulated dismissal or closing order in 2:22-cv-01424 after the affirmance; if the clerk has not yet administratively closed it, the expected final step is a stipulation of dismissal or judgment of non-infringement/mootness on remand. That specific post-affirmance docket entry should be verified on PACER before you cite it as "dismissed."

Bottom line

The strategic heart of this dispute was venue and IPR timing: WAG's Texas filing (2021) was transferred to Seattle (Oct 2022) on Amazon's § 1404(a) motion; Amazon then used its coordinated IPR wave (Aug 2022) to obtain institution (Feb 2023) and a full stay of the Seattle case (Feb 14, 2023); the PTAB's FWDs (Feb 15, 2024 for the '636) invalidated every challenged claim; and the Federal Circuit affirmed on 2026-03-09. The infringement suit therefore ended not by trial or settlement on the merits of infringement, but by total invalidation of the asserted patents in parallel PTAB review.

Sourcing caveat: Dates and events are drawn from the PTAB docket (IPR2022-01433 Paper 26; institution notices), the W.D. Tex. and W.D. Wash. dockets as reflected on Justia/UniCourt/CourtListener, the W.D. Wash. stay opinion (2023 WL 1991888), and the Federal Circuit's 2026-03-09 judgment. I could not independently verify (a) the exact docket number and institution status of Amazon's '594 IPR, (b) the formal post-affirmance closing entry in 2:22-cv-01424, or (c) the precise text of Judge Albright's transfer order beyond the docket notation — check PACER/ECF for those if precision on those points matters.

Clarification on "plaintiff" before answering

This "case" is an IPR, not an infringement suit: the PTAB caption is Amazon.com, Inc. v. WAG Acquisition, L.L.C., IPR2022-01433, where Amazon is the petitioner (the party the case metadata labels "Plaintiff") and WAG is the patent owner. The actual infringement plaintiff in the parallel district-court litigation (WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al., No. 2:22-cv-01424-JLR, W.D. Wash.) is WAG. I therefore identify counsel for both readings, and flag the underlying district-court counsel as well.

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A. Amazon.com, Inc. — Petitioner in IPR2022-01433 (first-named/"plaintiff" party in the IPR caption)

PTAB lead counsel (inferred):

PTAB back-up petitioner counsel (all listed on IPR filings):

Appellate/related support (CAFC 24-1627): Jonathan G. Tamimi, Fenwick & West, 401 Union St., Seattle, WA (5th Fl.), signed the Amazon appellee certificate of interest and is listed on the CAFC judgment.

Source: IPR2022-01433 Paper 23 (Petitioner's Objections, service/certification block listing the Fenwick team); CAFC Rule 36 Judgment, WAG Acquisition, LLC v. Walt Disney Co. et al., Nos. 2024-1627, etc. (Mar. 9, 2026), listing J. David Hadden as arguing for appellees Amazon with Shamilov, Chai, Kuncheria, Hoffman, McGann, and Tamimi; CourtListener parties docket for 24-1627.

District-court local counsel for Amazon (W.D. Wash., underlying case): Dargaye H. Churnet and Christopher S. Lavin were admitted as local counsel for Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon Web Services, Inc., and Amazon.com Services LLC (UniCourt docket entries for 2:22-cv-01424). Fenwick & West handled the merits work.

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B. WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. — Patent Owner in the IPR and actual infringement plaintiff in the district court

PTAB patent-owner counsel (Liston Abramson LLP, 405 Lexington Ave., 46th Fl., New York, NY 10174):

Additional Liston Abramson attorneys who appeared for WAG in the underlying district-court infringement case: David G. Liston (firm co-founder) and Alex G. Patchen (partner) were covered by the W.D. Wash. pro hac vice letter for WAG. Patchen's firm bio notes he "has represented clients to enforce patent rights, and has litigated patent litigation cases on behalf of inventors against large multinational companies, including Microsoft, Disney, Netflix, Amazon, Salesforce, and Google."

Texas-side local counsel (pre-transfer, W.D. Tex.): Brandon Rhodes Oates filed pro hac vice motions on behalf of WAG (e.g., UniCourt docket entry for motion re Ronald Abramson, filed in the TXWD case later transferred to Seattle).

Sources: IPR2022-01433 Paper 23 (service on "Patent Owner's lead and backup counsel" — Abramson, Lewis, Jaffess, Kim at Liston Abramson); CAFC Rule 36 Judgment (Abramson argued, with Jaffess); UniCourt docket for 2:22-cv-01424 (pro hac vice letters for Abramson, Liston, Jaffess, Patchen, Lewis; Oates pro hac motion); Liston Abramson attorney bio for Patchen; CourtListener parties list for CAFC 24-1627.

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Sourcing caveats

• The PTAB's formal lead/back-up designations (from the petition and power of attorney) were not directly retrieved; roles above are inferred from signature blocks, service certifications ("lead and backup counsel"), and who argued at the CAFC. Ronald Abramson (WAG) and J. David Hadden (Amazon) are the clearly identifiable lead advocates on each side.
• Amazon's in-house counsel did not appear in the retrieved sources; representation was outside counsel (Fenwick & West) plus W.D. Wash. local counsel.
• No filings are sealed that would prevent disclosure of these names — all derive from public PTAB papers, the CAFC judgment, and the district court docket.

Counsel of Record — Threshold Framing

Before listing counsel, a framing note. The case in the metadata, IPR2022-01433, is an inter partes review before the PTAB — the caption is Amazon.com, Inc. v. WAG Acquisition, L.L.C., in which Amazon is the petitioner and WAG Acquisition is the patent owner/respondent (the "defendant-side" party in the docket). In the parallel district court infringement suit — WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al., No. 2:22-cv-01424-JLR (W.D. Wash.) — the roles flip: WAG is plaintiff and the Amazon entities are the defendants. I therefore identify counsel for WAG Acquisition (respondent in the IPR/caption "defendant") as the primary answer, and separately note Amazon's defense counsel in the related infringement case for completeness.

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WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. — Patent Owner/Respondent (IPR2022-01433) and Appellant on Appeal

WAG was represented by Liston Abramson LLP (405 Lexington Ave., 46th Floor, New York, NY 10174). The attorneys identified on the IPR docket as Patent Owner's lead and backup counsel (per the certificate of service on Amazon's December 7, 2023 filing, which expressly served "Patent Owner's lead and backup counsel") are:

Additional Liston Abramson attorneys in the broader WAG campaign: David G. Liston (firm name partner) and Alex G. Patchen were included on WAG's pro hac vice application in the W.D. Wash. infringement case (2:22-cv-01424) per the UniCourt docket, along with Abramson, Jaffess, and Lewis.

Sourcing caveat: I could not pull the PTAB docket's formal "Power of Attorney / Designation of Counsel" entry for IPR2022-01433 itself in the searches run, so the lead/backup split for the IPR rests on the service certificate in Amazon's Dec. 7, 2023 filing (DocketAlarm/exparte reproduction), which is a reliable contemporaneous docket document. Abramson's role as lead is further corroborated by the Federal Circuit Rule 36 judgment and disposition listing him as arguing counsel "for appellant" with Jaffess.

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Amazon.com, Inc. et al. — Defendants in the Parallel Infringement Case (2:22-cv-01424 W.D. Wash.) / Petitioners in the IPR

If the requested "defendant(s)" means Amazon (the accused party in the underlying patent infringement suit), Amazon's counsel were:

• J. David Hadden — Lead PTAB/appellate counsel for Amazon; Fenwick & West LLP, Mountain View, CA (Reg. No. 40,629). Argued for appellees Amazon at the Federal Circuit in the consolidated appeal; signed the IPR petition-stage filings.
• Saina Shamilov — Fenwick & West LLP, Mountain View, CA (Reg. No. 48,266); appeared on IPR filings and the Federal Circuit brief.
• Brian Michael Hoffman — Fenwick & West LLP, San Francisco, CA (Reg. No. 39,713); appeared on IPR filings and appeal.
• Johnathan Chai — Fenwick & West LLP, Mountain View, CA (Reg. No. 75,690).
• Johnson Kuncheria — Fenwick & West LLP, Mountain View, CA (Reg. No. 69,093).
• Kevin X. McGann — Fenwick & West LLP, New York, NY (Reg. No. 48,793); firm bio confirms he represented Amazon "in its challenge to two WAG Acquisition patents related to video streaming," successfully invalidating all claims before the PTAB.
• Jonathan G. Tamimi — Fenwick & West LLP, Seattle, WA; local/Seattle-based counsel on the W.D. Wash. case and appeal.
• Local counsel in W.D. Wash. (per UniCourt docket entries): Dargaye H. Churnet and Christopher S. Lavin, admitted for defendants Amazon Web Services, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., and Amazon.com Services LLC. (Firm affiliations not confirmed in the sources retrieved.)

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Bottom Line

The counsel of record for the respondent/caption-defendant WAG Acquisition, L.L.C. in IPR2022-01433 is Liston Abramson LLP (New York), led by Ronald Abramson with Ari J. Jaffess, M. Michael Lewis, and Gina K. Kim on the PTAB filings, and Abramson/Jaffess carrying the Federal Circuit appeal (which WAG lost via Rule 36 affirmance on March 9, 2026). If the question instead targets the defendants in the underlying infringement action, those are the Amazon entities, represented by Fenwick & West LLP (Hadden, Shamilov, Hoffman, Chai, Kuncheria, McGann, Tamimi) with Churnet and Lavin as admitted local counsel in Seattle. No filings appeared sealed and no counsel were missing from the record based on the sources available.