Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

I'll research this case and its surrounding litigation before drafting.

Case Overview and Background

Important framing note. IPR2022-00720 is not a district-court infringement suit; it is an administrative trial before the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the caption runs the opposite direction from the underlying litigation. Here, Amphenol Corp. is the petitioner (the accused infringer attacking the patent) and PPC Broadband, Inc. is the patent owner. The infringement litigation that produced these IPRs is PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp. and Times Fiber Communications, Inc., C.A. No. 21-654 (D. Del.), in which PPC was the plaintiff. Both parties are real operating companies in the broadband connectivity business — this is a competitor-versus-competitor fight, not an NPE/PAE or university assertion.

The parties. PPC Broadband, Inc. (East Syracuse, NY; 6176 E. Molloy Rd.) is a long-established manufacturer of coaxial cable connectors and broadband drop/hardline hardware for cable/MSO and satellite networks. Since Belden Inc. acquired it for $515.7 million in December 2012, PPC has operated as a brand within Belden's broadband segment (alongside Sichert, Precision OT and Opterna), and it is named as a Delaware corporation in the pleadings. Amphenol Corp. (Wallingford, CT) is a much larger, diversified interconnect manufacturer; its broadband business includes Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (also Wallingford, CT) and Charles Industries, LLC (Schaumburg, IL), which PPC's pleadings describe as a wholly owned Amphenol subsidiary and part of Amphenol's broadband business. The two sides have litigated connector technology against each other and against others (Corning, PerfectVision/PVM) for well over a decade.

The technology and the patent. The market at issue is F-type coaxial "continuity" connectors used at the drop/port interface in hybrid-fiber-coax networks. The engineering problem is that a loose connector breaks the ground path between the cable's outer conductor, the connector post, the nut/coupler and the port, causing RF signal egress/ingress — the FCC-regulated signal-leakage problem that generates expensive technician "truck rolls." PPC's family of "grounding member" patents claims a design in which a conductive/compliant grounding member (e.g., a conductive ring or o-ring) sits between contact surfaces (typically the connector body and the rotatable nut/coupler) to maintain a nut-to-body grounding path even when the connector loosens. U.S. Patent No. 10,038,284 ("Connector having a grounding member"), issued July 31, 2018 from application 15/431,018 (Tech Center 2800), is one of those continuity-family patents; the challenged independent claims 29 and 37 recite a body member with a first grounding-member contact surface, a post with a flange forming part of the mating interface, a conductive coupling member with an opposing contact surface, and a conductive grounding member comprising a compliant ring between those surfaces producing an electrical path between body and coupler. It is a sibling of the other three patents Amphenol attacked — U.S. 9,225,083; 10,446,983; and 10,965,063 — all of which share the 2004-era priority lineage that PPC's expert Dr. Eldering used for the obviousness analysis.

Procedural posture and venue. Amphenol filed four IPR petitions on March 18, 2022 (IPR2022-00718 through -00721), challenging all asserted claims of the four patents PPC had asserted in the Delaware case. The Board instituted on October 24, 2022 and held a consolidated (but not consolidated-on-the-merits) oral hearing on July 20, 2023. In IPR2022-00720, the panel — Administrative Patent Judges Gerstenblith, Hoskins (opinion author) and Ippolito — issued a final written decision on October 23, 2023 holding claims 29–33, 36–43 and 46 unpatentable as obvious (grounds built on Youtsey in view of Lionetto/Horak, and Tarrant in view of Bell, with expert testimony from Dr. James Dickens for Amphenol and Dr. Charles Eldering for PPC). Rehearing was denied February 28, 2024, PPC noticed appeal on April 29, 2024, and the Federal Circuit affirmed without opinion under Rule 36 on March 4, 2026 in consolidated appeals Nos. 2024-1776 through -1779 (the '284 appeal docketed as 2024-1778), per curiam before Judges Reyna, Hughes and Cunningham. Venue is significant in three ways: (i) the PTAB sits in Alexandria, VA, and its decisions are reviewable only in the Federal Circuit; (ii) the parallel litigation was filed in D. Del., where both PPC and Amphenol are Delaware corporations (originally assigned to Judge Leonard P. Stark, who was elevated to the Federal Circuit in 2022; later docket entries show a reassigned "21-654 (VAC)" caption — I could not verify the current district judge); and (iii) the parties jointly stipulated to stay the Delaware case on April 6, 2022, agreeing to hold the litigation pending the Board's institution decisions and, if all petitions were instituted, through the final written decisions — so the PTAB effectively became the primary forum for the connector-patent dispute.

Why it matters. Three things make this matter notable. First, IPR linkage as litigation strategy: Amphenol filed the petitions the same day the litigation clock started running and then obtained a complete stay, converting a District of Delaware jury case into a PTAB case and ultimately eliminating the asserted connector claims — a textbook example of IPR-driven defense in a two-company patent war. Second, market concentration and the antitrust overlay: in a separate action, PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PVM (E.D. Ark. No. 4:22-cv-00163-LPR), the counterclaimant alleged PPC holds more than 80% of the U.S. market for "continuity" F-type connectors, with high barriers to entry — an allegation the court accepted as sufficient to survive judgment on the pleadings in its December 10, 2024 order, which makes the invalidation of PPC's continuity-family connector claims economically consequential for MSO customers and competitors alike. Third, multi-front saturation: the same two corporate families are simultaneously litigating PPC v. Amphenol/Charles, No. 1:22-cv-01517 (D. Del.) (U.S. 9,008,483 against the CFIT-Flex™ fiber-enclosure line, with claim-construction briefing over "drop cable"), and Times Fiber Communications v. PPC Broadband, No. 1:21-cv-1823 (D. Del.) (Amphenol-owned cable-reel/reel-less-coil patents, which itself generated further IPRs, e.g., IPR2022-00946), so the '284 decision is one battle in a broad connector/cable portfolio war between Belden's PPC brand and Amphenol.

Sourcing caveats. The petition, institution decision, final written decision, rehearing denial and Rule 36 judgment are well documented (PTAB papers/documents via PTAB-CTS and Docket Alarm; Fed. Cir. 24-1776 Rule 36 judgment, March 4, 2026; Law360's Oct. 2023 and March 4, 2026 coverage). I was not able to verify, within this research pass: the specific Amphenol/Times Fiber product models accused in C.A. No. 21-654 (PPC's infringement contentions exist as an exhibit but I did not review the product list); the current docket status/disposition of 21-654 after the IPRs (i.e., whether it was dismissed or is proceeding on any surviving claims); and the exact identity of the successor district judge. Those points should be confirmed in PACER (D. Del. 1:21-cv-00654, 1:22-cv-01517, 1:21-cv-01823) before being relied on.

I'll research this case thoroughly. One important note up front: the metadata identifies IPR2022-00720, which is a PTAB inter partes review — not a district court litigation. I'll investigate both the IPR and any parallel district court case, then map the requested litigation milestones onto what actually exists.

Excellent — this clarifies the actual posture. Let me dig into the parallel district court case and the appeal details.

Now let me examine the district court docket for the parallel case and its final disposition.

Bottom line up front — an important correction

IPR2022-00720 is not a patent infringement litigation. It is an inter partes review before the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — Amphenol's challenge to PPC Broadband's U.S. 10,038,284. A district court infringement action does exist in this dispute, and it is where the complaint/answer/discovery/stay milestones you asked about live, but the case number in the metadata belongs to the PTAB track. Below I give you the full chronological picture of both, and I flag explicitly where a requested item (Markman, verdict, JMOL, fee motions, settlement) does not exist because the district court case was stayed before those stages and the patent was cancelled out from under it.

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The two tracks at a glance

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1. Pre-suit background (the setup that decided everything)

• PPC's earlier connector wars. PPC (d/b/a John Mezzalingua Associates; parent Belden Inc.) had litigated these coaxial-connector grounding patents against Times Fiber and Corning Gilbert in N.D.N.Y. (e.g., 5:13-cv-00460) and in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-938. Those cases generated prior claim constructions of the "connector body / post / continuity member" terms.
• The '053 inter partes reexamination. Amphenol's IPR petition leans heavily on the fact that the Board had already invalidated substantially similar claims of related U.S. 7,833,053 in an inter partes reexamination, which PPC did not appeal — Amphenol argued PPC was collaterally estopped from relitigating the same issued. This is the doctrinal spine of the IPRs. (IPR2022-00720 Petition, § I.)
• First D. Del. suit: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp. et al., No. 1:20-cv-01148 (D. Del., filed 2020-08-28, Judge Leonard P. Stark), asserting U.S. 8,510,782; 9,167,286; 9,351,051; 9,516,376; 9,860,591. I could not verify a disposition for this case — treat it as unresolved in the public record I found.
• Amphenol's counter-offensive: Times Fiber (an Amphenol affiliate) sued PPC in D. Del. (1:21-cv-01823) on Amphenol's cable-reel patents (10,941,016; 10,988,342; 11,001,471; 10,906,771; 10,913,632), and PPC filed its own IPRs on those assets (IPR2022-00830, -00831, -00946, -00947, -01087, -01088). This is a two-front war, not one-directional.

2. The district court case: filing, pleadings, discovery, stay

• 2021-05-06 — Complaint. PPC filed No. 1:21-cv-00654 (D. Del.) with a jury demand, asserting four patents: 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; and 9,225,083 (the same four patents Amphenol later IPR'd). Defendants: Amphenol Corporation and Times Fiber Communications, Inc.
• 2021 — Answer/responsive pleading. Defendants' answer (with defenses; per later filings they contemplated inequitable conduct and collateral estoppel) was filed after service; I could not confirm the exact answer/counterclaim docket entry or date. Note the strategic wrinkle: in the parties' April 2022 stipulation, PPC pre-agreed in writing not to oppose a motion by Amphenol/Times Fiber to amend the answer to add inequitable conduct and collateral estoppel defenses if the case resumed after the stay.
• 2021-11-17 — Scheduling Order (D.I. 17), Judge Stark: fact discovery close 2023-02-17; joint claim construction brief 2022-10-21; Markman hearing set for 2022-11-21; dispositive motions 2023-06-16; pretrial order 2023-10-19; jury trial set for 2023-11-06. (Case later appears on docket summaries under Judge Gregory B. Williams with flags "STAYED" and "PATENT"; the judge-of-record attribution is inconsistent across secondary sources, so treat that detail as uncertain.)
• 2021-11/12 — Discovery opened: initial disclosures (Nov. 2021); PPC's first set of interrogatories/RFPs to defendants (2021-11-18); defendants' first set to PPC (2021-11-19); PPC's second set of interrogatories (Nos. 9–14) and RFPs (Nos. 14–88) (2021-12-03).
• 2022-03-08 — PPC's infringement contentions for the '063, '083 and '284 patents served. These contentions were later used against PPC as IPR exhibits (Ex. 1014 series), a classic IPR estoppel / claim-scope lever.
• 2022-04-06 — Stipulated stay (D.I. 43). The parties jointly stipulated to stay pending at least the PTAB's institution decisions, with these terms: if all four IPRs were instituted, the stay would continue until the PTAB issued a final written decision in each IPR; if any petition was not instituted, PPC could move to lift. Defendants reserved an unopposed right to amend their answer (inequitable conduct / collateral estoppel) within 7 days of the stay lifting. So ordered 2022-04-06. (Stipulation text reproduced in full in the PTAB record.)
• 2022-10-24 — Stay extended (D.I. 45) after all four IPRs were instituted.

Consequence: the case froze before Markman. No claim construction ruling issued, no dispositive motions, no expert discovery, no pretrial, no trial, no verdict, no JMOL/new-trial motion, no fee motion, and no publicly announced settlement. PPC's affirmative case was litigated to judgment entirely inside the PTAB.

3. The IPR track (IPR2022-00720 and siblings)

• 2022-03-18 — Amphenol filed four petitions (IPR2022-00718 ('063), -00719 ('983), -00720 ('284), -00721 ('083)), challenging all asserted claims and naming Amphenol, Times Fiber Communications, and Holland Electronics as RPIs. Filed within §315(b)'s one-year window from the 2021 complaint. Rights holders on the other side: PPC and Belden Inc.
  • -00720 challenged claims 29–33, 36–43, and 46 of U.S. 10,038,284 ("Connector having a grounding member," issued 2018-07-31; app. 15/431,018).
• 2022-08-31 — Petitioner's Reply to POPR resisting PPC's §325(d) discretionary-denial arguments (PPC argued the Examiner substantively considered the art during prosecution; Amphenol countered with Advanced Bionics, Fasteners for Retail, Weber v. Provisur).
• 2022-10-24 — Institution decisions in all four proceedings (Board instituted review).
• Merits briefing in -00720: Patent Owner Response (Paper 17); Petitioner Reply (Paper 22); PO's Identification of Improper New Arguments and Evidence (Paper 24) — a notable procedural fight over new matter in reply; Petitioner's Joint Chart responding (Paper 25); PO Sur-reply (Paper 27).
• 2023-07-20 — Consolidated oral hearing (virtual), one transcript for all four cases though the cases were not consolidated (Paper 34). Panel: Judges Gerstenblith, Hoskins, and Ippolito. Petitioner argued via Latham & Watkins (S. Giri Pathmanaban, with Richard A. Lowry arguing under the LEAP program, earning 15 extra minutes); Patent Owner by Denis J. Sullivan (Barclay Damon).
• 2023-10-23 — Final Written Decision (IPR2022-00720). The Board held Petitioner showed by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 29–33, 36–43, and 46 are unpatentable as obvious, and entered judgment to that effect. (FWD authored by Judge Hoskins.) Companion final decisions in -00718, -00719, -00721 issued the same week, invalidating all challenged claims across all four patents — reported by Law360 on 2023-10-25 ("PTAB Axes All Challenged Claims In 4 Coaxial Cable Patents"). The merits turned on combinations of coaxial-connector prior art (Montena, Bell, and related references) against the "conductive grounding member/coupling" limitations.
• Timing note: the FWD landed essentially on the §316(a)(11) one-year deadline from institution (2022-10-24 → 2023-10-23).
• Rehearing: PPC filed a Request for Rehearing; the Board denied it (the docket records an order "Denying Patent Owner's Request for Rehearing of Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable"). I could not verify the exact denial date — it falls between the FWD (Oct. 2023) and the 2024 docketing of the appeal.
• 2024 — Appeal. PPC appealed all four decisions: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, -1777, -1778, -1779 (Fed. Cir.), with -00720 corresponding to No. 2024-1778. PPC changed appellate counsel to Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner (Robert King High III argued; Cory C. Bell; J. Michael Jakes). Amphenol was represented by Latham & Watkins (Gabriel K. Bell argued; Richard A. Lowry; Richard Gregory Frenkel).
• 2026-03-04 — Federal Circuit affirmed. Nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham, per curiam): "AFFIRMED." No written opinion, so no new law on grounding-member obviousness. This confirms the cancellation of claims 29–33, 36–43, and 46.

4. Effect on the litigation, and present posture

• With every asserted claim of the '284 patent (and of all four patents-in-suit) held unpatentable and that holding affirmed, PPC had no surviving district court case on these patents — the Delaware action was in substance determined by the PTAB result, and the '284 patent's challenged claims are cancelled. Docket aggregators list No. 1:21-cv-00654 as closed/stayed; I could not verify the specific dismissal or judgment entry in the Delaware docket, so I would not state as fact the exact mechanism or date of termination there.
• Practical read: the IPR track was Amphenol's chosen forum (petitions filed within the §315(b) window, then leveraged to freeze Delaware before Markman), and it fully delivered — four patents' asserted claims invalidated, stay made permanent by events, and affirmance without opinion.
• Still-live/uncertain threads in the broader dispute: (a) PPC's mirror IPRs against Times Fiber/Amphenol cable-reel patents (IPR2022-00830/-00831/-00946/-00947/-01087/-01088); (b) Times Fiber v. PPC, No. 1:21-cv-01823 (D. Del.); (c) PPC v. Charles Industries & Amphenol, No. 1:22-cv-01517 (D. Del., filed 2022-11-21, U.S. 9,008,483, Judge Williams); (d) the unresolved disposition of No. 1:20-cv-01148.

5. Items you asked for that do not exist here

• Markman/claim construction ruling: none — the case was stayed 2022-04-06, well before the 2022-10-21 joint brief and 2022-11-21 hearing.
• Summary judgment, trial, verdict, JMOL/new trial, attorney's fees: none.
• Settlement: no publicly reported settlement of the patent dispute.
• Motion to dismiss/transfer: none of substance in the record I found; the only threshold motion practice was the stipulated stay (D.I. 43, 45).

6. Sourcing caveats

Well-sourced: IPR filing date (2022-03-18), institution (2022-10-24), FWD substance and date (2023-10-23), Paper numbers for POR/Reply/Sur-reply/Improper-New-Arguments/Joint Chart/Hearing Transcript (17, 22, 24, 25, 27, 34), panel composition, counsel, the Delaware complaint date (2021-05-06) and four asserted patents, PPC's infringement contentions (2022-03-08), the April 6, 2022 stay stipulation terms, Federal Circuit appeal numbers and the 2026-03-04 Rule 36 affirmance (with panel and counsel).
Not verified / flagged: the exact rehearing-denial date, the notice-of-appeal date, the district court answer/counterclaim docket entry, the Delaware termination/dismissal entry, the judge-of-record for 21-cv-00654 (Stark vs. Williams), and the outcome of 1:20-cv-01148.

I'll research press coverage of this case from multiple angles.

Let me look for the specific articles in the news index and other coverage.

Let me pull the specific IPWatchdog roundups from the news index.

What the press actually reported

The most substantive docket-specific coverage comes from Law360, which has followed both bookends of this dispute. Law360 reported in its Oct. 25, 2023 article "PTAB Axes All Challenged Claims In 4 Coaxial Cable Patents" that, "[i]n four final decisions this week, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found that telecom parts manufacturer Amphenol Corp. showed that all the claims it challenged across four coaxial cable patents owned by competitor PPC Broadband Inc. are invalid as obvious." That is the press characterization of the Oct. 23, 2023 final written decision in IPR2022-00720 (and its three companions), and it captures the significance framing the trade press used: a competitor-versus-competitor wipeout of an entire asserted patent family, not a one-claim skirmish. Law360 returned to the story at the appellate stage, with a March 4, 2026 item in its telecom feed, "Fed. Circ. Backs PTAB Ax Of Coaxial Cable Patent Claims," reporting that "[t]he Federal Circuit on Wednesday refused to revive numerous claims across four coaxial cable patents owned by PPC Broadband Inc., affirming competitor Amphenol Corp.'s successful challenge to the claims at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board." Both are short news items; neither reports a damages figure, because none exists — the proceeding is an IPR in which the only stakes are claim survival, and the parallel D. Del. case was stayed before any damages case was tried.

The single wire-service item in the record is not litigation coverage but deal news that predates the fight: Business Wire distributed a Dec. 17, 2020 release headlined "PPC Broadband, A Belden Brand, and Amphenol Enter Into Global Patent Partnership," announcing a cross-license-style arrangement in the home-networking field covering MoCA and related inventions. It carries executive statements — PPC President Olivier Bojarski ("This partnership is representative of our commitment to the broadband industry…") and Zak Raley, President of Amphenol's Broadband Cable Group ("We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement on what we expect to be a long-term partnership…"). Trade press picked it up with the same quotes (ChannelVision Magazine). Notably, a second, differently sourced version of a PPC/Amphenol partnership announcement appears in the trade press — evertiq and Cabling Installation & Maintenance describe a "broadband connectivity" partnership between PPC and Times Fiber Communications (TFC) quoting PPC President Dave Jackson and Raley in his TFC capacity, rather than Bojarski and Amphenol's Broadband Cable Group. The discrepancy in signatories, counterparties and subject matter suggests two separate announcements rather than one, and I was not able to pin the date of the TFC version — worth flagging before treating the 2020 partnership as a clean prelude to the litigation.

Beyond Law360 and the wire release, coverage is thin and mostly derivative. The Federal Circuit's Rule 36 affirmance generated an aggregation-style write-up at ScaleJuris, "Federal Circuit Affirms PTAB's Invalidation of PPC Broadband's Coaxial Cable Patents in Rule 36 Decision," which goes beyond the bare court record with analyst-style takeaway: it frames a Rule 36 affirmance as signaling "no reversible error of law and that the PTAB's factual findings were supported by substantial evidence," calls it "a common practice in cases where the law is clear and the outcome is not precedential," and observes that it "underscores the difficulty of overturning a PTAB decision on appeal, particularly on factual grounds such as obviousness, where the standard of review is deferential." It also situates the result against PPC's prior Federal Circuit history in the same technology (its Corning litigation, where the court had vacated PTAB decisions on claim-construction grounds) — a contextual claim the outlet asserts but does not cite, and which I could not independently verify in this research pass. I would treat ScaleJuris as low-authority commentary rather than reporting.

Finally, the IPWatchdog "Patent Filings Roundup" series is the other recurring source that touched this matter, though its pieces are week-in-review columns rather than case coverage. The March 24, 2022 roundup is headlined "PPC Broadband Patents Challenged Based on Successful Reexams," which directly tracks Amphenol's petition theme — the Board's earlier inter partes reexamination invalidation of related U.S. 7,833,053 and Amphenol's collateral-estoppel argument. The Jan. 11, 2024 roundup ("A Light Week to Kick Off the New Year") and the Nov. 3, 2022 roundup and Apr. 28, 2022 roundup appear in the news index as touching this case, but I was unable to retrieve their full text within this research pass to confirm the specific sentences about IPR2022-00720 — I can verify the Jan. 11, 2024 column's existence and its "six final written decisions" framing, but not that it names the '284 proceeding. Those citations should be spot-checked before being quoted.

Coverage gaps worth stating plainly. I found no reporting on this dispute from Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Ars Technica, The Verge, Patently-O, JD Supra, or any mainstream outlet. There is no verdict, award, injunction, or settlement to report — the case was resolved entirely through claim cancellation, so there are no reported damages figures, license terms, or market-impact numbers in the press. The remaining "sources" that surface for IPR2022-00720 (Patexia and GreyB's IPVerse case pages, Docket Alarm) are docket aggregators, not journalism, and should not be cited as press analysis. In short: this is a technically and commercially consequential case that received only brief trade-legal coverage, and any summary implying broader press attention would be overstating it.

Sources

• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• 322. First, PPC argued that modifying the non-conductive o-rings of Youtsey and Tarrant would undermine these references because...
• NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential
• MR
• Amphenol Corp. et al. v. PPC Broadband, Inc. et al. > Summary
• Amphenol Corp. et al. v. PPC Broadband, Inc. et al. - IPR2022-00720
• PPC BROADBAND, INC. v. AMPHENOL CORP. (Fed. Cir. 2026)
• Filed on behalf of: Amphenol Corp
• Patent Owner's Demonstra
• Intellectual Property : Law360 : Legal News & Analysis - Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
• Technology : Law360 : Legal News & Analysis - Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
• Telecommunications : Law360 : Legal News & Analysis - Try our Advanced Search for more refined results

I'll research the counsel of record in this matter. Note an important framing point first: this is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district court infringement action, so the "plaintiff" is the petitioner, Amphenol Corp. Let me confirm that and identify its counsel.

Let me confirm the full counsel roster from the original petition and the updated mandatory notices.

Let me pin down the original petition's counsel designation and check on additional Latham personnel (e.g., Dale Chang).

Threshold point on who the "plaintiff" is here

IPR2022-00720 is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district court infringement action. The party in the plaintiff-side posture is the petitioner, Amphenol Corp. (the patent owner/respondent is PPC Broadband, Inc.). There is a related district court case, PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., No. 1:21-cv-00654 (D. Del.), where the roles are reversed — PPC is plaintiff there and Amphenol is a defendant. The roster below is Amphenol's PTAB counsel, which is what the case metadata makes "plaintiff's counsel."

All Amphenol-side counsel of record come from Latham & Watkins LLP. The authoritative source is Amphenol's Updated Mandatory Notices under 37 C.F.R. § 42.8, entered April 12, 2023 in IPR2022-00720 (and the parallel papers in -00718/-00719/-00721).

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Counsel of record for Petitioner Amphenol Corp. (Latham & Watkins LLP)

Source: Amphenol Corp., Petitioner's Updated Mandatory Notices, IPR2022-00720 (entered Apr. 12, 2023) — listing Pathmanaban as lead counsel and Strang, Frenkel, and Lowry as backup counsel; consolidated oral argument transcript, Sept. 18, 2023 ("This is Giri Pathmanaban with Latham & Watkins on behalf of Petitioner, Amphenol").

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Additional Latham attorney who appeared in the proceeding

• Dale Chang — Latham & Watkins LLP, Chicago, IL (330 N. Wabash Ave., Ste. 2800). He signed the Aug. 9, 2022 correspondence to the Board as "Counsel for Petitioner Amphenol," appeared on the Aug. 22, 2022 conference call (with Frenkel), and was on PPC's April 8, 2022 service list alongside Strang and Lowry. He does not appear in the formal § 42.8(b)(3) lead/backup designation in the updated mandatory notices, so I'd characterize him as an attorney who appeared in the matter rather than a formally designated counsel of record — flagging that because the record is mixed on his formal status.

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Federal Circuit appeal (No. 2024-1776 et al., Amphenol as Appellee)

After PPC appealed the final written decisions in the four related IPRs, Amphenol's appellate counsel were:

• Gabriel K. Bell — Latham & Watkins LLP, Washington, D.C. (argued for appellee Amphenol)
• Richard A. Lowry — Latham & Watkins LLP
• Richard Gregory Frenkel — Latham & Watkins LLP, Menlo Park, CA

Source: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776/-1777/-1778/-1779 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 4, 2026) (Rule 36 judgment) — "GABRIEL K. BELL, Latham & Watkins LLP, Washington, DC, argued for appellee. Also represented by RICHARD A. LOWRY; RICHARD GREGORY FRENKEL, Menlo Park, CA."

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What I could not confirm / caveats

• In-house counsel: No Amphenol in-house attorney appears in the PTAB filings I could retrieve. If Amphenol had in-house participation, it is not reflected in the § 42.8 notices or the hearing transcripts. I am not asserting one exists.
• Original petition signature block: I confirmed the initial counsel via PPC's April 8, 2022 service list (Chang, Strang, Lowry) rather than from the face of Paper 2 itself. The Petition (Paper 2, Mar. 18, 2022) was not retrieved in full, so I cannot quote its signature block verbatim.
• District court counsel are separate: Amphenol's counsel in the parallel Delaware action (PPC Broadband v. Amphenol, No. 1:21-cv-00654) are not necessarily the same as its PTAB counsel, and I did not verify that docket's appearance list — do not assume the Latham roster above applies in Delaware.
• All names, registration numbers, addresses, and email domains above are taken from the USPTO PTAB papers and the Federal Circuit judgment; none are inferred.

For contrast, PPC's (respondent's) PTAB counsel were Denis J. Sullivan, Naresh K. Kannan, and Genevieve M. Halpenny of Barclay Damon LLP (Syracuse/Albany, NY), with Cory C. Bell of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP (Boston) — included only so you can distinguish the two sides.

I'll research the counsel of record for the respondent/patent owner (PPC Broadband) in IPR2022-00720.

Good initial data. Let me dig into the specific counsel, their firms, and any updates to the mandatory notices.

Bottom line on posture

IPR2022-00720 is an inter partes review at the PTAB, not a district court case. Amphenol Corp. is the petitioner; the "defendant" in your metadata — PPC Broadband, Inc. — appears as Patent Owner / Respondent, and later as Appellant on PPC's appeal to the Federal Circuit (Nos. 2024-1776/1777/1778/1779, all four companion IPRs). So the counsel you're asking for are PPC's patent-owner-side counsel, not defense counsel in a conventional infringement action.

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Counsel of record for PPC Broadband (Patent Owner / Respondent)

Source: PPC's Mandatory Notices under 37 C.F.R. § 42.8, filed April 8, 2022 in IPR2022-00718/-00719/-00720/-00721 (PTAB E2E, PTACTS petition 1549312). The same roster appears on PPC's Request for Oral Argument (June 13, 2023), and Denis Sullivan confirmed the appearance at the Sept. 18, 2023 consolidated hearing.

Real party in interest: PPC's notices identify PPC Broadband, Inc. and Belden Inc. (PPC's parent). No separate Belden in-house attorney was named as counsel of record in the papers I could review.

No updated § 42.8 notice changing this roster surfaced in my search through the July 2023 FWD and the appeal; the June 2023 oral-argument request still lists Sullivan, Kannan, Halpenny and Cory Bell.

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Appellate counsel (PPC as Appellant, Fed. Cir. 2024-1778 for the '284 patent)

From the Rule 36 judgment, PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776–1779 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 4, 2026) (per curiam: Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham):

• Robert King High, III — Finnegan, Atlanta, GA — argued for appellant PPC.
• Cory C. Bell — Finnegan, Boston, MA.
• J. Michael Jakes — Finnegan, Washington, DC (Jakes is a well-known Finnegan PTAB/appellate partner).

Barclay Damon does not appear on the Federal Circuit judgment caption; appellate briefing was handled by the Finnegan team.

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Context: parallel district court counsel for PPC (same patent family)

PPC also asserted these coaxial-connector patents in Delaware — PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., No. 1:21-cv-00654 (LPS) (D. Del.) and PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Charles Industries, LLC et al., No. 1:22-cv-01517 (D. Del.). PPC's district court team there included Douglas J. Nash, John D. Cook and (pro hac vice) Naresh K. Kannan of Barclay Damon — i.e., substantial overlap with the IPR team. Cite these only as context; they are not the PTAB record.

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Opposing side (for completeness — Petitioner Amphenol)

From the same filings and hearing transcript, Amphenol's PTAB counsel are Latham & Watkins LLP: S. Giri Pathmanaban (Austin, TX), Jonathan M. Strang, Richard G. Frenkel (Menlo Park, CA), Richard A. Lowry (Washington, DC). On appeal, Latham's Gabriel K. Bell (Washington, DC) argued for appellee Amphenol, with Lowry and Frenkel on the brief.

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Sourcing notes / caveats

• Primary source for PPC's counsel of record is PPC's Mandatory Notices (Apr. 8, 2022) on PTAB E2E (PTACTS petition 1549312), plus PPC's Request for Oral Argument (June 13, 2023, petition 1549313) and the Sept. 18, 2023 consolidated hearing transcript (IPR2022-00718/-00719/-00720/-00721).
• Federal Circuit caption: 24-1776 Rule 36 judgment; also Justia.
• Attorney bios: Denis Sullivan (Barclay Damon); Naresh Kannan (Barclay Damon). PPC–Corning $61M willful-infringement affirmance background: Barclay Damon press release, Mar. 21, 2018.
• I could not verify a current firm bio or prior case list for Genevieve M. Halpenny (her Reg. No. 75,357 and Barclay Damon Syracuse address come straight from PPC's § 42.8 notice; treat the "experience" line as unverified). I also found no sealed filings or later substitutions that would alter the counsel list. Nothing in the record I reviewed indicates any in-house counsel entered an appearance — if Belden/PPC used in-house attorneys, they are not on the PTAB caption.