Independent Bank

Independent Bank — in this case record, the defendant is Independent Bank Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: IBTX), a Texas bank holding company headquartered in McKinney, Texas (Dallas–Fort Worth area), organized as a Texas corporation on September 20, 2002, with the underlying bank tracing to 1988. It IPO'd in 2013 and ceased to exist as a stand-alone public company on January 1, 2025, when it merged into SouthState Corporation (NYSE: SSB) and its subsidiary Independent Bank merged into SouthState Bank, N.A. As of December 31, 2023 it reported $19.0 billion in total assets, $14.6 billion in loans and $15.7 billion in deposits. Note the name is shared with unrelated institutions (Independent Bank Corp./Rockland Trust of Massachusetts and Independent Bank Corporation of Michigan); the Texas bank is the one consistent with the co-defendants here.

Operations. Through Independent Bank (doing business as Independent Financial), it provided commercial banking products and services to businesses, professionals and individuals — commercial lending, deposits, treasury and related banking services — through branches in North Texas (McKinney, Dallas, Fort Worth, Sherman/Denison), Austin/Central Texas (Austin, Waco), greater Houston and the Colorado Front Range (Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins), roughly 93 financial centers as of 2022. Growth came largely through acquisitions, including Carlile Bancshares/Northstar Bank (2017), Integrity Bancshares (2018) and Guaranty Bancorp (2019).

Litigation posture. Purely defensive: one tracked case as defendant, zero as plaintiff, the classic pattern of an operating company targeted by a patent assertor rather than an active two-way litigant.

Notable case. Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC v. Independent Bank, No. 2:15-cv-01382 (E.D. Tex., Marshall Division, filed July 31, 2015, before Judge Rodney Gilstrap) — a plaintiff-friendly venue. Plano Encryption Technologies is a Plano, Texas NPE and wholly owned subsidiary of Koba Holdings, LLC, whose "sole business" is licensing and litigating patents. It asserted U.S. Patent 5,974,550 against banks' mobile and online banking features, consolidated with suits against several other Texas banks; Independent Bank counterclaimed. The case was stayed for settlement on July 26, 2016 and closed September 20, 2016. The same assertor produced the Federal Circuit's Jack Henry & Associates v. Plano Encryption Technologies (Dec. 7, 2018) decision on personal jurisdiction via infringement demand letters.