Lumen Technologies, Inc.

Company overview. Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: LUMN), commonly called Lumen and formerly CenturyLink, Inc. until a September 2020 rename, is a publicly held facilities-based telecommunications and networking company headquartered at 100 CenturyLink Drive in Monroe, Louisiana. Corporate roots trace to 1930 (Central Telephone and Electronics / Century Telephone Enterprises); the current entity was incorporated in 1968 and has traded on the NYSE since 1972. Sources put headcount at roughly 21,000–27,000, with FY2025 revenue of about $12.4 billion and a market capitalization in the $6–8 billion range (PitchBook; stockanalysis.com; Yahoo Finance).

Products / services / operations. Lumen operates one of the largest enterprise telecom networks in the U.S. Its business segment sells dark fiber and conduit, optical wavelengths, IP and VoIP services, Ethernet and VPN data networks, SD-WAN/SASE, managed security, edge cloud, unified communications and collaboration, and colocation/data-center services, plus legacy voice/private-line products. Consumer brands have included CenturyLink and Quantum Fiber. Following the 2017 Level 3 merger, the 2022 divestiture of most rural local-exchange operations, and the February 2026 sale of its remaining consumer fiber-to-the-home business to AT&T, roughly 90% of revenue comes from enterprise, wholesale, and public-sector customers (PitchBook; 10-K; investing.com).

Patent-litigation posture. Lumen is an operating company appearing exclusively as a defendant: the tracked database shows 0 plaintiff cases and 1 defendant case. That case, Lab Technology LLC v. Lumen Technologies, Inc., was filed April 17, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Midland/Odessa Division)—a venue with a plaintiff-friendly patent docket. Lab Technology LLC, an Albuquerque, New Mexico LLC represented by a firm known for plaintiff-side patent work, asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 8,483,102 (voice-identity mapping across telephony networks) and 8,503,973 (emergency-caller location), both telephony technologies adjacent to Lumen's core services. The case was voluntarily dismissed in June 2025 per the docket.

Notable context. The Lab Technology suit fits a broader pattern: as CenturyLink/Lumen, the company has historically been a frequent target of NPE and small-entity patent suits (e.g., Sisvel, Ospreay, BE Labs, Coretek, and Redwood cases elsewhere), consistent with its role as a large network operator defending against acquired or single-purpose patent portfolios rather than asserting its own.