Tellabs, Inc. — Operating company (telecommunications/enterprise networking equipment). Founded in 1975 by Michael Birck (sources vary between 1974 and 1978); headquartered today in Carrollton, Texas, having previously been based in Naperville/Lisle, Illinois. Tellabs was publicly traded on Nasdaq (ticker TLAB) until Marlin Equity Partners took it private in 2013 for roughly $891 million ($2.45/share). It remains a Marlin portfolio company; CEO Rich Schroder has led it since December 2019. Post-take-private size figures are not reliably disclosed: third-party estimates range from roughly 1,100 to 1,500 employees, and revenue estimates vary too widely to cite (Wikipedia/Wikiwand, VentureBeat).
Products / operations. Tellabs is an operating manufacturer and supplier, now concentrated on fiber access networking. Its main lines are Optical LAN (passive optical networking for enterprise, education, government, healthcare and defense networks, including the FlexAir wireless offering) and broadband access platforms for service providers, notably the Tellabs 1000 Multiservice Access Platform (MSAP) for fiber-fed and copper-loop carrier modernization, plus network management software and a services suite (training, professional and support services). At the time of the 2013 acquisition, its optical transport, metro Ethernet and mobility units were spun out into Coriant, also Marlin-owned (Tellabs/CB Insights).
Litigation posture. Tellabs appears once in the tracked data, as a defendant only (0 plaintiff cases), consistent with an operating company. The case is not a district-court NPE suit and not clustered in the Eastern District of Texas; it is an ITC Section 337 action in which Tellabs was named as a downstream respondent.
Notable case. Macronix International Co., Ltd. et al. v. Spansion, Inc. et al. (complaint filed Dec. 27, 2013; ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-909). Macronix asserted non-volatile-memory patents against Spansion and customers that incorporated Spansion flash, including Tellabs, Aerohive, Allied Telesis, Ciena, Delphi, Harman, Polycom, Ruckus, ShoreTel and TiVo; Tellabs' accused product was a 7100 Optical Transport System transponder (USITC).