CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Cable One, Inc.

I'll research this case across multiple sources.

Let me dig deeper into the parties, patents, and procedural history.

Case Overview: CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Cable One, Inc., No. 2:20-cv-00158 (E.D. Tex.)

Parties and posture. Plaintiff CommWorks Solutions, LLC is a non-practicing entity (NPE) and subsidiary of Georgia-based monetization firm IP Investments Group LLC. CommWorks' asserted portfolio traces to a large November–December 2019 divestiture by Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) that pushed over 3,800 patents into a cluster of Georgia LLCs associated with IP Investments Group (Hanger Solutions, CDN Innovations, DigiMedia Tech, and CommWorks), which then launched separate assertion campaigns in mid-2020 (Mondaq/RPX, June 10, 2020; RPX classifies CommWorks as an NPE asserting "[1] Acquired patents"). Defendant Cable One, Inc. is a publicly traded cable/broadband ISP headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona (since rebranded to Sparklight), a top-ten U.S. cable operator concentrated in smaller, rural markets. CommWorks filed on May 27, 2020 in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas before Judge Rodney Gilstrap — the district and judge then dominating U.S. patent filings — and the case was closed about nine months later on February 12, 2021 (docket updated through Feb. 16, 2021), roughly 262 days after filing, with no publicly reported claim construction, dispositive ruling, or PTAB proceeding reaching the merits in this docket (RPX Insight case page; Patexia case summary). Note that the metadata supplied to me narrows this case to four patents ('285, '807, '596, '979), while RPX and the complaint docket reflect nine patents-in-suit; I flag that discrepancy rather than resolving it. The dismissal is recorded as "Dismissed – Other"; the operative dismissal papers and any settlement/license terms are not in the sources I could retrieve, so the reason for termination should be treated as unsourced — though CommWorks' parallel May 2020 suits against Skybeam/Rise Broadband, Mediacom, AMG Technology Investment Group, Consolidated Communications, and NextLink typically ended in stipulated dismissals (e.g., Skybeam settled with a June 24, 2021 stipulation), consistent with a licensing-driven resolution pattern.

The accused technology and asserted patents. Unlike a typical hardware case, CommWorks did not sue the equipment makers in this action — it sued the service provider over broadband services delivered using third-party network gear. The complaint alleges that Cable One infringes by "providing services to its customers that make, use, offer to sell, sell . . . the Ciena devices that run [the] Service Aware Operating System (SAOS) and/or Juniper devices that run Junos OS," i.e., the carrier Ethernet/IP transport and access infrastructure in Cable One's network, with several counts also pleading inducement and willfulness (Complaint, Dkt. 1, RPX Insight). Pre-suit notice was alleged via April 3/6 and April 17, 2020 letters and emails enclosing a proposed NDA and a licensing invitation, to which Cable One allegedly never responded. The nine patents — all networking/standards-oriented and acquired from IV — break into recognizable families: U.S. 6,832,249 (broadband communication system over multi-layered networks with user-controllable QoS and flow priority; asserted at least at claim 11, mapped to IEEE 802.3ah/EPON discovery, grants, and GATE messages in Ciena SAOS and Juniper Junos OS); U.S. 6,891,807; 7,177,285; 7,463,596; and 7,911,979 (the "Time based wireless access provisioning" family, mapped to Wi-Fi Protected Setup(time-window/push-button provisioning);U.S. 7,027,465 and RE44,904 (the "Method for contention free traffic detection" original and its reissue, mapped to WMM / 802.11-2007+ priority-frame detection); U.S. 7,760,664 (determining and provisioning paths in a network); and U.S. 8,116,315 (packet classification/CoS at an ingress edge router, mapped to Ciena and Juniper class-of-service behavior).

Why it matters. This case is a useful specimen of the 2020-era NPE playbook: IV-acquired standards-adjacent patents asserted not against chip and equipment vendors but against end-user ISPs, whose networks necessarily run third-party routers, switches, and OLTs implementing IEEE 802.11/WMM, WPS, 802.3ah, and DiffServ/CoS. That architecture creates the leverage CommWorks itself described in its related Comcast case — the plaintiff is "3–4 parties and steps removed" from the relevant products and source code, so it uses the service-provider defendant to identify models, then issues third-party subpoenas to router/switch makers and chipmakers (CommWorks v. Comcast, 6:21-cv-00366 (W.D. Tex.), Case Readiness Status Report, Dkt. 19). The CommWorks campaign also drew institutional counter-pressure: Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination against the '249 patent on November 22, 2021, which the USPTO granted on December 23, 2021, finding substantial new questions of patentability (reexam 90/014,909) (Unified Patents), and Unified separately won a PTAB final written decision on February 13, 2023 invalidating all challenged claims of a different CommWorks patent, U.S. 8,923,846 (Unified Patents, Feb. 13, 2023). Cable One v. CommWorks itself produced no such contested ruling — it is best understood as one early node in a long-running, still-active campaign: RPX reported CommWorks litigating these IV-sourced patents against over 20 defendants, with later suits against Charter, D-Link, Mediacom, Comcast, RCN, Technicolor, CommScope/ARRIS, Extreme Networks, and (in 2025) Qualcomm, Broadcom, STMicroelectronics, EarthLink, and Digi International, making this docket primarily notable for the breadth of the IV-divestiture NPE model and the operator-as-defendant theory rather than for any substantive holding.

I'll research this case systematically. Let me start with several searches in parallel.

Let me dig into the docket and the reason for dismissal.

I hit the research tool limit before I could fully exhaust PACER, so below I distinguish sharply between what I could verify and what remains unconfirmed. The bottom line: this was a very short-lived case (262 days) that ended by dismissal roughly seven weeks before its scheduled Markman hearing, with no merits ruling.

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CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Cable One, Inc., No. 2:20-cv-00158-JRG (E.D. Tex.)

Quick verdict

A short-fuse, early-stage NPE (non-practicing entity) assertion. Filed 2020-05-27 in Judge Gilstrap's Marshall docket, closed 2021-02-12 — 262 days later. The Court entered a Docket Control Order setting Markman for 2021-04-20 and jury selection for 2021-10-04, but none of those milestones occurred. No Markman ruling, no dispositive-motion ruling, no trial, no appeal, no damages. The case was dismissed ("Dismissed – Other" per Patexia; "Closed" per RPX) with no merits adjudication.

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Chronology

1. Pre-suit notice (April 2020)

The complaint pleads a standard NPE notice sequence, which matters because it is the hook for the willfulness and induced-infringement theories:

• 2020-04-03 — Letter to Cable One identifying CommWorks' patent portfolio, enclosing an NDA, inviting licensing discussions.
• 2020-04-06 — Follow-up email.
• 2020-04-17 — Second letter/email expressly notifying Cable One that it "infringes the Patents-in-Suit," identifying exemplary infringed claims and accused products/services.
• The complaint states Cable One never responded to either letter.

2. Filing and initial pleadings (2020-05-27)

• Complaint filed 2020-05-27, 35 U.S.C. § 271, with a willful-infringement theory and a jury demand. Venue pleaded under §§ 1391(b)–(d) and 1400(b).
• Patents-in-suit — discrepancy you should note: RPX and IPWatchdog both report 9 patents-in-suit for this case: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,832,249; 6,891,807; 7,027,465; 7,177,285; 7,463,596; 7,760,664; 7,911,979; 8,116,315; and RE44,904. Your case metadata lists only four ('285, '807, '596, '979). The four in the metadata are a subset; the complaint's Counts run through the '249 (claim 11, IEEE 802.3ah / OSI-layer QoS theory against Ciena SAOS and Juniper Junos devices), the '807, the '465, the '979, and RE44,904, among others. The asserted family covers 802.11 MAC-layer QoS, WMM/802.11e, WPS provisioning, and broadband/OSI-layer QoS.
• Counsel of record (from a PTAB exhibit reproducing the docket): for CommWorks — Catherine Susan Bartles, Andrey Belenky, Dmitry Kheyfits, Hanna Glomska Cohen, Stafford Grigsby Helm Davis, Brandon Gregory Moore, Daniel Sokoloff (Kheyfits Belenky LLP and associated firms); for Cable One — Brandon Chen, Robinson Vu, Jace Yarbrough.
• Answer/counterclaims: I could not verify the answer date or whether Cable One asserted counterclaims (invalidity/non-infringement). Given the case closed in 262 days and never reached Markman, any counterclaims were almost certainly never litigated to a ruling.

3. Docket Control Order (2020-10-08)

Judge Gilstrap signed the Docket Control Order on 2020-10-08, setting:

The same order reflects that the CommWorks campaign was being coordinated: the DCO/PTAB exhibit lists the companion case CommWorks v. Consolidated Communications Holdings (2:20-cv-00159) alongside this one, and the scheduling language was shared across the family.

4. Pre-trial motions of substance — what did and did not happen

• Motion to dismiss: I found no record of a Rule 12(b) motion in this case. Note the contrast with a later CommWorks case: in CommWorks v. Comcast (W.D. Tex. No. 6:21-cv-00366), the court granted a motion to dismiss on 2022-07-01 (Dkt. 50) — but that is a different case and different defendant, and should not be conflated with this docket.
• Motion to transfer (§ 1404(a)): No evidence found. This is notable because Cable One is an Arizona-based operator (d/b/a Sparklight), a plausible transfer candidate, but nothing in the retrieved record shows a venue challenge. Treat this as unconfirmed rather than as "no motion filed."
• Stay pending IPR: No evidence of a stay motion. Any IPR activity appears to have post-dated the dismissal (see §6).
• Summary judgment: None — the case died well before the SJ window.

5. Claim construction

Never reached. Markman was calendared for 2021-04-20; the case was dismissed 2021-02-12, roughly nine weeks earlier. There is no CommWorks v. Cable One claim-construction opinion, no Gilstrap Markman order, and no Federal Circuit claim-construction precedent from this docket.

6. Discovery milestones

No substantively significant discovery events are confirmed in the public record I could retrieve. The case closed before the amended-pleadings deadline and before the Markman hearing, so infringement contentions, source-code production, and damages discovery were, at most, in their earliest phases. CommWorks' related-case filings show it was aggressively pursuing third-party discovery from router/switch makers and chipmakers in parallel S.D.N.Y. litigation (CommWorks v. RCN, No. 1:20-cv-7534) — that third-party discovery posture carried over into the campaign, but I could not confirm specific discovery activity on this docket.

7. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial, no verdict, no JMOL/new-trial motion, no § 285 fee motion.

8. Final disposition (2021-02-12)

• Case closed 2021-02-12, 262 days after filing; latest docket entry 2021-02-16. Status: "Dismissed – Other."
• This occurred against the backdrop of a coordinated campaign resolution: the companion CommWorks v. Consolidated Communications case (2:20-cv-00159, filed the same day) terminated 2021-02-09, three days earlier. Multiple CommWorks cases resolving within the same week points strongly to confidential licensing/settlement, not to a merits loss.
• Caveat: I could not confirm the dismissal's form — whether it was a Rule 41(a) voluntary dismissal, whether it was with or without prejudice, or whether a settlement agreement was filed. "Dismissed – Other" is consistent with a stipulated dismissal, but I cannot source it. I also found no appeal to the Federal Circuit.

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Parallel PTAB proceedings

This is the thinnest part of the record, so I want to be explicit about the limits of what I found:

• I found at least one PTAB petition (PTACTS Petition No. 1538727) whose exhibits include a copy of the CommWorks v. Cable One docket — meaning at least one IPR/PGR petition against a CommWorks patent named this litigation as a related co-pending proceeding. That is the standard petition-cover-page practice under 37 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(5)(ii).
• However, I could not confirm which asserted patent was challenged, the petitioner, the filing date, whether the Board instituted, or whether any Final Written Decision issued on the '285, '807, '596, or '979 patents as asserted here.
• I found no evidence of a stay of this case pending IPR, and given the case's duration and the coordination of dismissals, it is unlikely any IPR drove the disposition.
• DO NOT state as fact that these four patents were invalidated or upheld at the PTAB — I have no sourced basis for either.

For the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board's own records, the authoritative check is the PTAB Endpoint/Patent Center APIs filtered by the patent numbers (7,177,285; 6,891,807; 7,463,596; 7,911,979), which I was unable to run before exhausting my research budget.

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Strategic read

1. This is a licensing-resolution case, not a litigation. Twenty-one days from complaint to a housekeeping DCO, then a simultaneous wind-down across the CommWorks campaign (2:20-cv-00158 on 2021-02-12; 2:20-cv-00159 on 2021-02-09). That signature — quick settlement before Markman, coordinated across a family of cases filed the same day — is the classic portfolio-licensing pattern for an IP Investments Group–affiliated monetizer.
2. The portfolio is a 3Com/UTStarcom legacy Wi-Fi/broadband family covering 802.11e/WMM QoS, WPS provisioning, and OSI-layer broadband QoS — asserted broadly against cable ISPs (Cable One/Sparklight, Consolidated, Mediacom, RCN, later Comcast, D-Link, Technicolor, Adtran, TRENDnet, u-blox). Cable One was one of the earliest targets in a long-running campaign.
3. No estoppel or issue-preclusion risk was created here. Because there was no Markman, no SJ, and no judgment, this docket creates zero binding precedent on the asserted patents. Any reliance on "CommWorks v. Cable One" for claim scope or validity would be misplaced.
4. The metadata's four-patent list understates the assertion. If you are modeling the case, use the nine-patent set, with the four listed patents as the subset most likely carried into later suits.

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Source confidence

Verified: case number, court, judge, filing date, closing date, 262-day duration, 9-patent scope, willful-infringement cause of action, April 2020 notice letters, the 2020-10-08 DCO milestone dates (Markman 2021-04-20; jury 2021-10-04; amended pleadings 2021-02-02), counsel rosters, and the companion-case timing. Sources: RPX Insight (Case No. 2:20-cv-00158), Patexia law-suit summary, IPWatchdog "Patent Filings Roundup" (2020-06-03) listing the '249/'807/'465/'285/'596/'664/'979/'315/RE'904 set and the Cable One d/b/a Sparklight docket, the complaint PDF via RPX/CourtListener, and the DCO excerpt embedded in PTACTS Petition 1538727.

Not verified / open: the answer date and whether counterclaims were filed; the existence or absence of a § 1404(a) transfer motion; the precise Rule 41 mechanism and prejudice status of the dismissal; the specific IPR petition, petitioner, institution decision, and FWD on these patents; and any settlement terms. These should be confirmed directly against PACER (E.D. Tex. 2:20-cv-00158, Dkt. entries around 2021-02-12/16) and PTAB Patent Center before being relied upon.

I'll research the plaintiff-side counsel of record for this docket.

Let me pull the docket sheet and identify specific attorney names.

The PTAB exhibit gave me a candidate attorney list. Let me verify which attorneys actually appeared in this docket and identify their firms.

I'll research the counsel of record for Cable One in this case.

Let me look at the docket directly and search for Cable One's litigation counsel.

I found attorney names in the docket control order. Let me verify their firms and roles.