CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. RCN Telecom Services

I'll research this case across multiple sources.

Good initial results. Let me dig into the outcome, IPR linkages, and party details.

Case Overview: CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC, No. 1:20-cv-07534 (S.D.N.Y.)

Parties. CommWorks Solutions, LLC is a Georgia limited liability company with a stated principal place of business at 44 Milton Avenue, Suite 254, Alpharetta, GA 30009. Its Rule 7.1 disclosure identifies Brainbox Innovations, LLC as its corporate parent, and Unified Patents has described CommWorks as "an NPE and subsidiary of IP Investments Group LLC" — i.e., a patent assertion entity with no operating business, not a university or manufacturer. See complaint ¶¶ 1, 3 (available via Docket Alarm); Unified Patents, "Another CommWorks Solutions patent challenged". The portfolio's name and provenance trace to CommWorks Corporation, the former 3Com networking subsidiary — though I could not verify the full chain of title in this research pass and would flag that as a documented-but-unconfirmed inference. Defendant RCN Telecom Services, LLC is a Delaware corporation headquartered at 650 College Road East, Suite 3100, Princeton, NJ, and is a residential/business cable broadband and ISP operator (an Astound Broadband affiliate), with a "regular and established place of business" at 593 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Complaint ¶¶ 2, 5–6. RCN was represented in this matter by Armstrong Teasdale LLP and DLA Piper LLP (US), with a large defense team including Richard L. Brophy, Carla J. Baumel and Charles Palella; CommWorks was represented by Kheyfits Belenky LLP (Dmitry A. Kheyfits, Andrey Belenky, Brandon Moore, Hanna Glomska Cohen) and Rakoczy, Molino, Mazzochi, Siwik LLP.

The accused technology. This is not a product case against a manufacturer — CommWorks accused RCN's provision of broadband service and customer-premises Wi-Fi equipment (Wi-Fi-enabled modems, gateways, routers and access points that RCN supplied or supported) of infringing. In the related Western District of Texas subpoena proceeding, Judge Robert Pitman summarized the theory: "CommWorks accuses RCN of infringing its patents through provision of the Wi-Fi routers and access points to its customers." CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC, No. 1:22-mc-00133-RP (W.D. Tex. Mar. 22, 2022) (order, via Midpage). The claim charts in the parallel CommWorks complaints confirm the technical hooks: Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) / IEEE 802.11-2007+ QoS functionality (priority-frame detection), Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) (time-based wireless access provisioning), and IEEE 802.3ah support, with third-party silicon named in the proof exhibits (Broadcom, MediaTek, Qualcomm/Axon-class chips). RCN is the user/provider of that equipment, so the counts run to direct, induced and contributory infringement rather than manufacture.

Patents asserted and procedural posture. The complaint asserted nine patents, including the two flagged in this case file: RE44,904 ("Method for Contention Free Traffic Detection," reissued May 20, 2014 — a reissue of the '465 patent, aimed at cheaply distinguishing priority frames by extracting a bit pattern at a predetermined offset and comparing it to a search pattern, avoiding deep protocol parsing) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,027,465 ("Method for Contention Free Traffic Detection," issued Apr. 11, 2006, from App. No. 10/167,986 filed June 11, 2002 — the original, method-claim counterpart targeting the same WMM priority-detection function). The other seven are 6,832,249 (user-controllable quality-of-information delivery and flow priority in broadband systems), 6,891,807 (time-based wireless access provisioning), 7,177,285, 7,463,596, 7,760,664, 7,911,979, and 8,116,315 (broadband path provisioning, packet classification, and access control). Case was filed September 14, 2020 in S.D.N.Y. before Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil; RCN answered with a jury demand on November 12, 2020; the docket reflects a relatedness statement linking it to 1:20-cv-7529 (press reports describe an Altice USA declaratory-judgment action involving the same portfolio, which I could not independently confirm from a primary source). Venue matters here precisely because CommWorks could not default to the Eastern District of Texas: the pleaded basis was RCN's Manhattan office address under § 1400(b) / TC Heartland, so S.D.N.Y. was the practical forum where the ISP's own acts of infringement occurred.

Why the case is notable. Four things. First, it is a classic ISP-directed NPE campaign — CommWorks ran the same nine-patent set against Comcast (W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00366-ADA), Consolidated Communications, Cable One, Mediacom, Skybeam, AMG Technology, Technicolor, and, in 2023–25, Extreme Networks, AVM, DrayTek, RingCentral, NXP, STMicroelectronics and EarthLink — so RCN is one node in a coordinated licensing program rather than an isolated suit. Second, the PTAB/reexam linkage is real but indirect: Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination against the asserted '249 patent (Control No. 90/014,909, filed Nov. 22, 2021), and Unified's IPR2021-01297 against CommWorks' U.S. 8,923,846 (a patent asserted in the Comcast case, not the RCN case) proceeded in parallel; I found no confirmed IPR against RE44,904 or the '465 patent in this pass, so the reissue/method pair appears to have been litigated largely in district court. Third, the case generated an important third-party discovery fight: CommWorks subpoenaed MediaTek for Wi-Fi chip source code, and the resulting Rule 45 transfer motion (CommWorks v. RCN, 1:22-mc-00133) illustrates how NPE claims against ISPs inevitably reach upstream silicon vendors — a recurring cost-shifting issue in broadband/CPE litigation. Fourth, the outcome: the docket terminated by consent judgment on March 23, 2023 (920 days after filing), styled as a Rule 41(a)(2) dismissal with prejudice on joint motion with each side bearing its own fees and costs, per PatSnap's docket summary (PatSnap litigation report) and consistent with the docket portal (Unified Patents portal, 1:20-cv-07534).

Sourcing caveats. (1) The consent-judgment/Rule 41(a)(2) termination date and terms come from a secondary aggregator (PatSnap) that I could not cross-check against a PACER docket image in this session — treat the March 23, 2023 date as well-supported but not primary-source verified. (2) The specific RCN device models named as accused products are not in the excerpts I retrieved; the complaint's exhibits (not pulled) would list them. (3) No monetary settlement amount, license figure, or claim-construction ruling is disclosed in the available record — any such figure would be speculation.

I'll research this case across dockets, PTAB records, and legal news. Let me start with several parallel searches.

The core case is S.D.N.Y. 1:20-cv-07534-MKV. Let me dig into its docket and the related PTAB proceedings.

I've reached the tool-call limit, so here is my synthesis based on the sources retrieved. Note up front: this answer builds on and corrects the existing summary (the filing date is confirmed, and the outcome — previously "not confirmed" — can now be resolved).

CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC — Litigation Chronology

Court/Judge: S.D.N.Y., No. 1:20-cv-07534-MKV, before Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.
Parties: CommWorks Solutions, LLC (GA LLC, Alpharetta, GA; sole corporate parent Brainbox Innovations, LLC) v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC (DE corp., Princeton, NJ).
Patents-in-suit (9, per the complaint): U.S. 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. This corrects the existing summary's "other patents identified only by short names."

1. Filing & initial pleadings

• 2020-09-14 — Complaint filed (Dkt. 1). Pleaded infringement of all nine patents by RCN's provision of Wi-Fi routers/access points to subscribers. Venue was grounded on RCN's "regular and established place of business" at 593 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10016, under §1400(b). The '465 and RE44,904 counts target Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM)/802.11-2007+ QoS functionality; both patents are titled "Method For Contention Free Traffic Detection."
• 2020-09-14/15 — Statement of Relatedness filed, seeking assignment as related to 1:20-cv-07529 (a same-day CommWorks S.D.N.Y. filing); the case was initially referred to Judge Lorna G. Schofield as possibly related, then assigned to Judge Vyskocil.
• 2020-10-27 / 2020-11-09 — Pro hac vice admissions for RCN's Richard L. Brophy (Dkt. 19) and Carla J. Baumel (Dkt. 23).
• 2020-11-05 — Extension order: RCN's answer due 2020-11-16 (Dkt. 20).
• 2020-11-12 — Answer filed with jury demand (Dkt. 25); RCN filed a Rule 7.1 disclosure stating no corporate parent (Dkt. 24). Whether RCN pleaded affirmative counterclaims (invalidity/non-infringement) is not confirmed by the docket excerpts I retrieved.

Counsel of record: Plaintiff — Kheyfits Belenky LLP (Dmitry A. Kheyfits, Andrey Belenky, Brandon Gregory Moore, Hanna Glomska Cohen), with Rakoczy, Molino, Mazzocchi, Siwik LLP (Daniel Sokoloff) also reported. Defendant — Armstrong Teasdale LLP and DLA Piper LLP (Richard L. Brophy, Carla J. Baumel, Charles Palella, and others); one analytics source also lists the Colorado Department of Law, which I could not independently verify.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

I found no public record of a motion to dismiss, motion to transfer, motion to stay pending IPR, or summary judgment in the S.D.N.Y. action. The contested motion practice that is documented was discovery-related (see §4). The case did not reach Markman or trial, so the "motions of substance" category is largely empty on the public record.

• By contrast, in the parallel CommWorks v. Comcast, No. 6:21-cv-00366 (W.D. Tex.), the court granted a motion to dismiss on 2022-07-01 (Dkt. 50) — evidence that some defendants successfully tested CommWorks's pleadings, but that ruling does not bind RCN.
• The same-day related S.D.N.Y. case (1:20-cv-07529) is the likely source of any coordinated motion practice; I could not retrieve its docket.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

No Markman opinion or claim-construction order is reflected in the retrieved record. The case terminated roughly 30 months after filing, apparently before a Markman hearing or with any construction disputes resolved only informally. I cannot confirm a Markman stage occurred.

4. Discovery milestones of strategic significance

• 2022-03-22 — CommWorks v. MediaTek USA, Inc., No. A-22-MC-00133-RP (W.D. Tex.) — Transfer Order (Mag. J. Dustin M. Howell). CommWorks moved to compel MediaTek to comply with a third-party subpoena (or transfer enforcement to S.D.N.Y.); MediaTek resisted, arguing the chip source code was held by MediaTek-Taiwan, an unserved entity. The court found "exceptional circumstances" under Rule 45(f) — including the S.D.N.Y. court's prior protective orders and the likelihood that "the same issues are likely to arise in discovery in many districts" — and transferred the motion to compel to S.D.N.Y., closing the Texas ancillary matter. This confirms that a substantial part of the RCN case's discovery was third-party chip-vendor source-code discovery (upstream supplier liability theory), with CommWorks pursuing "similar source code from other third-party chip makers."
• This is strategically significant: CommWorks was building its infringement case off Wi-Fi chip functionality (WMM/802.11 QoS) supplied by third parties (MediaTek, Broadcom, STMicroelectronics, etc.) rather than RCN's own design — the same upstream-supplier theory it later pushed in 2024–2025 against the chip makers themselves.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

No trial, verdict, or JMOL/new-trial/fee motion is reflected. The case resolved before trial.

6. Final disposition

• 2023-03-23 — Termination by consent judgment / dismissal with prejudice. According to litigation-analytics records of the S.D.N.Y. docket (case running 920 days, i.e., 2020-09-14 to 2023-03-23), the action terminated on a joint motion, styled as a Rule 41(a)(2) dismissal with prejudice, each party to bear its own attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses. The recorded basis of termination is a "Consent Judgment."
  • Caveat: This date and the "consent judgment"/Rule 41(a)(2) characterization come from a secondary litigtion-analytics summary, not a PACER pull or a signed opinion I retrieved. The two descriptions in that source ("consent judgment" and "Rule 41(a)(2) dismissal on joint motion") are in some tension; a consent judgment and a stipulated dismissal are different instruments. The settlement/license terms were not disclosed, and there was no merits adjudication of infringement or validity. The with-prejudice dismissal bars re-assertion against RCN but leaves the nine patents live against others.
• Posture: Closed (terminated 2023-03-23). The existing case summary's "outcome unknown" is now resolved.

7. Parallel PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceedings

• No IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding on RE44,904 or the '465 patent was found in my searches. I could not identify any PTAB petition by RCN or a third party against either asserted patent, and no PTAB proceeding appears to have stayed or affected this case. This is an absence-of-evidence finding, not a verified negative — a definitive check against the PTAB Patent Trial and Appeal Board Endpoint / USPTO Patent Public Search for RE44,904 and 7,027,465 is warranted before relying on it. Notably, no party obtained a stay pending IPR, consistent with there being no IPR.

8. Broader campaign context (for the "final disposition" picture)

The same patents were asserted in a broader CommWorks campaign, useful for understanding why the RCN case mattered:

• CommWorks v. Comcast, 6:21-cv-00366 (W.D. Tex.) — motion to dismiss granted 2022-07-01.
• CommWorks v. CommScope/ARRIS, 2:23-cv-00510 (E.D. Tex.) — dismissed with prejudice on joint motion (no merits ruling).
• CommWorks v. Vyve Broadband — dismissed with prejudice; order by Judge Albright 2023-09-20.
• 2025 wave (same '465/'904 patents plus others) against chip makers and OEMs: EarthLink (E.D. Tex. 2025-07-15), Marvell (W.D. Tex., 2025-08-18, voluntarily dismissed 2025-10-31 after a settlement stay), NXP (W.D. Tex., dismissed with prejudice 2025-10-31), STMicroelectronics (W.D. Tex., 2025-08-25, dismissed 2025-11-03), DrayTek, AVM, VTech, u-blox, TI — several resolved by voluntary dismissal with/without prejudice shortly after filing, consistent with a licensing/settlement-driven NPE model.

Bottom line

The RCN action was a nine-patent, NPE-style assertion against a mid-size ISP, driven by Wi-Fi chip functionality. It was heavily discovery-oriented (third-party chip-source-code fights, including the transferred MediaTek subpoena motion in W.D. Tex. in March 2022), never reached Markman, summary judgment, or trial, and terminated by a with-prejudice consent judgment / stipulated dismissal on 2023-03-23, with the district court making no validity or infringement ruling and no confirmed PTAB proceeding on the two patents you flagged (RE44,904 and 7,027,465).

Sourcing note: The termination date/basis and counsel lists rely on litigation-analytics and docket-aggregator summaries (PatSnap, UniCourt, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents, CourtListener) rather than a directly retrieved PACER docket or signed opinion; the 2023-03-23 consent-judgment order and the precise docket entry number should be confirmed on PACER/RECAP before being cited as authoritative.

I'll research plaintiff-side counsel against primary and secondary sources, building on the existing summary's identification of Kheyfits Belenky LLP and Rakoczy Molino.

Let me verify the specific docket appearances and firm details.

Let me verify the specific appearances on the S.D.N.Y. docket and get background on each plaintiff attorney.

I hit the tool-call ceiling before running the last two attorney-bio searches, so I'll flag exactly where the record is thin. Here is the plaintiff-side counsel picture, building on §1 of the chronology (which already listed the firms) rather than repeating it.

Plaintiff Counsel of Record — CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC, No. 1:20-cv-07534-MKV (S.D.N.Y.)

Bottom line

Four attorneys are identified on the S.D.N.Y. docket/party record for the plaintiff, all from Kheyfits Belenky LLP — a boutique that appears to function as CommWorks's captive/portfolio counsel across the entire campaign. A fifth name (Daniel Sokoloff) and a second firm (Rakoczy, Molino, Mazzochi, Siwik LLP, Chicago) appear in the litigation-analytics record as plaintiff-side counsel, but I could not confirm a Rakoczy appearance on the S.D.N.Y. docket itself, and the attribution is complicated by the fact that Sokoloff is a former Kheyfits Belenky associate — so that listing may reflect his later firm affiliation rather than an appearance in this case. See caveat §5 below.

1. Confirmed plaintiff attorneys (Kheyfits Belenky LLP)

Source for the four names: UniCourt party/attorney listing for No. 1:20-cv-07534 (case record last refreshed 11/13/2020) (UniCourt); the case-opening documents are all signed "/s/ Dmitry Kheyfits" (Unified Patents portal; complaint PDF via Docket Alarm). Firm addresses are drawn from Kheyfits Belenky signature blocks in the contemporaneous CommWorks filings (Comcast Dkt. 14, June 17, 2021; E.D. Tex. March 24, 2022 filing via RPX Insight).

2. Why Kheyfits is lead and no separate "local counsel" is needed

CommWorks is a Georgia NPE (Alpharetta) with no in-house legal staff appearing on the docket. Kheyfits Belenky maintains a New York office, so the firm supplied both the case-leading attorney (Kheyfits) and the S.D.N.Y.-anchored attorneys (Belenky, Cohen) — there is no separately retained New York local-counsel firm visible on the RCN docket. That is a structural feature of this campaign: unlike most out-of-state NPE filings, CommWorks did not pair a Texas plaintiff firm with a Manhattan local-counsel shop.

3. Second firm listed: Rakoczy, Molino, Mazzochi, Siwik LLP

• Daniel Sokoloff — listed by litigation-analytics as plaintiff counsel, affiliated with Rakoczy Molino Mazzochi Siwik LLP, 6 W. Hubbard St., Ste. 500, Chicago, IL 60654. His firm bio states his practice emphasizes Hatch-Waxman/BPCIA patent litigation, PTAB post-grant proceedings, and Section 337 USITC matters, with experience in "telecommunication devices, automotive inventions, and integrated circuit design" — and, critically, that before joining Rakoczy he was an associate at Kheyfits Belenky LLP (and at Irwin IP and Erise IP). He is a registered patent attorney (IL, TX, KS bars; USPTO). (Rakoczy Molino profile)
• Rakoczy Molino is a Chicago-based life-sciences/patent boutique (Chambers/IAM Patent 1000–ranked; known for Hatch-Waxman work for Mylan, Lupin, Apotex), which is an unusual pairing for a broadband/Wi-Fi NPE case and reinforces the inference that the Rakoczy listing is a firm-affiliation artifact of Sokoloff's later move, not proof that Rakoczy entered an appearance here.

4. Defendant-side note (for completeness, not the task)

The defense team was Armstrong Teasdale and DLA Piper (Brophy, Baumel, Palella, plus Whitehead, Katsantonis, Gottuso, Tzeng) — listed only because the analytics sources pair it with the plaintiff list; the "Colorado Department of Law" entry in one aggregator (PatSnap) is almost certainly a data error and has no bearing on plaintiff counsel.

5. Explicit caveats — what I could NOT verify

1. No PACER/RECAP docket image was retrieved for the S.D.N.Y. case. The plaintiff attorney list comes from a docket aggregator (UniCourt) whose snapshot was last updated 11/13/2020 — i.e., roughly seven weeks into a 920-day case. Any later notice of appearance, substitution, or pro hac vice admission for the plaintiff (including any Cohen or Sokoloff appearance) would fall outside that snapshot and is not confirmed.
2. I could not confirm a Rakoczy Molino appearance on the RCN docket. The Rakoczy/Sokoloff attribution rests on a single secondary aggregator and is in tension with Sokoloff's Kheyfits Belenky history. Treat "Rakoczy as counsel of record in this case" as unverified.
3. Pro hac vice status is unconfirmed for Kheyfits, Belenky, Cohen and Moore in S.D.N.Y. I saw pro hac vice notations only in the parallel Texas cases. New York admission status for each is not established.
4. Bar admissions and office assignments for Belenky, Cohen and Moore are inferred from signature blocks in contemporaneous CommWorks filings, not from a firm bio page. I did not retrieve individual bios for Belenky, Cohen or Moore before reaching the tool limit; their one-line notes above are drawn from their appearances across the CommWorks/PMC docket record rather than a verified résumé.
5. No in-house counsel or corporate officer appeared for CommWorks; none is expected given the NPE structure.

Recommended next step for a definitive list: pull the RECAP docket for 1:20-cv-07534 and filter on "Notice of Appearance" / "Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice" entries — that will settle both the Rakoczy question and any late-filed appearances, which the aggregator snapshot cannot.

I'll research the defendant's counsel of record using docket aggregators, firm websites, and legal news.

Good initial data. Now let me verify each attorney individually — roles, firms, and locations.

Key correction emerging on Baumel's firm. Let me verify the remaining names and the DLA Piper reference.

I reached the tool-call limit while verifying the last few names. Here is the counsel roster with the sourcing caveats flagged.

Defendant's Counsel of Record — CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC, No. 1:20-cv-07534-MKV (S.D.N.Y.)

Bottom line: RCN's defense was staffed by Armstrong Teasdale LLP — a single-firm defense with a St. Louis–based IP litigation lead (pro hac vice), a Denver-based IP litigation associate (pro hac vice), and a New York partner serving as the local/§ 1400(b)-venue counsel of record. Three additional names appear in aggregator records but I could not verify their docket participation before hitting my research limit.

Two docket events anchor the roster: the Answer with jury demand, Dkt. 25 (Nov. 12, 2020), signed/filed by Richard L. Brophy, and the Rule 7.1 disclosure identifying no corporate parent, Dkt. 24. The UniCourt docket index for the case (as of its last update, Nov. 13, 2020) lists exactly three defense attorneys: Charles Palella, Carla J. Baumel, and Richard L. Brophy (UniCourt).

Counsel appearing on the docket

Attorney notes

• Richard L. Brophy — lead counsel. Partner, Intellectual Property Litigation, Armstrong Teasdale (St. Louis). J.D., Saint Louis University (2007); prior career as an aerospace engineer and embedded software engineer and an FAA-licensed pilot — relevant to the Wi-Fi/802.11 QoS technical record here. Named a Managing IP "Patent Star" (2025 IP Stars) and to the IAM Patent 1000 and Best Lawyers (IP litigation/patent litigation, since 2019). Firm materials credit him with multimillion-dollar jury verdicts and with leading the defense of MorphoTrak in a patent suit that was withdrawn with prejudice (2025 IP Stars release; MorphoTrak release). He also appears as RCN's PHV counsel in the UMG Recordings v. RCN copyright litigation (D.N.J. 3:19-cv-17272) and, currently, on patent-owner-side IPRs in Kubota N. Am. v. Vermeer Mfg. (IPR2025-00167/00169) — i.e., he is an active first-chair in both patents and the RCN relationship.
• Carla J. Baumel — PHV IP associate. At the time of her appearance she was an IP litigation associate at Armstrong Teasdale's Denver office, focusing on patent litigation and counseling, previously a judicial clerk to Judge J.P. Stadtmueller (E.D. Wis.) and an IP litigation associate at Jenner & Block (Chicago) (Armstrong Teasdale bio PDF; UMN Law profile). Her later Robins Kaplan profile contains a matter description that reads as a direct reference to this case: "Represented a telecommunications provider in patent litigation involving Wi-Fi routers, access points, chip technology, source code, and confidential technical information" (Robins Kaplan bio). Career path after this case: Colorado AG Antitrust Unit (2021–2023) (state counsel in the Google search-monopoly and Play Store actions) → AUSA, D. Minn. → Robins Kaplan (2025). Her earlier trial work includes the defense of a $300M Walker Process antitrust case through verdict and Hatch-Waxman litigation over a chemotherapy drug.
• Charles Palella — New York local counsel. Partner, Armstrong Teasdale New York; 47 years in the bar (NY admission 1979), admitted in S.D.N.Y., E.D.N.Y. and the Second Circuit; practice concentrated in appellate, complex commercial, insurance, ADR and tort litigation, with a trademark/copyright component (e.g., Chanel, Inc. v. Country Mouse Apparel). He also serves as assistant general counsel to Armstrong Teasdale. His most on-point client work is an arbitration for WideOpenWest (cable/internet/phone provider) against Viamedia, securing ~$3M for the client (AT bio PDF; NY OCA registration). His role here is consistent with the standard NYC practice of using a New York-admitted partner to anchor a § 1400(b)/venue-sensitive ISP case while out-of-state IP specialists appear PHV.

Additionally listed by aggregators — participation not confirmed

Litigation-analytics records (PatSnap) list four more defense names and two more firms. I could not confirm any of these against a PACER docket entry, and I flag them as unverified:

• Andrew B. Whitehead — Law360's attorney profile for him lists "September 14, 2020 Commworks Solutions, LLC v. RCN Telecom Services, LLC, New York Southern — Patent," which corroborates that he worked on this matter; he is an Armstrong Teasdale attorney. I could not retrieve his office or docket entry in this session.
• Kyle G. Gottuso, Chris Katsantonis, and Wenkai Tzeng — all named as "counsel for RCN Telecom Services, LLC" on the PatSnap defendant-counsel list (PatSnap litigation report). My verification of firm affiliation and docket role for these three was cut off by the research limit. Treat them as "reported, unconfirmed."

Firms of record

1. Armstrong Teasdale LLP — confirmed. It is the only defense firm tied to concrete docket activity (PHV orders Dkts. 19 and 23; Answer Dkt. 25). The firm's New York office address changed during the litigation (919 Third Ave. → 400 Park Ave.), relevant if anyone is pulling the docket signature blocks.
2. DLA Piper LLP (US) — flagged, and I now believe the prior section is likely wrong. The earlier case summary (and PatSnap's firm list) states DLA Piper represented RCN "with a large defense team including Richard L. Brophy, Carla J. Baumel and Charles Palella." That attribution is inconsistent with what I found: each of those three attorneys' own firm biographies (Armstrong Teasdale PDFs for Brophy, Baumel and Palella) place them at Armstrong Teasdale, not DLA Piper, and Brophy signed the Answer for RCN. I could identify no DLA Piper attorney on the defense roster. DLA Piper may have appeared in a related RCN matter (e.g., the Altice declaratory-judgment action or the UMG/BitTorrent cases) and been conflated here. Do not cite DLA Piper as counsel in 1:20-cv-07534 without a PACER confirmation.
3. "Colorado Department of Law" — also on the PatSnap firm list. This is almost certainly a data artifact from Carla Baumel's later employment as a Colorado Assistant Attorney General (2021–2023), not a firm that appeared for RCN in this case. Similarly, the earlier summary's note about the "Colorado Department of Law" being listed should be treated as an aggregator error rather than a real appearance.

Sealed / unavailable

• No in-house counsel for RCN (or Astound Broadband) is identified anywhere in the public record I retrieved; RCN's 7.1 statement (Dkt. 24) names no parent.
• The answer's caption/team block and any later filings (including the March 23, 2023 consent-judgment papers) were not retrieved in image form, so additional Armstrong Teasdale associates could appear there. The last docket index I could see (Nov. 13, 2020) predates the 2022 discovery phase and the 2023 termination, when staffing often changes.
• Nothing suggests any defense filing was sealed; the limitation is my source coverage (aggregators, not a PACER pull), not a sealing order.

Corrections to the prior sections

1. Firm misattribution. The prior "Case overview" listed Richard L. Brophy, Carla J. Baumel and Charles Palella under DLA Piper. The attorneys' own firm biographies and the docket show all three at Armstrong Teasdale. The DLA Piper affiliation should be removed or re-verified.
2. Firm for Baumel. She was an Armstrong Teasdale (Denver) associate during this case — relevant because her PHV was necessitated by her Illinois (not Colorado or New York) license. Her current firm (Robins Kaplan) and intervening government roles postdate this matter and should not be described as her role in this case.
3. Confirmed appearance mechanics (new detail): PHV orders at Dkt. 19 (Brophy, Oct. 27, 2020) and Dkt. 23 (Baumel, Nov. 9, 2020), following a deficient first PHV motion at Dkt. 21 — consistent with the prior section but now tied to specific entry numbers.

Sourcing note: Names, docket entry numbers and PHV dates come from the UniCourt docket index and Docket Alarm/Unified Patents excerpts; firm, office and experience details come from the attorneys' own firm biographies and bar registrations. The four aggregator-only names (Whitehead, Gottuso, Katsantonis, Tzeng) and the DLA Piper and Colorado DOJ entries should be verified on PACER/RECAP before being cited as counsel of record.