CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC et al.

I'll research this case across multiple sources to build an accurate overview.

Key finding: IPWatchdog confirms '465 is among the patents asserted here. Let me verify the case details, accused products, and outcome.

Let me research the case outcome, the plaintiff's NPE lineage, the '465 patent, and the Technicolor/Vantiva corporate context.

Case Overview and Background

Parties. CommWorks Solutions, LLC is the plaintiff — a Georgia limited liability company with a registered office in Alpharetta (Fulton County), GA. It is not an operating company: it is a non-practicing entity and a subsidiary/affiliate of Georgia monetization firm IP Investments Group LLC, and the patents it asserts were acquired from Intellectual Ventures LLC. CommWorks launched its first assertion campaign around mid-2020, suing ISPs, cable operators, and networking vendors (Charter, Comcast, RCN, Mediacom, D-Link, Consolidated Communications, Altice, etc.). See Lexology/Georgia IP Litigation write-up of this case; Mondaq/RPX on the IPInvestments–IV patent transfer; Unified Patents profile of CommWorks as an "NPE and subsidiary of IP Investments Group LLC". The defendants are Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC and Technicolor USA, Inc. — U.S. arms of the French connected-home/consumer-electronics group. Their October 17, 2022 corporate disclosure identifies Vantiva SA as corporate parent (docket entry #22), reflecting the 2022 spin-off that renamed Technicolor's set-top-box and home-gateway business as Vantiva. Technicolor/Vantiva is a genuine operating company: a major supplier of broadband gateways, routers, access points, and set-top boxes to cable/telco operators worldwide. Plaintiff-side counsel of record include Brandon G. Moore, Dmitry Kheyfits, Hanna Glomska Cohen, Andrey Belenky, and Daniel A. Kent; defense counsel of record include Nathan R. Miles and Daniel Huynh (see the Justia docket and UniCourt docket). I did not find a reliable confirmation of the specific defense law firm, so that detail is best treated as unverified.

Accused technology and asserted patents. The complaint (filed July 18, 2022) targets "dozens of Technicolor routers, access points, gateways, devices, and other products with Wi-Fi-related technology," alleging they implement standards-based Wi-Fi features that read on CommWorks' portfolio; the docket exhibits identify an exemplary accused product, the Technicolor CGA4234 Gateway (Exhibit 7). The technical theory is standard-implementation infringement: the accused devices are said to practice Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM / 802.11e QoS), 802.11-2007+, and Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) functionality. Per IPWatchdog's July 29, 2022 filings roundup, the patents asserted in 1:22-cv-02827 are U.S. Patent Nos. 6,891,807; 7,027,465; 7,177,285; 7,463,596; 7,911,979; and RE44,904 (IPWatchdog; corroborated by the case's exhibit list and by an aggregator party page listing '465, '596, '285, '807, '979, '904 for this docket). One-line sketches: '465 (7,027,465) — detecting priority of data frames in a network (extracting a bit pattern from a fixed offset, comparing it to a search pattern, and flagging a match as a priority frame), i.e., WMM/QoS priority handling; RE44,904 — a reissue directed to "Method for Contention Free Traffic Detection"; '807 (6,891,807) — "Time Based Wireless Access Provisioning" (WPS-style wireless onboarding); '979 (7,911,979) — Wi-Fi Protected Setup / network-security provisioning; '596 (7,463,596) — 802.11 standards-compliant networking; '285 (7,177,285) — wireless network communication methods. Note a correction to the prior case summary: US 7,027,465 is not merely implied here — it is expressly among the patents asserted in this case, as confirmed by IPWatchdog's docket-based roundup and the case's party/patent records. All six patents claim priority to filings in the 2001–2003 window, which is significant because several were at or near expiration during the litigation (the complaints in parallel CommWorks cases describe the '465 patent's infringement window as running only "until the '465 patent's expiry").

Procedural posture, venue, and why it matters. The case is CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC et al., No. 1:22-cv-02827-SCJ (N.D. Ga.), filed July 18, 2022 in the Atlanta Division and assigned to Judge Steve C. Jones. Jurisdiction is 28 U.S.C. § 1338; both sides demanded a jury. After two agreed extensions (docket entries #16, #21), the defendants answered on October 17, 2022 (docket #23), with fact discovery set to close July 14, 2023. The docket I could retrieve ends with the late-2022 filings, and one aggregator lists the case as "Closed" with no merits ruling surfaced in my search — so the specific termination mechanism (likely settlement-driven dismissal) and date should be treated as unconfirmed pending a PACER pull. Venue matters because N.D. Ga. is the plaintiff's home district: CommWorks is an Alpharetta entity, and its settlement/license agreements are expressly Georgia-law contracts submitting to N.D. Ga. jurisdiction (visible in the IPR2021-01297 file-history exhibit), making this a "home-court NPE" forum choice rather than the W.D./E.D. Tex. venues CommWorks used in most of its other suits. The case is notable on several fronts: (1) it exemplifies the standard-essential-adjacent NPE pattern — IV-acquired, early-2000s wireless QoS/WPS patents asserted against downstream implementers rather than chip makers; (2) it is part of a broad Wi-Fi/broadband assertion campaign reaching cable operators, ISPs, and hardware vendors; (3) it sits alongside an active defensive effort by Unified Patents, which filed an IPR (IPR2021-01297) against CommWorks' U.S. 8,923,846 and an ex parte reexamination against U.S. 6,832,249, signaling a coordinated validity attack on the same portfolio; and (4) it reflects the market context of the Technicolor→Vantiva transition, in which a financially restructuring European CE supplier was targeted on U.S. Wi-Fi functionality that is essentially ubiquitous across the industry.

Sourcing caveats: Party identities, counsel of record, the Oct. 17, 2022 answer, the Vantiva parent disclosure, the patent set, and the NPE/IPInvestments/IV lineage are well sourced above. The case's final disposition and exact dismissal date are not confirmed in the sources I retrieved, and the defense law firm and any license/settlement terms are not disclosed; those should be verified directly via PACER/RECAP before being stated as fact.

I'll research this case thoroughly using web searches across dockets, PTAB, and legal news sources.

Let me dig deeper into this specific case's docket and the PTAB proceedings on the asserted patents.

CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC, No. 1:22-cv-02827-SCJ (N.D. Ga.)

Sourcing caveat up front: The public dockets I could retrieve for this specific case (Dockets.Justia, UniCourt, Ex Parte's litigation trackers) are stale — the fullest docket snapshot I found was last synced 2022-10-17, and the case tracker flags the matter as "Closed." I could not retrieve post-October-2022 docket entries, a dismissal order, an MDL/transfer order, a Markman order, or any settlement document through the sources available to me. Everything below distinguishes confirmed facts from inferences.

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1. Correcting a premise in the existing summary

The prior summary said US 7,027,465 "was not expressly named and is unconfirmed in this case." That is incorrect. Two independent sources confirm '465 was among the patents asserted:

• IPWatchdog's Patent Filings Roundup (2022-07-29) lists for 1:22-cv-02827: 6,891,807 / 7,463,596 / RE44,904 / 7,911,979 / 7,027,465 / 7,177,285.
• Ex Parte's party page for Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC lists the same case with asserted patents '465, '596, '285, '807, '979, '904.

So the case was a six-patent assertion, and '465 ("Method for Contention Free Traffic Detection," issued 2006-04-11 from App. No. 10/167,986) is confirmed as asserted against Wi-Fi Multimedia / 802.11-2007+ functionality. (The CommWorks v. RCN complaint and later 2025 campaign complaints confirm '465 was a standard piece of CommWorks' assertion set.)

2. Filing and initial pleadings

Not confirmed in retrieved sources: whether the Answer contained invalidity/non-infringement counterclaims (the answer docket text is silent on counterclaims), or any separately docketed counterclaim.

Counsel of record (confirmed):

• Plaintiff: Daniel A. Kent, Dmitry Kheyfits, Brandon G. Moore, Hanna Glomska Cohen, Andrey Belenky.
• Defendants: Nathan R. Miles (Morris Manning & Martin LLP) and Daniel Huynh.

3. Pre-trial motions of substance

• Extensions of time to answer (Docs. 15, 20) — routine, granted.
• No motion to dismiss, motion to transfer (e.g., § 1406/1404(a)), motion to stay pending IPR, or summary-judgment motion appears in any source I could retrieve for this docket. Given the docket's last sync was October 2022, I cannot rule out later filings, but I found no evidence of any.

Note the absence of a Fintiv-type stay fight here is consistent with the fact that I found no IPR petition against the six patents asserted against Technicolor (see §7).

4. Claim construction (Markman)

No Markman order, claim-construction scheduling order, or joint claim construction statement for N.D. Ga. 1:22-cv-02827 appears in any retrievable source. The docket as of 2022-10-17 shows the case still in its pleading/early-discovery phase. A contemporaneous construction of related claim terms does exist in a different case — the W.D. Tex. Comcast action (6:21-cv-00366-ADA, Claim Construction Order 2022-03-08) — and it was cited by CommWorks in the parallel PTAB proceeding (§7), but it is not a construction in this case.

5. Discovery milestones with strategic significance

The only confirmed milestone is the 2023-07-14 discovery cutoff set in the Answer (Doc. 23). No interrogatory, contention, or ESI disputes are visible in the retrievable record. (CommWorks litigations typically hinge on the plaintiff's "Evidence of Use" exhibits — detailed claim-chart attachments filed with the complaint — which function as the de facto infringement contentions; that pattern is documented across the campaign, including here per the Lexology summary of the accused-product list.)

6. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

No trial, verdict, JMOL, new-trial, or fee motion is indicated in any source. There is no reported opinion for this case that I could locate on CourtListener, and no Law360/Reuters outcome coverage surfaced.

7. Final disposition / present posture

• Confirmed: Ex Parte's litigation tracker lists 1:22-cv-02827 as "Closed."
• Not confirmed: the mechanism of closure. I could not retrieve a voluntary-dismissal notice, dismissal order, settlement announcement, or judgment. Given (a) the case went dormant relative to the aggressive 2025 re-filing campaign, (b) CommWorks' documented pattern of with-prejudice Rule 41(a) dismissals after licensing/demand activity against chipset and router makers (e.g., NXP 7:25-cv-00395 dismissed with prejudice 2025-10-31; STMicro 7:25-cv-00363 voluntarily dismissed Nov. 2025; TI 2:25-cv-00439 stipulated dismissal with prejudice; EarthLink 2:25-cv-00716 dismissed Oct. 2025), the most plausible disposition is a settlement/license or voluntary dismissal, but I am flagging this as inference, not fact. It should be verified against PACER for the post-October-2022 docket entries.

8. Parallel PTAB proceedings

The asserted six patents in this case were not, to my knowledge, the subject of an instituted IPR. The PTAB activity against CommWorks was a Unified Patents campaign against other portfolio patents:

• IPR2021-01297, Unified Patents, LLC v. CommWorks Solutions, LLC — US 8,923,846 ("recovery of information in a mobile network"): instituted on all challenged claims 2022-02-14; patent owner's response 2022-06-08 (arguing "transport address" construction, relying on the W.D. Tex. Comcast Markman order of 2022-03-08); oral argument requested 2022-10-03 for a 2022-11-16 hearing.
  • Unified's counsel: Raghav Bajaj, Matthew Beck, David McCombs (Haynes Boone); in-house Michelle Aspen, Roshan Mansinghani. (Some entries list Aspen as counsel of record.)
• Ex parte reexamination 90/015,057 — US 7,760,664 ("determining and provisioning paths in a network"): Unified's request granted 2022-07-01 (less than a month after filing), with substantial new questions found; '664 was asserted against eight companies (RCN, Charter, etc.).
• Ex Parte / Lexology reporting confirms an ongoing Unified "active campaign attacking the CommWorks patent portfolio via ex parte reexamination."

Effect on this litigation: none of these proceedings challenged the six patents asserted against Technicolor, and the '846 IPR and '664 reexam involved patents asserted in the earlier Comcast/RCN/Charter wave — not here. Accordingly, there is no IPR-driven stay in this case, and no PTAB outcome that directly moots any claim asserted against Technicolor.

9. Broader campaign context (helps explain the likely disposition)

CommWorks (NPE; parent IP Investments Group; later filings name Brainbox Innovations, LLC as corporate parent) ran two assertion waves off the same IV-acquired Wi-Fi/QoS/WPS/mesh portfolio:

1. 2020–2022 first wave — RCN, Charter, D-Link, Mediacom, Comcast, NextLink, and Technicolor (this case). Patents: '249, '807, '465, '285, '596, '664, '979, '315, RE44,904.
2. 2025 second wave — AVM, DrayTek, Texas Instruments, NXP, STMicroelectronics, u-blox, EarthLink, Microchip, asserting substantially the same Wi-Fi protocol patents (including '465) against chipset and CPE makers; several resolved by prompt with-prejudice voluntary dismissals by mid/late 2025.

The second wave's complaints confirm the '465 infringement theory used here: Wi-Fi Multimedia / 802.11-2007+ implementations practicing a "method for detecting priority of data frames" by extracting a bit pattern at an offset and comparing it to a search pattern (see the STMicro/Microchip complaint allegations citing '465 claim 1).

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Bottom line

• Filed 2022-07-18 in N.D. Ga. before Judge Steve C. Jones, asserting six patents ('807, '465, '285, '596, '979, RE44,904), all confirmed — including '465, contrary to the prior summary.
• Answer filed 2022-10-17 with a jury demand and a 2023-07-14 discovery cutoff; corporate disclosure identifies parent Vantiva SA.
• No retrievable substantive motion practice, Markman ruling, trial, or verdict. No IPR targeted the six asserted patents, so no PTAB stay or IPR-based mooting affected this case.
• The case is listed as closed by litigation trackers, but the precise disposition (settlement/license vs. voluntary dismissal) is unverified in the sources available and should be confirmed via a current PACER pull for documents after 2022-10-17.

Recommended verification steps: (1) pull PACER docket 1:22-cv-02827 for entries after Doc. 23; (2) check PACER for any N.D. Ga. dismissal order or stipulation; (3) query USPTO PTAB Patent Trial Appeal System and Patent Center for any IPR/reexam filings against the six patents with CommWorks as owner.

I'll research plaintiff-side counsel of record using the docket and firm sources.

Now let me pin down firm affiliations, roles, and any local counsel.

Let me verify the case-specific appearances and firm details.

Plaintiff-Side Counsel of Record — CommWorks Solutions, LLC

All plaintiff appearances in this case were entered in the first three weeks after filing (July–August 2022). No later additions, substitutions, or withdrawals are visible in the sources I could retrieve, because the freely available dockets for this case stop in October 2022. Nothing on the plaintiff side is sealed — these are ordinary pro hac vice applications on the open docket.

Docket grounding

Sources: Justia docket 1:22-cv-02827; UniCourt case page (both list plaintiff attorneys as Moore, Kent, Kheyfits, Cohen, Belenky).

Counsel roster

Local-counsel structure (worth flagging)

• The four Kheyfits Belenky attorneys are all out-of-district and appear only via pro hac vice, which means N.D. Ga. local counsel was required. Daniel A. Kent / Kent & Risley is the only Georgia-barred plaintiff attorney listed, and he fits the local-counsel slot precisely.
• This is not a one-off pairing: in FireNet Technologies, LLC v. Citrix Systems, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-03199 (N.D. Ga.) — another IPInvestments-family NPE — the plaintiff roster was Kent (Kent & Risley) alongside Kheyfits, Belenky, and Cohen, with Kheyfits admitted pro hac vice by oral order (PacerMonitor). So Kent & Risley functions as the standing Georgia local-counsel shop for this set of plaintiffs. Notably, CommWorks' registered office is also in Alpharetta — the same city as Kent's office — but I have no source tying that to his engagement, so I flag it as an observation, not a finding.
• Caveat: I could not retrieve the complaint's signature block. It is therefore an inference (strong, but not directly verified) that Kent signed the complaint as local counsel under N.D. Ga. L.R. 83.1, rather than only entering a separate notice of appearance.

Corrections and cross-references to the prior section

• The earlier "Case overview" listed plaintiff-side counsel as "Brandon G. Moore, Dmitry Kheyfits, Hanna Glomska Cohen, Andrey Belenky, and Daniel A. Kent." That is confirmed and now fleshed out: the first four are Kheyfits Belenky LLP (Austin/New York), and Kent is Kent & Risley LLC, Alpharetta, GA.
• The prior section said the defense law firm was unverified. A party/attorney aggregator does list defendant counsel Nathan R. Miles at Morris Manning & Martin LLP (aggregator attorney page) — outside this task's scope but a useful cross-check for the earlier open question, though I'd still want a primary docket confirmation before treating it as final.
• Firm addresses vary across filings (Austin: 108 Wild Basin Rd. #250 → 7500 Rialto Blvd. → 12600 Hill Country Blvd. R-275 / 180 Wild Basin Rd. S.; New York: 80 Broad St. 5th Fl. and 1140 Ave. of the Americas 9th Fl.), and a San Francisco office (4 Embarcadero Center, Ste. 1400) appears in older pleadings. Treat any single address as a point-in-time snapshot rather than the firm's current address.
• For the record, Kheyfits Belenky's broader patent practice is visible in IPR work for Personalized Media Communications (e.g., IPR2020-00721, Google v. PMC, where Kheyfits, Belenky, and Moore appear as patent-owner counsel, Customer No. 107284) — i.e., a patent-focused boutique, not a general commercial firm.

Not verified: whether any of these attorneys were later replaced or withdrew (post-October 2022 docket not retrievable in my sources), and each attorney's precise bar-admission status in Georgia beyond Kent (the out-of-district four hold Texas, California, and New York credentials and appear in N.D. Ga. only by pro hac vice).

I'll research defense counsel for the Technicolor defendants, building on the previously identified names (Nathan R. Miles, Daniel Huynh).

Let me pull the actual docket sheet and verify the defense firm affiliations.

Good progress. Both defense attorneys appear tied to Morris, Manning & Martin (Atlanta). Let me verify via the answer filing and check for any additional defense counsel (local vs. lead).

Defense Counsel of Record — CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC et al., No. 1:22-cv-02827-SCJ (N.D. Ga.)

Bottom line: The docket shows a two-attorney, single-firm defense team. Both Technicolor defendants (Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC and Technicolor USA, Inc.) were represented by Daniel L. Huynh and Nathan R. Miles, then both of Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, Atlanta, GA — i.e., a shared Atlanta firm handling both lead patent work and local filings, with no separate out-of-state lead/local-counsel split visible on the docket. This refines the prior section, which had flagged the defense firm as unverified: the firm is now identifiable.

The two defense attorneys

Grounding in the docket

• #15 (Aug. 4, 2022) — Joint Motion for Extension of Time to Answer, filed by/for both Technicolor defendants (Huynh, Daniel).
• #20 (Sept. 13, 2022) — Joint Motion for Extension of Time to Answer, filed for both Technicolor defendants (Huynh, Daniel).
• #22 (Oct. 17, 2022) — Corporate Disclosure Statement identifying Vantiva SA as parent, filed for both defendants (Miles, Nathan).
• #23 (Oct. 17, 2022) — Answer with jury demand for both defendants (Miles, Nathan).
• Party/attorney pages list, under "Defendant Attorneys," exactly Nathan R. Miles and Daniel Huynh (Justia docket; UniCourt docket).

Both defendants were jointly represented; no separate counsel appears for Technicolor Connected Home USA LLC versus Technicolor USA, Inc.

Caveats and things I could not confirm

1. No pro hac vice / admission orders for any defense attorney appear in the retrievable docket (by contrast, the docket shows PHV orders #11–#14 for plaintiff-side counsel). This is consistent with both defense attorneys being Georgia-barred at an Atlanta firm, so there is no visible "local counsel vs. out-of-town lead counsel" structure.
2. Docket coverage ends Oct. 17, 2022. The Justia/UniCourt snapshots were last retrieved Oct. 17–21, 2022, and the aggregator later lists the case as "Closed." Any additional or substituted counsel who appeared after October 2022 (e.g., if the case was later dismissed or counsel changed) would not be captured here — this should be verified by a PACER/RECAP pull of the full docket.
3. Nathan R. Miles's current firm is uncertain. The case docket ties him to Morris, Manning & Martin at the time of the 2022 filings, but I could not confirm via a firm page that MMM employed him, nor conclusively confirm that the Taft Law "Nathan R. Miles" (commercial litigation, UGA 2018) is the same individual. Treat his present firm/role and his precise IP experience as unverified.
4. Daniel L. Huynh's firm has since changed (MMM → Bradley, April 2025). He was at MMM during this litigation; the Bradley affiliation is current, not contemporaneous, and his Bradley bio's "NDGA, EDTX" Technicolor representation line is the best available confirmation that he acted as lead counsel here rather than merely local counsel.
5. No in-house counsel for Technicolor/Vantiva appears of record; the corporate disclosure (#22) was signed by outside counsel Miles.
6. I found no sealed filings affecting counsel, and no evidence of any additional defense firm.

Net: if you need the single most accurate statement — defendants were represented by Daniel L. Huynh (lead) and Nathan R. Miles, both of Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, Atlanta, at the time of the 2022 pleadings — with the caveat that the docket record I can access stops in October 2022.