CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Vyve Broadband, LLC et al.

Case Overview — CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Vyve Broadband, LLC et al., No. 6:23-cv-00147 (W.D. Tex.)

Parties and their business models. CommWorks Solutions, LLC is a Georgia limited liability company (Alpharetta, GA) whose corporate parent is Brainbox Innovations, LLC — the disclosure is stated in CommWorks' Rule 7.1 filings in related cases and in its PTAB mandatory notices, where Brainbox was also named a real party in interest (EarthLink docket, Rule 7.1 filing; IPR2021-01297 mandatory notices). It is a classic patent assertion entity: it makes and sells nothing, and the portfolio traces to the legacy CommWorks carrier-networking business of 3Com/U.S. Robotics (later sold to UTStarcom) — a family of early-2000s broadband, QoS, and Wi-Fi protocol patents. In 2021, Altice USA's Delaware declaratory-judgment complaints alleged that CommWorks and sister Brainbox entities were part of a coordinated assertion campaign, and that Intellectual Ventures (the transferor) retained a security interest and a revenue back-end on licensing proceeds; that characterization is Altice's allegation and was not adjudicated (IPWatchdog roundup, Sept. 22, 2021). Vyve is the opposite kind of party: a rural broadband/cable operator serving ~16 states under the Vyve brand (roughly 226,000 data customers and ~674,000 passings as of Q3 2024), operating as Mega Broadband Investments with GTCR and MBI management as owners alongside Cable One's 45% stake (Cable One/BusinessWire, Dec. 20, 2024). The two named defendants are the operating entities Vyve Broadband, LLC (corporate parent: Eagle Broadband Investments, LLC) and Vyve Broadband Investments, LLC (corporate parent: Mega Broadband Investments Intermediate LLC), per their Rule 7 disclosures (docket). CommWorks was represented by Kheyfits Belenky LLP and the Stafford Davis Firm; Vyve by Jenner & Block (Yusuf Esat, Amr O. Aly, Laura Krawczyk, pro hac vice) with Potter Minton (Michael E. Jones, Shaun W. Hassett) as local counsel (PatSnap case profile).

Accused technology. The complaint targeted Vyve's network infrastructure and subscriber premises equipment rather than a discrete product line: (1) Vyve's GPON/XGS-PON fiber access networks and the ONU/ONT equipment used to deliver broadband service (accused of practicing the cross-layer QoS/OSI-monitoring claims), and (2) Wi-Fi-enabled gateways/routers/access points provided to subscribers, with the ARRIS DG3270 gateway identified as an exemplary device because it implements Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) and Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM)/802.11e QoS (third-party complaint analysis of Doc. 1, 6:23-cv-00147). The theory is essentially "standards-based infringement": the accused features are the standardized WPS and WMM functions baked into widely deployed CPE and PON gear. CommWorks asserted seven patents in this case — U.S. 6,832,249 (cross-layer QoS/OSI provisioning), 6,891,807 and 7,911,979 (time-based/WPS access provisioning), 7,177,285 and 7,463,596 (wireless access provisioning family), and the two patents highlighted in the case metadata: U.S. 7,027,465 ("Method for Contention Free Traffic Detection"; filed June 11, 2002; issued April 11, 2006) — a method for spotting priority traffic by extracting a bit pattern from a predetermined position in a frame and comparing it to a search pattern so that QoS frames are sent in a reserved/contention-free period, i.e., the WMM/802.11e prioritization pathway — and U.S. RE44,904 (same title; reissued May 20, 2014), which is the reissue of the '465 patent. Asserting a patent together with its own reissue is unusual and legally sensitive, because under 35 U.S.C. § 252 the original patent is surrendered upon reissue grant; the complaints pleaded both as separate counts without addressing that issue, and no court reached it here (Ex Parte complaint analysis; EarthLink complaint, E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00716).

Procedural posture and venue. CommWorks filed on February 23, 2023 in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas before Judge Alan D. Albright (the "6:" case prefix denotes Waco). Vyve appeared through local counsel in March, took agreed extensions, and on April 19, 2023 answered and asserted counterclaims (rendering the case adversarial well before any early-dismissal window closed). The parties then filed a joint motion to dismiss, and Judge Albright entered an order on September 20, 2023 dismissing all of CommWorks' claims and Vyve's counterclaims with prejudice, each side bearing its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees — a 209-day case that terminated before claim construction, with no Markman ruling and no validity or infringement finding (docket; Patexia; PatSnap). Venue mattered in the usual way: W.D. Tex./Waco was then the nation's leading patent-plaintiff forum, with Albright's patent standing order producing fast schedules and elevated early-settlement pressure on small operating companies; the 2022 W.D. Tex. order spreading patent cases across judges is why CommWorks' later W.D. Tex. filings landed with judges such as David Counts (STMicro docket, 7:25-cv-00363).

Why the case is notable. First, it is a data point on NPE pressure against small rural ISPs: a ~226,000-subscriber operator was hit with a seven-patent assertion in the most expensive patent venue in the country and exited in about seven months on confidential terms, with no fee-shifting and no merits ruling — leaving the portfolio judicially untested against Vyve but also binding only Vyve. Second, it belongs to a long-running, single-family campaign: CommWorks bought/licensed this portfolio and has asserted overlapping subsets against Comcast (W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00366, Waco, dismissed on a motion to dismiss by order of July 1, 2022), Frontier (6:22-cv-01268, terminated Aug. 2023, flagged "STAYED"), RCN, NextLink, and Extreme Networks (AO-120 report, 6:21-cv-00366; Frontier docket). Third, it foreshadowed the 2025 "Wi-Fi standards" wave, in which CommWorks asserted the same patents (including the '465/RE44,904 pair) against chip vendors — NXP, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, u-blox, AVM, DrayTek, Realtek, Grandstream — and against ISPs such as EarthLink, again mostly resolving by stipulated dismissal with prejudice rather than adjudication. On the IPR side, I verified only that Unified Patents challenged U.S. 8,923,846 (IPR2021-01297), a different member of this portfolio; I found no IPR petition against the '465 or RE44,904 patents in the sources reviewed, so any claim of PTAB linkage for these two patents would be unsupported.

Sourcing caveats. The dismissal order itself is described consistently by docket aggregators and litigation-analytics providers (joint motion, September 20, 2023, with prejudice, no fee award), but I could not retrieve the sealed/underlying settlement terms — none appear in the public record. The accused-product details for Vyve come from a third-party analysis of the complaint rather than the complaint text itself. And the '465's 20-year term runs from its June 11, 2002 filing date (i.e., mid-2022 absent patent term adjustment), so the later waves of suits against chipmakers and ISPs are best understood as pursuing past damages and the other family members; I did not verify the exact expiration dates or any PTA from USPTO records.

I'll research this case using web searches against the sources you specified.

Let me dig deeper into the Vyve docket specifics and any PTAB proceedings.

Let me find the full Vyve docket on CourtListener and check the PTAB IPR record.

CommWorks Solutions, LLC v. Vyve Broadband, LLC et al., No. 6:23-cv-00147 (W.D. Tex., Judge Alan D. Albright)

Bottom line: A seven-patent broadband/Wi-Fi assertion campaign case that opened 2023-02-23 and closed 209 days later by joint stipulated dismissal with prejudice on 2023-09-20 — no Markman, no dispositive motions, no trial, no fee award, no appeal. The court made no validity or infringement determination.

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1. Filing & initial pleadings

• 2023-02-23 — Complaint filed in the Waco Division, W.D. Tex., assigned to Judge Albright. Case No. 6:23-cv-00147; nature of suit 830 (Patent); 35 U.S.C. § 271; jury demand. Both Vyve Broadband, LLC and Vyve Broadband Investments, LLC named. (Justia docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/6:2023cv00147/[1207926](/patent/1207926))

  • Patents asserted: Per the docket-intelligence reconstruction of the complaint (PatSnap, https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/commworks-solutions-v-vyve-broadband-broadband-patent-dismissal-patsnap/), CommWorks pleaded seven patents: US 7,027,465; RE44,904; 7,177,285; 6,832,249; 7,911,979; 6,891,807; and 7,463,596. Note the discrepancy: the case metadata in this matter lists only the '465 and RE44,904; the two asserted patents you flagged ('465 "Method for Contention Free Traffic Detection" and RE44,904, its reissue) were the WMM/QoS-focused counts, and RE44,904 was pleaded as Count IV and the '465 as Count V in the companion campaign pleadings. Treat the "seven patents" figure as well-sourced for the complaint but not independently confirmed against PACER here.
  • Accused instrumentalities: (i) Vyve's GPON/XGS-PON fiber access network and ONU/ONT equipment (ITU-T G.984), mapped to the '249 patent's OSI-layer QoS-event claims; and (ii) the Arris DG3270 Wi-Fi gateway, whose WPS (PushButton Configuration) and WMM (IEEE 802.11e) functionalities were mapped to the '807/'979 claims and to the RE44,904 claim 7 / '465 claim 1 respective WMM-based traffic-detection theories. (Complaint analysis: https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/txwd/6:23-cv-00147/doc/analysis/1)
  • Willfulness / notice: CommWorks pleaded pre-suit notice letters and a "policy or practice of not reviewing the patents of others" (willful blindness) theory — a recurring element of this portfolio's pleadings.

• 2023-03-10 — Agreed extension of time to answer (Dkt. 7; corrected notice Dkt. 8), resetting the response date to 2023-04-19; appearance of Shaun William Hassett (Potter Minton PC) (Dkt. 9).

• Pro hac vice admissions (defense side, Jenner & Block LLP): motions for Laura Krawczyk (Dkt. 10, granted Dkt. 12, 2023-03-20), Amr O. Aly (Dkt. 11, granted Dkt. 13, 2023-03-20), and Yusuf Esat (Dkt. 14, granted Dkt. 15, 2023-03-22). Defense team therefore: Jenner & Block (Aly, Krawczyk, Esat) + Potter Minton (Michael E. Jones, Shaun Hassett). Plaintiff team: Kheyfits Belenky LLP (Andrey Belenky, Dmitry Kheyfits) and Stafford Davis Firm PC (Stafford Grigsby Helm Davis, Hanna G. Cohen, Catherine Bartles, Brandon Moore). (UniCourt: https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-commworks-solutions-llc-v-vyve-broadband-llc-et-al-[1414256](/patent/1414256))

• 2023-04-04 — Updated Albright Standing Order Governing Proceedings – Patent Cases entered on the docket.

• 2023-04-19 — Answer, affirmative defenses, and counterclaims filed by both Vyve entities (Dkt. 16), together with Rule 7 disclosure statements (Dkt. 17) identifying corporate parents Eagle Broadband Investments, LLC (Vyve Broadband, LLC) and Mega Broadband Investments Intermediate LLC (Vyve Broadband Investments, LLC). The counterclaims were declaratory-type counterclaims against CommWorks as counter-defendant, but the substance is not in the public excerpts I retrieved — the text of Dkt. 16's counterclaim counts is a sourcing gap.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None of record. There is no motion to dismiss, § 1404/§ 1406 transfer motion, motion to stay pending IPR, or summary-judgment motion in the retrievable docket. All public docket activity between 2023-04-19 and the September 2023 termination appears to be the answer/counterclaims and then the dismissal — i.e., the case never reached contested motion practice. (Justia docket, retrieved through 2023-04-19; PatSnap case analysis.)

3. Claim construction (Markman)

Never reached. No Markman order, briefing, or scheduling-order-driven claim-construction exchange was docketed. PatSnap's docket analysis states expressly that the case "closed before any substantive Markman or claim-construction ruling" and that the early resolution "is consistent with a case resolved before significant claim construction investment." This matters because the '465/RE44,904 "extracting a bit pattern from a predetermined position … comparing … with a search pattern" limitations against WMM implementations — the central merits question in all of CommWorks's WMM counts — were never judicially construed.

4. Discovery milestones

None of strategic significance on the public docket. No discovery-dispute motions (Motions to Compel, § 285 discovery, protective orders, ESI orders) appear. Because the case resolved roughly six months after the answer — before the Markman/summary-judgment milestones on Albright's patent schedule — the parties presumably did not complete fact discovery. No document production, deposition, or damages-expert milestones are reflected in the retrievable record.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial setting, no verdict, and no JMOL/new-trial/§ 285 fee motions. No enhanced-damages or attorney's-fee award was sought or entered.

6. Final disposition

• 2023-09-20 — Order of dismissal. Judge Albright entered an order on the parties' joint motion to dismiss, dismissing all of CommWorks's claims and all of Vyve's counterclaims and defenses with prejudice, resolving the case in 209 days (2023-02-23 → 2023-09-20). Each party to bear its own costs, expenses, and attorney's fees — i.e., no fee-shifting and no exceptional-case ruling. Termination recorded as "Dismissed with Prejudice"/"Dismissed – Other." (PatSnap case analysis; Patexia docket summary: https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/CommWorks-Solutions-LLC-v-Vyve-Broadband-LLC-et-al-id-[186888](/patent/186888))
• Legal effect: A stipulated dismissal with prejudice is a merits-equivalent termination as between these parties (res judicata as to the same claims/patents), but it carries no invalidity finding, no narrowing construction, and no non-infringement ruling. Because the counterclaims were dismissed too, Vyve obtained no declaratory judgment of invalidity or non-infringement and did not create estoppel usable by third parties. Settlement consideration, if any, is undisclosed.
• No appeal. No notice of appeal appears in the record; the 60-day window from 2023-09-20 would have run in November 2023 without a Federal Circuit filing that I can locate.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings and their effect

• No IPR/PGR stay, and no IPR on the '465 or RE44,904 that I can confirm. I found no AIA petition challenging US 7,027,465 or RE44,904, and correspondingly no stay motion in this case. This is a negative finding based on incomplete search coverage — flagging it as a gap rather than asserting no petition was ever filed. (My PTAB query hit a tool step limit before I could exhaustively check the PTAB-API/CourtListener PTAB docket for the '465 and '904.)
• Related PTAB activity in this portfolio: IPR2021-01297, Unified Patents, LLC v. CommWorks Solutions, LLC — an AIA proceeding against a different CommWorks portfolio patent, US 8,923,846 (a "Determining and provisioning paths in a network" patent asserted in the parallel Comcast case, No. 6:21-cv-00366). PTAB filings in that IPR include a CommWorks exhibit comprising its settlement/license agreement and a CommWorks sur-reply on claim construction from the Comcast case. (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01297/Unified_Patents_LLC_v._CommWorks_Solutions_LLC/) The '846 patent was not among the patents asserted against Vyve in the complaint as reconstructed, so IPR2021-01297 did not overlap this case.
• Net effect on the litigation: none. No PTAB institution, FWD, or estoppel event drove the Vyve dismissal on this record.

8. Present posture / campaign context (why the case mattered anyway)

• Closed since 2023-09-20; nothing pending. The Vyve dismissal is final.
• Portfolio remains live. Because no patent was invalidated or construed, CommWorks continues to assert the same family — including the '465 and RE44,904 — in a newer wave of suits: CommWorks v. AVM GmbH (2:25-cv-00026, E.D. Tex.), DrayTek (2:25-cv-00024), Texas Instruments (2:25-cv-00439, dismissed with prejudice by Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) stipulation), STMicroelectronics (7:25-cv-00363, W.D. Tex., voluntarily dismissed with prejudice 2025-11-03), NXP USA (7:25-cv-00395), U-blox (1:25-cv-02504, E.D. Va., transferred intradistrict to Norfolk), EarthLink (2:25-cv-00716, E.D. Tex.), and Broadcom (2:25-cv-02998, C.D. Cal.). CommWorks's Rule 7 disclosure in the 2025 EarthLink case identifies its parent as Brainbox Innovations, LLC.
• Earlier campaign: Comcast (6:21-cv-00366) was dismissed by order granting a motion to dismiss on 2022-07-01 (AO 120 filing), and suits against RCN (S.D.N.Y. 1:20-cv-07534) and NextLink (E.D. Tex. 2:20-cv-160) preceded this case. The Vyve matter fits the same template: seven-patent ISP/CPE assertion, early confidential resolution, no merits ruling.

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Key takeaways for case assessment

1. No substantive law was made. '465/RE44,904 claim scope versus WMM implementations, and the WPS-based "time-based provisioning" theory, remain untested — the same questions flagged as the central merits issues in this portfolio (whether WPS "tracks" a power-on/transmission event, and whether WMM "extracts a bit pattern from a predetermined position") are still open.
2. Vyve's protection is contractual, not judicial. With prejudice as to claims and counterclaims, each side bearing its own fees — a clean exit, but no invalidity judgment and no license visible on the public record.
3. Fast resolution before Markman is the pattern, consistent with an NPE-era Albright docket resolved on early cost/risk economics rather than claim construction.
4. Sourcing caveats: (a) the counterclaim counts in Dkt. 16 are not reproduced in the public excerpts; (b) whether the dismissal was preceded by a license is undisclosed; and (c) my negative finding on IPR/PGR coverage of the '465/'904 is not exhaustive — a PACER/PTAB-API pull on those two patent numbers should be run before relying on it.

I'll research the counsel of record for the plaintiff (CommWorks Solutions, LLC) in this case.

Let me verify these names against primary docket records and firm sources.

Let me try to pull the actual docket parties/attorneys page from CourtListener and check for appearances and the dismissal.

I'll research the docket and counsel appearances for this case.

Now let me dig into each defendant-side attorney's firm, role, and background.