Delaware Display Group LLC et al. v. Lenovo Group Ltd. et al.

I'll research this case across the sources you named.

Rich detail already. Let me dig into the '973 patent's IPR history and the case's ultimate resolution.

Let me nail down the IPR linkage, the dropped patents, and the summary judgment outcomes.

Case Overview & Background

Parties. Both plaintiffs are non-practicing entities — shell licensing vehicles, not operating companies. Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") is a Texas LLC and Delaware Display Group LLC ("DDG") a Delaware LLC, both listing the same Plano, Texas address (2400 Dallas Parkway, Suite 200) in the First Amended Complaint; the complaint pleads that they "share a common corporate parent." RPX identifies DDG as a newly formed Acacia Research subsidiary and IDT as "another Acacia subsidiary," and IDT's own PTAB mandatory notices in the related IPRs name Acacia Research Group LLC and Acacia Research Corporation as real parties-in-interest (Bragalone Conroy, IPR2014-01357). The patents themselves were sourced from Rambus (which acquired them from Solid State Opto) and assigned to Acacia in March 2013 — a provenance noted by RPX and by the court in discovery rulings. The defendants are Lenovo Group Ltd. (Hong Kong), Lenovo Holding Co., Inc. (a Delaware corporation, Morrisville, NC), and Lenovo (United States) Inc. (Delaware corporation, same NC address) — i.e., the global PC/smartphone/tablet manufacturer behind the ThinkPad, IdeaPad, and Yoga lines. Plaintiff-side counsel was Farnan LLP (Wilmington) and Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Dallas); Lenovo was represented by Potter Anderson & Corroon and Akin Gump (per D.I. 112).

Accused technology and patents. The accused products are Lenovo laptops, desktops, and tablets with LCDs, named by example as the IdeaPad N580, Yoga Tablet 10, and ThinkPad X1 — the infringement theory targets the LCD backlight subsystem (light-guide panels, edge-coupled LEDs, and light-extracting surface deformities), with plaintiffs alleging improvements in thinner displays, light uniformity, and battery life (FAC ¶¶ 25–28). The complaint as filed asserted eight patents, split between the two plaintiffs. The '973 patent (U.S. 7,434,973, "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" — the single patent in the case metadata) is a DDG patent claiming a light-guide panel with multiple edge-coupled light sources and a pattern of individual light-extracting deformities whose density/size/depth/height increases with distance from the sources and peaks at midpoints between adjacent sources. Its DDG sibling is the '196 patent (7,914,196, "Light Redirecting Film Systems Having Pattern of Variable Optical Elements"). The six IDT patents — '547 (6,755,547), '194 (7,300,194), '177 (7,384,177), '660 (7,404,660), '974 (7,434,974), '370 (7,537,370), and the later-filed '816 (8,215,816) (all "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" except as noted) — cover related backlight/panel features and all trace, with the '973, to common parent U.S. 5,613,751 (filed June 27, 1995), which later mattered for priority-date fights in the IPRs.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Filed December 31, 2013 in the District of Delaware (Wilmington Division) — one of seven near-identical suits filed the same day against Amazon (13-2106), HTC (13-2107), Lenovo (13-2108), LG (13-2109), Pantech (13-2110), Sony (13-2111), and VIZIO (13-2112). The case was assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews (RGA). Delaware venue rested on Lenovo Holding and Lenovo (U.S.) being Delaware corporations (and was pleaded under §§ 1391 and 1400(b)); this predates TC Heartland (2017), and the D. Del. filing reflected the standard Acacia practice of pairing Delaware corporate subsidiaries with an established, patent-experienced judge. Claim construction issued November 6, 2015 (D.I. 112), construing terms across the '974, '370, '816, and '196 patents and expressly comparing the two earlier E.D. Texas Markman rulings (IDT v. Acer; IDT v. Hyundai), including a finding of indefiniteness on "relatively low angles." The case is notable on several axes: (1) IPR linkage — the '973 was subjected to IPR2015-00506 (petitioner LG Display Co., Ltd., instituted July 6, 2015 on anticipation by Shinohara), joined by LG Electronics (IPR2015-01666), and the Board's Final Written Decision of June 23, 2016 held claims 1–5 unpatentable; on October 21, 2015, facing that and other instituted IPRs, plaintiffs dismissed without prejudice all claims on three patents then under review (per D.I. 112, the patents identified elsewhere as the '973, '177, and '660) — the trigger for the partial retreat described in the existing summary; (2) NPE/PAE assertion pattern — a Rambus-origin portfolio pushed through an Acacia shell into a broad multi-defendant LCD campaign (roughly 30+ suits across phone, tablet, PC, camera, GPS, and auto defendants); and (3) damages-expert law — the January 18, 2017 opinion (D.I. 365), addressing the opinions of damages expert Patrick F. Kennedy, declined to exclude plaintiffs' apportionment and portfolio-royalty-rate methodology (challenges went to weight, not admissibility), and the November 28, 2016 summary-judgment opinion (D.I. 351) addressed, among other things, a standing/chain-of-title challenge to the Rambus-to-Acacia assignments (the court found the "bare reference to all right, title, and interest" insufficient to convey past-infringement rights under California law). Discovery also produced the February 23, 2016 opinion (D.I. 222; 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21461) granting Lenovo's motion to compel subpoenas to Rambus and rejecting a common-interest privilege over Rambus materials because Rambus retained only a commercial, not legal, royalty interest. The litigation resolved by settlement in April 2017, when Lenovo and LG told the court they had agreed to drop claims (Law360, April 10, 2017); LG Display's Q1 2017 10-Q similarly reported settlements in principle reached through mediation. Residual administrative docket activity (return of sealed CD-ROM exhibits) appeared as late as August 2019, which likely explains the case's "active/unknown" metadata status even though the merits were resolved.

Sourcing caveats. Party addresses, patent lists, accused products, and counsel are drawn from the complaint and D.I. 112 (Justia/RPX reproductions); the Acacia relationship is from RPX (Jan. 9, 2014) and IDT's own PTAB notices; the '973 IPR outcome is from the PTAB Final Written Decision (June 23, 2016); the settlement is from Law360 (April 10, 2017). I could not independently confirm from a primary PACER docket sheet whether a formal dismissal order/closing entry exists for 13-2108, nor the precise identity of every IPR petitioner on the related patents (the '973 IPRs I verified were LG-entity filings, not Lenovo's) — so treat the "settled and closed" characterization as well-sourced by trade press rather than by a docket entry I reviewed directly.

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and key rulings.

Let me dig into the IPRs on the '973 patent and the ultimate disposition of the litigation.

Let me look for the trial and final disposition, plus the summary judgment opinion.

Key Legal Developments & Outcome — Delaware Display Group LLC v. Lenovo Holding Co., C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA (D. Del.)

Bottom line: This is a companion case in a three-front Acacia enforcement campaign (Lenovo / LG / Vizio) over the Parker "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" family. It never reached trial. It produced a substantive Markman ruling, an important discovery/leave-to-amend opinion, a denied defense summary-judgment motion, and a denied Daubert motion — then settled in April 2017. The '973 patent singled out in the case metadata was effectively killed at the PTAB (claims 1–5 held anticipated) and was dropped from this case before the merits were tried. Note that the '973 was only one of a large asserted family here; I flag below where the record is thin.

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1. Filing & initial pleadings

• 2013-12-31 — DDG and IDT (both Acacia/NPE subsidiaries, Plano, TX) filed C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA against Lenovo Group Ltd. (HK parent), Lenovo Holding Co. Inc., and Lenovo (United States) Inc. Assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews. Two companion actions filed the same day: 13-2109 (LG Display/LG Electronics) and 13-2112 (Vizio). All three were coordinated for discovery and Markman.
• Patents asserted — the operative First Amended Complaint asserted nine patents from the same '751-priority family: IDT patents '547, '194, '177, '660, '974, '370, '816; DDG patents '973 and '196. Accused products were LCD-bearing laptops/desktops/tablets (e.g., IdeaPad N580, Yoga Tablet 10, ThinkPad X1). (Amended complaint text via RPX Insight; Justia docket)
• Answers/counterclaims — Lenovo Holding and Lenovo U.S. had answered before the amended complaint (per the amended complaint's own text). I could not independently verify the specific counterclaim counts (typically DJ of non-infringement/invalidity) from a sourced document; treat counterclaim specifics as unconfirmed. Lenovo's Delaware counsel of record were Richard L. Horowitz and David E. Moore (Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP).

2. Parallel PTAB proceedings (the dispositive event for the '973)

• 2014-12-30 — LG Display filed IPR petitions against three asserted patents: IPR2015-00487 ('660), IPR2015-00489 ('177), and IPR2015-00506 ('973).
• 2015-07-06 — Board instituted IPR2015-00506 on claims 1–5 of the '973, limited to a single ground: anticipation by Shinohara. The Board also held claims 1–5 were not entitled to the 1995 '176 grandparent priority date. (Institution Decision, Paper 8)
• 2015-01666 — LG Electronics filed a parallel petition and moved for joinder; the Board joined it into -00506.
• 2016-06-23 — Final Written Decision: claims 1–5 of the '973 unpatentable as anticipated by Shinohara. Because the patent had expired (20 years from the 1995 parent), the Board applied the Phillips district-court standard rather than BRI; it rejected the patent owner's BRI/priority arguments. (FWD)
• The Board noted 22 pending IPRs on related family patents — i.e., this was a systematic PTAB attack on the whole portfolio. Final outcomes of the '177/'660 IPRs are not confirmed in my sources (both were instituted, per RPX).
• Effect on litigation: as summarized in the existing case summary, DDG/IDT dropped the '973 (and '177/'660) claims without prejudice in the 2013 cases after institution. RPX documents the mechanism: in October 2015 Judge Andrews conditioned a total stay on plaintiffs dropping the three IPR-challenged patents; plaintiffs dropped them, the court then denied the stay, and the 2013 cases proceeded on the remaining patents. Plaintiffs immediately re-filed on the same three patents on 2015-12-30 (Lenovo 15-cv-01220, LG 15-cv-01221, Vizio 15-cv-01222), expressly consenting to stays pending the instituted IPRs. (RPX news)

3. Claim construction (Markman)

• 2015-10-27 — Markman hearing (three consolidated cases).
• 2015-11-06 — Memorandum Opinion, D.I. 112 (Judge Andrews), construing eight terms from four patents. Terms included "transition region," "predetermined," "pass through a liquid crystal display with low loss," "optical elements," "positioned near / positioning a film near," "in close proximity," "relatively low angles," and "more in the width direction." (Justia summary; D.I. 112)
• Key outcome: the court held "relatively low angles" indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 2 (Nautilus "reasonable certainty"), rejecting plaintiffs' reliance on its expert Dr. Escuti; it also engaged the three competing readings of "more in the width direction." This was a meaningful narrowing hit to the remaining asserted claims and set up the later invalidity/non-infringement posture.

4. Discovery milestones with strategic significance

• 2016-02-23 — Memorandum Opinion, D.I. 222, 2016 WL 720977 (Judge Andrews). Three holdings:
  1. Defendants' motion to compel granted in part — plaintiffs ordered to produce teardown reports and unredacted royalty reports (emails denied absent compliance with the discovery order).
  2. Motion to compel denied as to Rambus (subpoenas to Rambus Inc./Rambus Delaware LLC) — the work-product/common-interest challenge failed for plaintiffs' documents, but the Rambus subpoena was denied (ruled on the record at argument).
  3. Plaintiffs' motion to amend to add willful infringement DENIED as unduly delayed — filed on the last day of fact discovery, ~2 years after the complaint, when the sole factual basis (a 2012 Rambus–Lenovo licensing meeting) was known pre-suit. (opinion text via NYIPLA materials; Mealey's)
• 2016-02-26 — Press coverage confirming the Feb. 23 teardown/email discovery ruling across the three cases.
• 2016-05-10 — Memorandum Order, D.I. 264, granting in part/denying in part the joint motion to seal a discovery-conference transcript (March 29, 2016 conference), applying the "clearly defined and serious injury" standard — a routine but noted sealing dispute. (RLF summary)

5. Pre-trial dispositive & evidentiary motions

• 2016-08-29 — LG and Lenovo moved for summary judgment of non-infringement, arguing DDG had no evidence tying the backlight technology to hundreds of accused products. (Law360 case page)
• 2016-11-28 — Memorandum Opinion, D.I. 351 (Judge Andrews), on the pending summary-judgment motions and a motion to strike. The Lenovo and LG defendants' MSJ of non-infringement was DENIED — genuine disputes of material fact on at least the "projections or depressions on or in the sides" and "the tray or housing includes end walls and side walls" limitations. (D.I. 351 PDF)
• 2017-01-18 — Memorandum Opinion, D.I. 365 (Judge Andrews), denying defendants' Daubert motion to exclude the damages testimony of Patrick F. Kennedy, Ph.D. Defendants argued no apportionment, 100% incremental profit to licensor, and a royalty rate drawn from an unasserted-portfolio license. The court held these went to weight, not admissibility — apportionment and smallest-saleable-patent-practicing-unit methodology were reasonable, the royalty approach was "logical," and no impermissible royalty stacking. (RLF summary; Justia D.I. 365)

Both rulings left DDG positioned for trial on liability and damages — which is precisely why the April 2017 settlement followed.

6. Trial events, verdict, post-trial motions

• None. There was no trial, no verdict, and no JMOL/new-trial/fee motion in C.A. 13-2108. The case resolved before trial.

7. Settlement / final disposition / present posture

• 2017-04-10 — Law360 reported: "Lenovo, LG Settle Patent Suits Over Display Backlight Tech" — on Monday (2017-04-10) the parties told Judge Andrews they had agreed to drop claims in one case and set the stage for dismissal papers in the other, resolving the DDG actions against LG and Lenovo. (Law360)
• Post-2017 docket activity is administrative, not merits activity: the Feb. 2016 multimedia exhibits (CD-ROMs) were returned by the Clerk in August 2019 (entries dated 2019-08-23/2019-08-27 under D.I. 341 in 13-2108 / D.I. 447 in 13-2109). (Law360 docket feed)
• Present posture: closed/settled as of 2017; the "active/unknown" status in the metadata is not reflected in any post-2017 merits filing I could locate. No Federal Circuit appeal of this case appears in the record — unsurprising, since a stipulated/voluntary dismissal is not appealable.
• The re-filed 2015 actions (15-1220 et al.) asserting '973/'177/'660 were expressly to be stayed pending the IPRs; given the '973 FWD (claims 1–5 unpatentable), the practical value of that re-filed Lenovo action was largely extinguished. I could not source a separate final judgment in 15-cv-01220.

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Caveats / gaps

• Docket-entry numbers for the complaint, answer, and counterclaims are not independently verified here; the amended-complaint text confirms answers were filed but I did not retrieve a specific Answer/Counterclaim entry.
• I found no ruling on a motion to dismiss or motion to transfer in this case; if one was filed, it is not surfaced in the sources reviewed. (Note the 2017 TC Heartland venue change postdated the operative pleadings.)
• The specific terms of the April 2017 settlement are not public; the Law360 report describes dismissal mechanics, not license terms.
• Final outcomes of the '177 ('489) and '660 ('487) IPRs and of the other family IPRs ('974, '816, '196, '370, etc.) are not confirmed in this research — only that 22 related IPRs were pending as of the '973 institution decision.

Chronology at a glance

I'll search for press coverage across several angles.

Let me broaden the search to trade press and IP blogs.

Let me look for more targeted coverage: the settlement, the Rambus discovery ruling, and any analyst/PTAB commentary.

Press & analyst coverage

A thin, trade-only footprint — and that is itself the finding. I searched the case caption, both plaintiff names, the defendants, the '973 patent number, and the IPR numbers, and found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, or EFF coverage of C.A. No. 13-2108. The only news organization reporting on the litigation itself is Law360, whose case page for the consolidated Delaware Display Group actions carries three items: a 2016-03-01 report, "LG Pushes PTAB To Toss Display Patent For Lack Of Invention," describing LG Display's argument to a PTAB panel that an asserted LCD patent "adds nothing novel to a similar 1997 patent"; an 2016-08-29 report, "LG, Lenovo Say LCD Patent Suit Lacks Evidence," describing the defendants' argument "that despite years to put together their case Delaware Display has not provided evidence showing LG and Lenovo used its backlight technology in hundreds of their products"; and the settlement story, "Lenovo, LG Settle Patent Suits Over Display Backlight Tech" (2017-04-10), reporting that the parties told the Delaware judge "they'd agreed to drop claims in one case and set the stage for dismissal papers in the other" (Law360). Notably, no outlet reported a damages figure, a verdict, or any settlement term for this case — consistent with the record, which shows no trial and no public license terms. The absence of national coverage is unsurprising given the case was one of seven near-identical complaints filed the same day and ended in a confidential settlement; it never produced a verdict or a novel Federal Circuit ruling.

The most substantive "coverage" is law-firm client-alert writing on the PTAB and Markman rulings. The National Law Review published a Drinker Biddle analysis of the '973 institution decision under the heading "LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Delaware Display Group LLC: Granting Institution of One Asserted Ground of Unpatentability IPR2015-00506," which goes well beyond the docket by drawing a practice "takeaway" — that a § 102(b) published-application ground may be denied where the petitioner submits the issued patent rather than the publication (37 C.F.R. § 104(b)(5)) — and by explaining the Board's two other rulings: that LG Electronics' 37.9% stake plus shared counsel was insufficient to establish real-party-in-interest control, and that the '973's entitlement to the 1995 grandparent date was treated as a written-description question the Board would not decide in an IPR. On the district-court side, Morris James's JD Supra alert summarized the 2015-11-06 Markman opinion (eight terms from four patents, hearing held 2015-10-27, with "relatively low angles" among the terms), and a second JD Supra item summarized the 2016-11-28 summary-judgment ruling term by term — denying Lenovo/LG's non-infringement motion on the "projections or depressions on or in the sides" and "end walls and side walls" limitations, denying invalidity for factual disputes, denying plaintiffs' infringement motion, and granting plaintiffs on ownership while denying unclean hands. These are practitioner summaries rather than independent reporting, and neither discusses the '973 specifically.

Where accounts diverge from the court record, or editorialize. The most aggressive coverage is Techdirt's post "Know Your Troll: Innovative Display Technologies Targeting Any Company That Creates A Product With An LCD Screen," which frames the campaign as Acacia "weaponized patents" acquired from Rambus and complains that the NPEs "don't really need a big office. All you need is a business registration that will give you access to a favorable court system." Two points in it should be flagged rather than repeated: it describes IDT as being of Austin, Texas (1701 Directors Blvd.), whereas the First Amended Complaint pleads a Plano address — and its headline money figure, that IDT sought "nearly $6 billion in 'accrued royalties'" from Apple, is about a different defendant in the campaign and cannot be attributed to the Lenovo case. Techdirt also asserts IDT had "34 cases in litigation" and one license (Garmin), and quotes Acacia's Marvin Key denying that the model rests on "frivolous" suits — executive commentary, not record material. Separately, a 2014-01-08 Chinese-language article from Taiwan's STPI iKnow covered the seven-suit filing spree and named Lenovo among the defendants; it characterizes the plaintiffs as PAEs, counts a 284-document INPADOC family with at least 65 issued U.S. patents behind the eight asserted patents, and disputes the pleadings' chain of title — reporting that USPTO assignment records showed the '196 transfer to IDT effective 2013-06-26 rather than the December 2013 DDG assignment alleged in the complaint. That assignment-date tension echoes, but is not the same as, the standing/chain-of-title issue Judge Andrews addressed in the 2016-11-28 opinion (where the LG defendants conceded the patents had been transferred and disputed only pre-2012 past-infringement rights).

Sourcing caveats. The Law360 items are paywalled; I could see only the case-page teasers reproduced above, not full article text, so I cannot characterize their reasoning, sourcing, or any quoted party statements beyond those ledes. I also found no press reporting at all on the 2016-02-23 Rambus discovery/work-product ruling (D.I. 222) or the 2017-01-18 Daubert ruling (D.I. 365) — both of which are covered in the earlier sections of this case file only through law-firm summaries (Richards Layton & Finger) and the opinions themselves, not through news reporting. Finally, the RPX Insight docket for the refiled companion action, Delaware Display Group v. Lenovo, 1:15-cv-01220, records that case as closed 2017-05-10 with a final docket entry on 2017-05-11 — a useful independent corroboration of the settlement timeline reported by Law360, though RPX is a litigation-analytics database rather than a news outlet.

Sources

• 1. Delaware Display Group LLC ("DDG") is a Delaware limited liability company with its principal place of business located at 24...
• Delaware Display Group LLC and Innovative Display Technologies LLC (collectively, "Plaintiffs") by and through their undersigned...
• IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE
• Delaware Display Group LLC, et al. v. Lenovo Group Ltd., et al., C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA (D. Del. Feb. 23, 2016) - docshare.tips - Delaware Display Group LLC, et al. v. Lenovo Group Ltd., et al., C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA (D. Del. Feb. 23, 2016)
• Del. Display Grp. LLC v. Lenovo Grp. Ltd., Civil Action No. 13-2108-RGA | D. Del., Judgment, Law, casemine.com - Translate
• Cases filed in the Sixth Circuit Courts
• Cases
• Delaware Display Group LLC et al v. Lenovo Holding Co., Inc. et al
• Delaware Display Group LLC et al v. Lenovo Holding Company Inc. et al
• Delaware Display Group LLC et al v
• IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
• futility of amendment, etc

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

Justia's docket gives me the plaintiff-side roster. Let me verify and build out each attorney's background.

Now let me verify the Farnan-side attorneys and Patrick Conroy's background.

Plaintiff-Side Counsel of Record — C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA

Building on the overview's two-firm identification (Farnan LLP / Bragalone Conroy P.C.), the docket-derived plaintiff roster is broader than two names. Justia's party-entry for this docket lists seven attorneys for Delaware Display Group LLC and two for Innovative Display Technologies LLC, and the court's own opinions confirm the two-firm structure (local Delaware counsel + Dallas trial counsel). The roster below is reconstructed from (a) the Justia docket party/counsel entries for 1:13-cv-02108, (b) the signature block of the 11/6/2015 claim-construction opinion (D.I. 112, Justia PDF), (c) the signature block of the 1/16/2017 opinion reproduced at ded.uscourts.gov (13-2108_2.pdf), and (d) PTAB filings where the same lawyers appeared for IDT/DDG's co-plaintiff in the parallel IPRs. I did not pull a raw PACER docket sheet, so pro hac vice admissions, substitutions, and any withdrawals after the April 2017 settlement are not reflected — that limitation is flagged at the end.

Delaware local counsel — Farnan LLP (Wilmington, DE)

• Brian E. Farnan is the founding/managing partner of Farnan LLP and one of the most frequently appearing Delaware local counsel in D. Del. patent dockets; his firm was plaintiffs' Delaware counsel of record here and signed the claim-construction and summary-judgment papers. He is the son of Joseph J. Farnan, Jr.
• Joseph J. Farnan, Jr. is a former U.S. District Judge for the District of Delaware (and before that a Delaware state judge), who after leaving the bench joined the firm bearing his name. His appearance on the plaintiff side of a patent docket in the district where he formerly sat is the most notable biographical point on this roster. (I'm stating his judicial history from general knowledge of the Delaware bench; I did not retrieve a court or firm page confirming the specific dates of his service in this research, so treat the tenure details as unverified.)
• Michael J. Farnan is a Farnan LLP partner who appears as plaintiffs' Delaware counsel in the consolidated companion actions (13-2109 LG, 13-2112 VIZIO). Justia's 13-2108 entry does not list him, so I cannot confirm he entered an appearance in this docket number as opposed to the related ones.

Lead trial counsel — Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Chase Tower, 2200 Ross Ave., Suite 4500 West, Dallas, TX 75201)

Experience notes. Bragalone and Kimble are the two anchor figures. Bragalone's December 2016 pro hac vice motion (IPR2015-01868) recites 26+ years' experience, three Federal Circuit arguments — Greenliant Sys. v. Xicor LLC, 692 F.3d 1261 (Fed. Cir. 2012); United Access Techs. v. EarthLink, 432 F. App'x 976 (Fed. Cir. 2011); Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Texas Sys. v. BenQ Am. Corp., 533 F.3d 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2008) — and roughly 25 pro hac vice applications before the PTAB, 21 granted, 14 involving the same or related patents. Kimble's later firm bio credits him with 100+ IPR proceedings as lead counsel for petitioners and patent owners, with an express emphasis on LCD technology among his subject-matter areas — a direct match to the backlight/LCD theory here. Conroy's bio traces him from a federal judicial clerkship (N.D. Tex. bankruptcy) to McKool Smith in Dallas (antitrust, complex commercial, energy, patent), then to Bragalone Conroy and, on his 2021 move, to Nelson Bumgardner Conroy P.C.; he also handled ITC investigations and is a Federal Circuit Bar Association member. Olejko's practice has centered on PTAB/Federal Circuit appeals of IPR final written decisions.

Firm-evolution note (for cross-referencing later sections)

The Dallas firm is a moving target across the case's life and afterward, which matters if you cite firm names in a counsel table:

• Bragalone Conroy PC (Chase Tower, 2200 Ross Ave., Suite 4500W, Dallas) is the name used in this case's filings and in the IDT PTAB papers.
• A later iteration appears as Bragalone Olejko Saad PC (901 Main St., Suite 3800, Dallas) in Super Lawyers listings.
• Both Patrick J. Conroy and Justin B. Kimble are now identified as partners at Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC (2727 N. Harwood St., Suite 250, Dallas), Conroy's move being tracked as a 2021 lateral by Patexia. Kimble's current firm bio states he was "previously a founding partner of Bragalone Conroy, PC" and earlier a partner at Shore Chan Bragalone DePumpo LLP — a firm that also appears in Acacia-linked patent campaigns.

Caveats and open items

1. Source basis. The name roster comes from Justia's docket-derived counsel lists and the reproduction of court-opinion signature blocks; I did not review a primary PACER docket sheet for this C.A. number. Individual appearances (D.I. numbers) and pro hac vice orders are therefore not itemized, and I cannot rule out substituted or withdrawn counsel.
2. Party attribution may be mechanical. Justia assigns all seven Dallas/Farnan names to DDG but only the two Farnans to IDT. Yet the court's opinions and the PTAB papers show Farnan and Bragalone Conroy appearing for plaintiffs collectively (both entities), and the FAC pleads the two NPEs jointly. Treat the DDG-vs-IDT split in the Justia list as probable artifact, not a reliable statement that Bragalone Conroy represented only DDG.
3. No in-house counsel identified. I found no in-house/Acacia-employed attorney entering an appearance in this docket. Acacia Research Group LLC and Acacia Research Corporation appear only as real parties-in-interest in the related IPRs, not as counsel of record in 13-2108.
4. Post-settlement status. Because the merits resolved by the April 2017 settlements (per Law360), any motions to withdraw as counsel would post-date the substantive record. I could not confirm withdrawal entries, so this roster should be read as "counsel of record during the litigation" rather than a current-of-record snapshot.
5. Correction to the earlier section. The prior summary's two-firm description is accurate but incomplete: it omits Michael J. Farnan (at least in the companion actions), T. William Kennedy, Jr., Justin B. Kimble, Daniel F. Olejko, and James Perkins, all of whom appear as plaintiffs' counsel in the record or in the directly parallel PTAB proceedings.

I'll research defense counsel of record across docket sources, firm announcements, and opinions.

Good leads. Let me verify the firm transition (Akin Gump → Vinson & Elkins), the Lenovo Group Ltd. entity status, and locate substitution/appearance entries.

Defendant-side counsel of record — DDG/IDT v. Lenovo, C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA

Short answer: the Lenovo defendants were represented by Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP (Wilmington, DE) as local counsel throughout, paired with a Dallas/Austin patent trial team that began at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and moved to Vinson & Elkins LLP during 2016 — Eric J. Klein, Todd E. Landis, and Fred (Frederick) I. Williams. I found no separate counsel block for Lenovo Group Ltd. and no in-house counsel of record.

1. National / lead trial counsel — Vinson & Elkins LLP (from ~mid-2016)

2. National / lead trial counsel — Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP (2014 – mid-2016)

The same three lawyers appeared for Lenovo earlier in the case at Akin Gump — Dallas office at 1700 Pacific Ave., Suite 4100; Austin office at 600 Congress Ave., Suite 1350:

• Eric J. Klein — lead; listed first in the Akin Gump Lenovo block in Judge Andrews' Feb. 23, 2016 discovery opinion (D.I. 222, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21461) and in the D.I. 112 claim-construction opinion (Nov. 6, 2015). His May 23, 2016 IPR2016-01089 power of attorney is still on Akin Gump letterhead, while his June 29, 2016 IPR2016-01334 power of attorney is on V&E letterhead — i.e., the firm transition falls in mid-2016.
• Todd E. Landis — co-counsel, backup on the Lenovo IPRs.
• Fred I. Williams — Austin.

The team's Lenovo relationship predates this case: the same Akin Gump trio (Klein, Landis, Williams) defended Lenovo (U.S.) Inc. in Tranxition, Inc. v. Lenovo (United States) Inc., No. 3:12-cv-01065-HZ (D. Or.).

3. Local counsel — Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP (Wilmington, DE)

Hercules Plaza, 6th Floor, 1313 N. Market Street, Wilmington, DE 19801. All four appear in the Lenovo (not LG/Vizio) counsel block on the April 21, 2016 defendants' joint stay reply and in the court's 2015–2017 opinions:

4. In-house counsel

None identified. No Lenovo in-house/legal-department attorney appears in any of the opinions or briefs I reviewed; the defense appears to have been run entirely through Potter Anderson and the Akin Gump/V&E team.

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Sourcing, gaps, and flags to carry forward

1. Firm transition is real but the substitution filing is unverified. I confirmed the Akin Gump → Vinson & Elkins switch from the letterhead addresses in Lenovo's PTAB powers of attorney (Akin Gump, May 23, 2016 → V&E, June 29, 2016) and from the changing firm name in the court's opinion captions (Akin Gump in the Feb. 23, 2016 opinion; V&E in the Nov. 19, 2016 and Jan. 2017 opinions). I did not locate the D.I. number of a formal motion to withdraw/substitute counsel in 13-2108; treat the exact substitution date as approximate.
2. Possible caption conflation in D.I. 112. The Justia rendering of the Nov. 6, 2015 opinion attributes a Lenovo appearance to "Eric J. Williams, Esq., Akin, Gump" — which appears to be a conflation of Eric J. Klein and Fred I. Williams (the same two names appear separately in the D.I. 222 caption). Flagging per your instructions rather than repeating it as a distinct attorney.
3. Entity discrepancy (contradiction with case metadata). The case metadata lists three Lenovo defendants. Some 2016 filings caption the Lenovo block as only "Lenovo Holding Co. Inc. and Lenovo (United States) Inc." (April 21, 2016 joint stay reply; Feb. 23, 2016 opinion). The Jan. 2017 opinions list all three entities under the same counsel block (Potter Anderson + V&E). I could not confirm whether Lenovo Group Ltd. was voluntarily dismissed, never served, or merely dropped from some captions — worth a docket check.
4. No Lenovo-side IPR counsel overlap with the district court team on the '973. Consistent with your earlier finding, the '973 IPRs (IPR2015-00506 / -01666) were LG-entity petitions; the Lenovo team's PTAB work appears in later Lenovo-filed IPRs (e.g., IPR2016-01089, IPR2016-01334, IPR2017-01381) — the same Klein/Landis pairing, which is useful corroboration of their role here.
5. Not verified: formal "lead counsel" designations under D. Del. practice (no D.I. entry for a lead-counsel designation reviewed), any pro hac vice motion text, and the identity of Lenovo's initial 2014 answer counsel (earliest Lenovo appearance I could document is the Nov. 6, 2015 D.I. 112 caption).