DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting the overview.

Good leads. Let me dig into the specific patents asserted, the corporate background, and the dismissal.

Now let me pin down the dismissal, the '588 IPR outcome, and the Hulu II relationship.

DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC — Case Overview and Background

The parties. DivX, LLC is a Delaware LLC that, at the time of filing, listed its principal place of business at 4350 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego (First Amended Complaint, Dkt. 59, ¶ 14). DivX traces its lineage to the 2000 startup founded by Jérôme Rota and Jordan Greenhall that produced the DivX Codec (an MPEG‑4 implementation) and the DivX Software playback/DRM stack — technology the company credits with helping make internet video distribution viable for Hollywood studios. Legally, however, the asserting entity is a post‑acquisition shell: NeuLion, Inc. sold "certain DivX assets, intellectual property and subsidiaries" to an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC for $41.5 million, a deal signed December 18, 2017 and closed February 12, 2018 (GlobeNewswire, NeuLion 8‑K). Hulu attacked that posture in the stay briefing, calling DivX "a patent holding entity backed by a hedge fund owned by an international conglomerate" and "a hedge‑fund‑backed recent acquirer of the asserted patents that does not compete with Hulu and seeks only monetary damages" (Hulu opposition, Dkt. 145). DivX, in turn, pleaded 20 years of genuine R&D and licensing history as the reason its patents are patent‑eligible, not abstract (FAC ¶¶ 13–20). Independent third parties treat the current entity as an NPE: Unified Patents describes "DivX LLC, an NPE and entity of Fortress Investment Group LLC" (Unified Patents). Defendant Hulu, LLC is a Delaware LLC then headquartered at 2500 Broadway, Santa Monica — a pure streaming service (SVOD), not a codec or CE manufacturer, and thus not a competitor of DivX in DivX's core licensing market (FAC ¶¶ 15–16). For a definitive statement of DivX's own characterization of its business, paragraph 14 of the FAC and the company's public licensing materials are the best sources; the operative ownership chain today (Fortress → DivX LLC / cf. "DivX CF Investors LLC" as an identified real party in interest before the PTAB) is documented in the IPR papers rather than in the district court docket.

The accused technology. DivX did not accuse a discrete product; it accused Hulu's streaming service and the Hulu application, on a theory that Hulu induces its users to practice the claimed methods when they stream video to TVs, computers, phones and tablets, and that Hulu itself directly infringes on the server/encoder side — e.g., by encoding titles into MP4 files containing metadata ("mdat") boxes and frame indexes (FAC ¶¶ 12, 275–292). The accused standards and features were identified as MPEG‑DASH and H.264 (AVC), and the accused functionality as adaptive bitrate streaming and trick play, i.e., the core plumbing of essentially every modern streaming service (Hulu motion to consolidate, 2:21‑cv‑01615 Dkt. 66‑1). Seven patents were asserted in this case ("Hulu I"): 7,295,673 (Grab et al.) — selective frame‑level encryption of a compressed video stream with synchronized frame‑decryption information; 8,139,651 — a multidimensional adaptive deblocking filter that picks filter strength based on the "level of detail" around block boundaries; 8,472,792 — a multimedia distribution system whose encoder writes a file with a full index giving the location and characteristics of each encoded frame; 9,270,720 — a playback server that generates a "top level index file" describing alternative assets for adaptive streaming; 9,998,515 — a playback server that receives a request containing a device/product identifier and retrieves and filters a list of assets to generate a top‑level index; 10,212,486 — video data with partially encrypted frames having both encrypted and unencrypted portions; and 10,225,588 (Kiefer et al.) — obtaining a top‑level index file identifying alternative streams of protected video, where the alternative streams are encrypted using common cryptographic information (Hulu stay motion, Dkt. 113). Confirming the open question in the prior summary: yes — the '588 patent was one of the seven asserted in Hulu I, cited at FAC Exhibit 7, claim 1 (Hulu consolidation brief).

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Filed March 5, 2019 in the Central District of California, Western Division (Los Angeles), before Judge Philip S. Gutierrez (Magistrate Judge Douglas F. McCormick; case number 2:19‑cv‑01606 PSG‑DFMx) (Docket Alarm). Venue was uncontested and easy: Hulu's headquarters and a regular place of business sat in‑district (FAC ¶ 19), and DivX filed a near‑identical companion case against Netflix (2:19‑cv‑01602) before the same judge, allowing one scheduling order, one claim construction process, and one stay decision to govern both (Dkt. 87; Civil Minutes, May 11, 2020). Hulu's first Alice/§101 motion was granted in part with leave to amend (Dkt. 58, Aug. 8, 2019); after the FAC, the second motion was denied – a notable outcome, since it kept foundational adaptive‑streaming and encryption patents alive past eligibility screening (see Law360 coverage). The merits were never reached: on May 11, 2020 the Court granted defendants' motions to stay pending IPR (Dkt. 106/113), and DivX's later motion to lift the stay was denied March 29, 2022 (Civil Minutes, Dkt. 130). Hulu filed IPRs on six of the seven patents (all but the '486) — including IPR2020‑00558 on the '588 patent with Netflix as co‑petitioner — while a second DivX suit against Hulu (2:21‑cv‑01615, asserting five more patents) was consolidated and stayed in October 2021. The stay effectively decided the case: this action was dismissed via Dkt. 157 on August 25, 2022, the date cited by the PTAB when it later terminated Hulu from IPR2020‑00646 after settlement (PTAB termination order, Feb. 22, 2024) — although the docket sheet separately shows the case as administratively closed/stayed as of May 11, 2020, which explains the "terminated" date discrepancy between sources. The case matters for three reasons: (1) it is a paradigm of the "file IPRs, win a stay" defense against a video‑codec NPE, producing a stay entered before Markman and a case that ended without any merits ruling; (2) it is a major IPR‑linkage data point — the PTAB upheld the '588 claims, but the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded on March 1, 2023 in Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, holding the Board committed "a fundamental legal error" on reasonable expectation of success, sending IPR2020‑00558 back for a new decision (Westlaw/Westlaw IPDBRF); and (3) it was the opening shot in a broader Fortress‑backed assertion campaign over MPEG‑DASH/H.264/HEVC technology that spread to Amazon, Samsung, TCL, Realtek and others, spawned ITC Investigation No. 337‑TA‑1343 (instituted Nov. 22, 2022, asserting inter alia the '673 and '588 patents against smart TVs and streaming devices), and drew a sustained ex parte reexamination campaign by Unified Patents (ITC notice; Unified Patents).

Sourcing caveats. The identity of the seven Hulu I patents, the accused products/standards, the venue facts, the dismissal date, and the corporate acquisition history are well documented above. I could not verify in this session: (a) the precise terms of the Dkt. 157 dismissal (e.g., with or without prejudice, and whether it was a joint stipulation tied to settlement) — the PTAB order confirms the fact and date of dismissal but not the terms; (b) the district‑court counsel of record for each side (Hulu's IPR counsel at Sheppard Mullin (Harper Batts) and Netflix's at WilmerHale, and DivX's at Lowenstein & Weatherwax, are documented in the IPR papers, but that does not establish district‑court appearances); and (c) the final disposition of the '588 IPR on remand after the Federal Circuit's March 2023 remand, which was still pending when the last filing I could review was made (a remand FWD was targeted for October 2023). Anyone relying on the post‑remand validity of the '588 patent should check the Board's docket in IPR2020‑00558 and any subsequent Federal Circuit appeal directly.

I'll research this case thoroughly using multiple searches.

Let me dig deeper into the docket, dismissal, and related proceedings.

Let me get more specifics on the motions to dismiss, the '588 IPR outcome on remand, and the complaint's patents.

DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2:19-cv-01606-PSG-DFM (C.D. Cal.)

Bottom line: This was one of three parallel DivX campaigns (against Netflix; against Hulu in two waves) over DivX's adaptive-bitrate-streaming and DRM patent portfolio. Hulu I was stayed pending IPR in May 2020 before any Markman hearing or trial, never reached summary judgment, and was dismissed with prejudice on 2022-08-25 under a confidential license agreement with Hulu (parent: [The Walt Disney Company](/litigations/by-plaintiff/The%20Walt%20Disney%20Company)). The '588 patent — the patent flagged in the case metadata — was one of the seven Hulu I patents and was the subject of a separate Netflix/Hulu IPR that DivX won at the Board in 2021 but lost on appeal in 2023.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

• 2019-03-05 — Complaint filed. DivX sued Hulu in the Central District (Los Angeles/Western Division), assigned to Judge Philip S. Gutierrez; magistrate initially JPR/Alexander MacKinnon, reassigned 2020-02-28 to Magistrate Judge Douglas F. McCormick (case number becomes 2:19-cv-01606 PSG (DFMx)). DivX alleged infringement of seven patents ("Hulu I"): U.S. Patent Nos. 7,295,673, 8,139,651, 8,472,792, 9,270,720, 9,998,515, 10,212,486, and 10,225,588. DivX sought money damages only — no injunction. (DocketAlarm docket; Hulu brief, Hulu I Dkt. 145 at 7–8.)
  • Note a minor date discrepancy in the record: PACER/DocketAlarm show filing 2019-03-05; Hulu's briefs say DivX "sued Hulu on March 4, 2019"; Netflix's briefs say service was 2019-03-12. I treat the filing date as authoritative per the case metadata (2019-03-05).
• Accused conduct: the Hulu application — adaptive bitrate streaming (MPEG-DASH) and "trick play" functionality, plus the H.264 codec. The '588 patent was asserted against Hulu's alleged MPEG-DASH ABS use (FAC ¶¶ 374–97, Ex. 7).
• 2019-05-30 — Hulu's first motion to dismiss (Dkt. 47); heard 2019-07-29 (Dkt. 57).
• 2019-08-08 — MTD order (Dkt. 58): the Court granted-in-part as to the patents challenged under 35 U.S.C. § 101, finding DivX's factual allegations insufficient, and denied-in-part as to the induced-infringement allegations. DivX was given leave to amend; failure to amend would mean dismissal with prejudice.
• 2019-08-21 — First Amended Complaint (Dkt. 59) asserting the seven patents, with the '588 patent as Ex. 7.
• 2019-09-04 — Hulu's second MTD directed at the FAC (Dkt. 60).
• Second MTD denied (Dkt. 73) (order date not separately confirmed; it preceded the answer and followed the FAC).
• 2019-11-22 — Hulu's Answer and Counterclaims (Dkt. 75): declaratory-judgment counterclaims of non-infringement and invalidity. 2019-11-26 — DivX's Answer to counterclaims.

2. Case schedule and discovery milestones with strategic significance

• 2020-01-27 Rule 16 scheduling conference; 2020-02-20 — Case Management Order (Dkt. 87): fact discovery cutoff 2020-09-24; dispositive and Daubert motions by 2021-02-01; Markman hearing set 2020-08-31; final pretrial conference 2021-04-12; trial set 2021-04-27. (Dkt. 87)
• Contentions: DivX's infringement contentions 2020-02-06 (900+ pages, per DivX's stay opposition); Hulu's invalidity contentions 2020-03-26.
• 2020-04-16 — Claim narrowing: DivX reduced to no more than 5 claims per patent / 30 claims total. (In the parallel Netflix case the final narrowed set was 19 asserted claims across five patents for the completed-IPR group.)
• Discovery status at the stay: both sides had served written discovery (RFP + interrogatories served 2019-12-20; responses 2020-01-21), limited document production had occurred, and no depositions had been taken. DivX later represented it narrowed its claims and produced 72,783 pages. DivX argued (in opposing the stay) that licensees were "dropping out of license," making enforceability timing strategically critical — an argument the Court ultimately rejected for stay purposes.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

• No claim construction ruling ever issued in Hulu I. The case was stayed 2020-05-11, before claim-construction briefing began and roughly three-and-a-half months before the 2020-08-31 Markman hearing. Claim-construction exchanges had only just begun. (DivX's later stay-lift briefing emphasized that staying before Markman avoided preclusive/simplifying constructions; Hulu I Dkt. 145 at 8, 18–19.) Any construction disputes were effectively litigated in the PTAB and the ITC instead.

4. Pre-trial motions of substance

• 2020-03-13 — Hulu's Motion to Stay Pending IPR (Dkt. 100/113). Hulu argued six of the seven asserted patents were in IPR, the case was in its earliest stages, and simplification favored a stay; DivX opposed on prejudice/licensing grounds.
• 2020-05-11 — Stay GRANTED. Judge Gutierrez stayed Hulu I (and the parallel Netflix case) pending the IPRs. The Court found the stage-of-proceedings, simplification, and no-undue-prejudice factors, and the totality of the circumstances, favored a stay, and noted the COVID-19 pandemic as a relevant consideration. Because the stay was entered, there was no summary judgment practice, no Daubert motions, no pretrial motions, and no trial. (Case flags on the docket show STAYED/CLOSED.)
• 2022-01-08 — DivX's Motion to Lift Stay and Reopen (Dkt. 144), heard/under submission 2022-02-17 (Dkt. 147); Hulu opposition 2022-02-05 (Dkt. 145); DivX reply 2022-02-11 (Dkt. 146).
• 2022-03-29 — Motion to lift stay DENIED (minute order, Dkt. 154; consolidated opinion at 2:19-cv-01602 Dkt. 130). The Court denied DivX's motions in all three cases, reasoning (1) stage of proceedings neutral (avoiding a circular rationale), (2) simplification favored continuing the stay given the pending Federal Circuit appeals of the PTAB FWDs covering six of seven Hulu I patents, and (3) no undue prejudice — the parties are not direct competitors and damages can compensate; DivX failed to show the stays, rather than other causes, affected its licensing. The parties were ordered to file joint status reports within 10 days of each appeal's resolution. (Dkt. 130)

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

• None. No trial, verdict, JMOL, new-trial, or fee motion occurred in Hulu I. The case was disposed of by stipulation while stayed.

6. Parallel PTAB proceedings — especially the '588 patent

The seven asserted patents spawned a coordinated Netflix/Hulu IPR barrage (petitions filed Oct. 2019–Mar. 2020, within the § 315(b) one-year window, on a rolling basis). The '588 patent was central:

• IPR2020-00558, Netflix, Inc. & Hulu, LLC v. DivX, LLC (U.S. Patent 10,225,588):
  • 2020-02-18 — Petition challenging claims 1–24 under § 103(a) over Chen (US 2011/0096828), Lindahl (US 2007/0083467), and Hurst (US 8,683,066), with a McDaniel declaration.
  • 2020-08-26 — Institution granted.
  • 2021-08-23 — Final Written Decision: the Board found no challenged claims unpatentable — a complete win for DivX. (FWD; Lowenstein & Weatherwax announcement)
  • 2023-03-01 — Federal Circuit reverses and remands. In Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, No. 2022-1083 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 1, 2023) (Taranto, J.), the court held the Board "committed a fundamental legal error" in defining the obviousness combination — evaluating "Lindahl with Chen's 'system'" (Chen's inventive system) rather than Chen's disclosures about pre-existing art — and that the error was prejudicial, not harmless. Vacated and remanded. (CAFC opinion; Westlaw summary)
  • On remand (2023–2024): briefing ordered 2023-04-27, initial briefs due 2023-05-12, responsive 2023-05-26; Netflix remained a petitioner while Hulu was terminated as of 2024-02-22 after the settlement (see below).
• Other IPRs on Hulu I patents (relevant because they drove the stay and the appeals that kept it in place):
  • IPR2020-00646 ('792 patent) — FWD 2021-09-09; later remanded; terminated as to Hulu 2024-02-22.
  • IPR2020-00614 ('673 patent) — FWD 2021-12-15 / public 2022-01-26, challenged claims held unpatentable; affirmed on appeal 2023-04-18; DivX appealed/contested adverse findings.
  • IPR2020-00647 / -00648 ('720 and '515 patents) — FWDs 2021-09-27; affirmed in relevant part, Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, 84 F.4th 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2023).
  • IPR2020-00052 ('651 patent) — FWD 2021-04-22; Fed. Cir. 2022-06-27 vacated-in-part/remanded as to "level of detail" construction; remand FWD 2023-02-03 upheld claim 2, held claims 1 and 19 unpatentable; terminated as to Hulu 2023-01-27.
  • '486 patent — no IPR was ever filed; instead litigated in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1222 (initial determination expected 2022-03-29).
  • DivX also prevailed in a third-party IPR: Unified Patents, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, IPR2019-01379 (FWD 2021-02-08), not appealed.
• Effect on the litigation: the IPRs (1) produced the 2020-05-11 stay, eliminating any 2020–2021 Markman/trial; (2) produced mostly DivX wins at the Board but triggered Federal Circuit appeals that (i) kept the stay in place through the March 2022 stay-lift denial and (ii) later vacated the '588 and '651 FWDs; and (3) generated IPR claim-construction positions that Hulu argued would be intrinsic evidence in district court (Aylus Networks point), even for non-IPR claims.

7. Final disposition / present posture

• 2022-08-24 — Joint stipulation of dismissal (Dkt. 156). The parties stated they "resolved Plaintiff's claims for relief against Defendant and Defendant's counterclaims … pursuant to the terms of a confidential license agreement." DivX's counsel: Tensegrity Law Group (Matthew D. Powers, Paul Ehrlich). Hulu's counsel: WilmerHale (James M. Dowd, Jason F. Choy, Mindy V. Sooter); Hulu had earlier substituted in from Perkins Coie (David Perlson et al.) in March 2020. (Dkt. 156)
• 2022-08-25 — Order granting dismissal with prejudice (Dkt. 157). Judge Gutierrez dismissed both Hulu I (2:19-cv-01606) and Hulu II (2:21-cv-1615) with prejudice in their entirety, each party bearing its own attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses. This is the authoritative termination date for the case. (Dkt. 157)
• Settlement counterpart in the PTAB: Hulu's and DivX's settlement (with The Walt Disney Company, Hulu's parent, as signatory) led the Federal Circuit to grant Hulu's withdrawal from the appeals (Fed. Cir. Dkt. 23, 2022-08-04), and the Board to terminate Hulu as petitioner in the affected IPRs — e.g., IPR2020-00052 2023-01-27, IPR2020-00646 2024-02-22, and in IPR2020-00558 (Hulu's termination motion filed 2023-05-11). Netflix remained a party to those IPRs, and the '588 remand remained live (Netflix only) even after Hulu I was dismissed.
• No appeal of the Hulu I dismissal was taken (the dismissal was by stipulation, with prejudice). The present posture is closed.
• Caution on the docket "terminated" field: DocketAlarm displays "Terminated May 11, 2020" with a STAYED flag — that is an artifact keyed to the stay order, not the disposition. The operative dismissal/termination is 2022-08-25 (Dkt. 157), consistent with the case metadata.

Caveats / unverified points

• The exact date and full reasoning of the second MTD order (Dkt. 73) and the patent-by-patent breakdown of the § 101 dismissals in the 2019-08-08 order are not confirmed from the sources retrieved; I've reported only what the docket text states.
• Whether the '588 patent was in the original March 2019 complaint or added by the August 2019 FAC is not definitively confirmed; the record confirms it was asserted in Hulu I through the FAC (Ex. 7, asserted against MPEG-DASH ABS).
• The '588 remand Final Written Decision (Netflix-only, after Hulu's termination) was not located in the retrieved materials; the last confirmed status is briefing complete with a Board goal of 2023-10-10, and Hulu terminated 2024-02-22. Its ultimate outcome should be verified in IPR2020-00558 on the PTAB docket before being relied upon.

Press coverage of DivX v. Hulu

What I could actually find. Dedicated press coverage of DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC (C.D. Cal. 2:19-cv-1606) is thin and largely limited to docket-driven legal-trade reporting. The most substantial run of coverage I located is on Law360, whose case page for the companion suit DivX, LLC v. Netflix, Inc. aggregates four 2019 articles that expressly discuss Hulu alongside Netflix. Per that page, Law360 reported on 2019-03-06 ("Netflix, Hulu Infringe Video Streaming IP, Software Co. Claims") that DivX accused both streaming services of infringing patents covering video compression, framing the claim as the streaming giants having profited from DivX's inventions for sending video online; on 2019-06-03 ("Netflix Wants Video Streaming IP Suit Axed Over Patentability") that Netflix moved to dismiss on § 101 grounds; on 2019-06-25 ("DivX Claims Credit For Streaming Boom In Netflix IP Fight") that DivX countered that its compression breakthroughs helped create the online video market and were not abstract; and on 2019-11-05 ("Netflix, Hulu Can't Skip Past DivX IP Fight, Judge Rules") that the district judge refused to dismiss the claims, finding factual questions precluded the Alice/§ 101 arguments. I did not find the individual article URLs (they sit behind Law360's paywall); the dates, headlines, and substance above are drawn from Law360's own case page. I found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Ars Technica, The Verge, Patently-O, JD Supra, or EFF coverage of the Hulu action specifically, and no mainstream coverage at all.

What the reporting and party-adjacent publications say happened. Beyond Law360, the coverage that exists is advocacy/industry-blog material rather than journalism. Unified Patents, a defensive patent aggregator that has repeatedly challenged DivX's portfolio, wrote on 2025-06-24 that DivX is "an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group" and characterized the patents as part of a monetization campaign, noting that U.S. Patent 10,326,987 — "asserted against Hulu" and directed to adaptive bitrate streaming — was held unpatentable on claims 1 and 10, a ruling the Federal Circuit affirmed by Rule 36. Unified also ran a Sept. 2021 newsletter item (reproduced in a PTAB filing) stating it had filed an IPR against the '987 patent because it "is being asserted against Hulu." These pieces are explicitly interested-party commentary, not neutral reporting, and they frame the litigation as an NPE/Fortress campaign — a characterization that in the Hulu case actually originates in Hulu's own briefs (Hulu argued DivX is a "hedge-fund-backed recent acquirer" that does not compete with Hulu and seeks only money damages, per its opposition to DivX's motion to lift the stay).

Where accounts differ or go beyond the court record. The two most notable divergences: (1) No outlet I found reported any damages figure, settlement amount, or market impact for the Hulu case. Damages totals do surface elsewhere in the DivX campaign: WilmerHale stated in an April 2026 press release that it won a complete defense verdict for Netflix in the parallel DivX v. Netflix case despite DivX "requesting more than $400 million in damages," and that DivX had earlier sought "more than $500 million." That release concerns Netflix, not Hulu, and a law-firm press release is self-interested framing, so it should not be read onto the Hulu docket. (2) The termination date is easy to get wrong. Some third-party docket aggregators show this case "terminated" on 2020-05-11, but that was the administrative closure under the stay pending IPR, not the end of the case. The actual dismissal came via a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice filed 2022-08-24 and entered 2022-08-25 (Dkt. 156/157), which states the parties "have resolved" all claims "pursuant to the terms of a confidential license agreement." The PTAB's Feb. 2024 termination order confirms the Hulu-DivX settlement and cites the district court dismissal, and a related keep-separate request identifies the settlement agreement as being between The Walt Disney Company (Hulu's parent) and DivX — a detail that, so far as I found, no press outlet reported. No press entity published the settlement terms, and no outlet reported the case's significance in its own voice beyond the Law360 beat items.

Bottom line. There is no meaningful independent press record for this specific case. The verifiable coverage consists of four Law360 2019 beat articles (surfaced via its case page) plus Unified Patents' advocacy posts and a firm press release about the sister Netflix action; everything else I found is primary court/PTAB material. Notably, the reporting does resolve one open question from the prior summary: the '588 patent was among the patents asserted against Hulu — it appears in the operative first amended complaint (Dkt. 59, Ex. 7) and in the court's March 29, 2022 stay order listing the '588 patent as asserted in Hulu I and Netflix, with the PTAB's final written decision upholding all challenged claims and an appeal noted on 2021-10-22.

Sources

• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

• Hulu I	Hulu II
  “Hulu induces infringement by providing software (the Hulu application) t...

• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• On May 3, 2021, Hulu moved to dismiss DivX's claim for pre- suit damages
• News & Views — Unified Patents
• DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC
• DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC - This case was last updated from U
• 156, 157; CV 21-1615 PSG (DFMx) (Hulu II), Dkts
• SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE ORDER
• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
• Hulu fails to rebut DivX's showing of prejudice

I'll research the docket and firm sources for DivX's counsel in this case.

Let me pull the dismissal filing and search for the counsel substitutions and firm backgrounds.

Counsel of Record — Plaintiff DivX, LLC (DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2:19-cv-01606-PSG-(DFMx))

Bottom line. DivX was represented by two successive outside litigation teams, plus a separate local-counsel sidecar, over the life of this case:

1. Robins Kaplan LLP (Los Angeles + Minneapolis) from filing (Mar. 5, 2019) through the stay — this was the team that filed the complaint, the first amended complaint, and the opposition to Hulu's motion to stay, and the team that was the "counsel of record for Plaintiff DivX" on all service certificates through 2020.
2. Tensegrity Law Group LLP (Redwood Shores, CA) from roughly the reopen phase (2021–2022) — this firm signed the motion to lift the stay, the PTAB-status notices, and the joint stipulation of dismissal. This is DivX's national patent-trial shop in the broader Fortress-backed campaign (Netflix, ITC/Amazon).
3. David M. Stein as a separate local-counsel figure, first at Greenberg Gross LLP then at Brown Rudnick LLP, who appears as plaintiff's counsel on several filings alongside the Robins Kaplan and Tensegrity teams.

I found no in-house DivX attorney appearing of record in the district court docket. The closest in-house presence in the record is on the defense side (Erin G. Mehta, Hulu/Disney's "Senior Counsel, Litigation & Patents," who signed Hulu's PTAB powers of attorney).

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Phase 1 — Robins Kaplan LLP (2019–2020)

Lead / trial counsel

Additional plaintiff's counsel of record — Robins Kaplan (all admitted pro hac vice, Dkts. 27–34, Mar. 19, 2019; Minneapolis office unless noted)

• Aaron R. Fahrenkrog — the most active day-to-day filer: first amended complaint (Dkt. 59), opposition to Hulu's first motion to dismiss (Dkt. 50), the opposition to Hulu's motion to stay (Dkt. 115, with his declaration), protective-order and mediator stipulations. Effectively the working lead on the briefs.
• Bryan J. Mechell — appeared on service lists and brief signature blocks.
• Emily J. Tremblay — ditto.
• Mary Pheng — counsel of record until she was formally withdrawn on May 16, 2022 (Dkt. 153).
• Rajin S. Olson — on signature blocks and service lists.
• Shui Li — ditto.
• William E. Manske — ditto (also named in the PTAB service certificate at the Customer Number for DivX's litigation team).
• Christine Yun Sauer — Robins Kaplan attorney listed on the May 8, 2020 certificate of service in the coordinated Netflix case (C.D. Cal. 2:19-cv-01602, Dkt. 105), reflecting the shared team across the two DivX cases.

Caveat / docket anomaly to flag: the pro hac vice order at Dkt. 30 names the applicant as "Bryan J Alexander," while the corresponding application/pre-filing notice (Dkt. 10) names "Bryan J Mechell." The email on all filings is bmechell@robinskaplan.com. This looks like a clerk docketing error rather than a second attorney; I could not confirm a "Bryan J. Alexander" at Robins Kaplan in this matter.

Separate local-counsel (non-Robins) appearance

• David M. Stein (SBN 198256) — Greenberg Gross LLP, 650 Town Center Drive, Ste. 1700, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 (email dstein@ggtriallaw.com), later Brown Rudnick LLP, 2211 Michelson Drive, 7th Floor, Irvine, CA 92612 (email dstein@brownrudnick.com).
  • Stein had a confused docket history in Sept. 2019: he was added as an appearance for Hulu (Dkts. 62–64), the court issued a deficiency notice on Sept. 13, 2019 stating that "Attorney David Stein has been termed from Hulu and added to DivX LLC," and he thereafter appears as plaintiff's local counsel (Dkt. 124, Aug. 19, 2020, changing his firm name/address to Brown Rudnick). He appears in the DivX counsel block on the PTAB service certificates and on the final joint stipulation of dismissal (Dkt. 156). Treat him as DivX-side local counsel, but note the docket's own misfire on his party affiliation.

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Phase 2 — Tensegrity Law Group LLP (2021–2022, through dismissal)

By the reopen phase, the plaintiff's filings carry a Tensegrity Law Group signature block (Redwood Shores, CA), not Robins Kaplan. The joint stipulation of dismissal (Dkt. 156, filed Aug. 24, 2022; entered Aug. 25, 2022) and the motion to lift the stay (Dkt. 144-1) are captioned "Attorneys for Plaintiff DivX, LLC" with this team:

Party-attribution warning. A search snippet of the Dkt. 156 signature block merges the plaintiff and defense columns and shows "TENSEGRITY LAW GROUP, LLP JASON F. CHOY (SBN 277583)" adjacent to "Brown Rudnick LLP." Jason F. Choy is a WilmerHale attorney who represented Hulu in this case (Dkt. 93) — he is not DivX's counsel. I could not fetch the clean PDF to resolve the column layout, so I am not listing any additional name for plaintiff from that snippet.

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Related (non-district-court) DivX representation — for context, not "counsel of record" here

• Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP (Los Angeles) represented DivX as Patent Owner in the parallel IPRs. Per DivX's updated mandatory notices: Parham Hendifar (Reg. No. 71,470) lead; Kenneth J. Weatherwax (Reg. No. 54,528), Nathan Lowenstein, Bridget Smith, Flavio Rose, Edward Hsieh, Patrick Maloney, and Jason C. Linger as back-up counsel. These are PTAB appearances only — they do not appear as plaintiff's counsel of record on the C.D. Cal. docket.
• DivX's patent prosecution address of record was KPPB LLP (Anaheim, CA), per the PTAB service certificate — again, not litigation counsel.

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Sourcing and open items

• Grounded in docket entries (via the Justia/CourtListener docket sheet for 2:19-cv-01606 and the accompanying search results): Dkts. 1, 4, 12–19, 27–34 (Robins Kaplan pro hac vice admissions and local-counsel designation of Allender); Dkt. 59 (FAC signature block); Dkt. 115 (opposition to stay); Dkt. 124 (Stein change of firm to Brown Rudnick); Dkt. 153 (Pheng withdrawal, May 16, 2022); Dkt. 144-1, 149, 151, 156 (Tensegrity signature blocks and dismissal).
• Not verified: the exact date/manner in which Tensegrity formally substituted in for Robins Kaplan in Hulu I. I could not locate a substitution-of-counsel entry on the Hulu docket snippet I retrieved (the visible substitution dockets, Dkts. 95–97, are for Hulu's side, Quinn Emanuel → WilmerHale). The transition is inferable from the appearance of Tensegrity on DivX's 2022 filings, but I have not confirmed a G-123/G-01 substitution filing, so treat the exact hand-off date as unconfirmed.
• No sealed-counsel issue: no indication that plaintiff's counsel identities were sealed. The docket names them openly.
• Press: as noted in the earlier section, there is no meaningful independent press record for this case; nothing in Law360 or elsewhere adds counsel information beyond what the docket shows.

I'll research Hulu's counsel of record in this case. Let me start with docket-level searches.

Good leads on the lineup. Now let me pin down firms for each Hulu-side attorney.

Now let me pin down the remaining attorneys' firms and roles.

Counsel of Record for Hulu, LLC — DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2:19-cv-01606 PSG(DFMx) (C.D. Cal.)

Bottom line. Hulu was represented in this district court action almost entirely by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, with James M. Dowd (WilmerHale, Los Angeles) as lead trial counsel and Jason F. Choy (WilmerHale, Los Angeles) as local counsel of record. Hulu's original counsel of record at filing was a Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP team that was substituted out in March 2020 (Dkt. 95). Four WilmerHale lawyers appeared pro hac vice in spring 2020 (Sooter, Picans, Liss, Howell), and one Hulu in-house attorney (Erin G. Mehta) is tied to the matter and appears on the docket. Two 2020 notices of appearance (Thompson, Gooch) I could not match to a firm — flagged below rather than guessed at.

A caveat on sourcing: my verification comes from docket-derived databases (CourtListener, Docket Alarm/Unified Patents portal, UniCourt), the Dkt. 156 stipulation PDF, and firm bios — not from a live PACER pull in this session. Filings themselves are largely unsealed, so the counsel list below is reliable; the firm affiliations of two attorneys are not.

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1. Counsel of record at dismissal / primary defense team (WilmerHale)

The docket confirms WilmerHale's team remained in place through the end: Dowd filed the Dkt. 152 notice, and the joint stipulation of dismissal (Dkt. 156, filed Aug. 24, 2022; entered Aug. 25, 2022) was executed for Hulu by Dowd, Choy, and Sooter. Dkt. 156 PDF

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2. Hulu's original counsel (withdrawn March 2020) — Quinn Emanuel

Per the Unified Patents litigation portal's docket extract for this case, a "REQUEST TO WITHDRAW ATTORNEY David A. Perlson, Andrew M. Holmes, Brian P. Biddinger, Lance L. Yang, Valerie A. Lozano as counsel of record filed by Defendant Hulu, LLC" (Unified Patents portal), and Dkt. 95 is an order "grant[ing] Request to Substitute Attorney… the request of: Hulu, LLC, Defendant, to substitute James M. Dowd… as attorney of record instead of David A. Perlson, Andrew M. Holmes, Brian P. Biddinger, Lance L. Yang, and Valerie A. Lozano."

Flag / possible contradiction worth noting: these same Quinn Emanuel attorneys appear in the coordinated Netflix action (2:19-cv-01602) as Netflix's counsel (see the Netflix Dkt. 105 PDF at CourtListener). The substitution order and withdrawal request nonetheless confirm they were listed as Hulu's counsel of record here until March 2020, when WilmerHale took over. If precision matters (e.g., for a conflicts or fee analysis), the March 2020 substitution filings are the documents to read closely.

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3. Hulu in-house counsel

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4. Related-track counsel (not district-court counsel of record, but part of Hulu's defense)

Because Hulu's IPRs drove the stay that ended this case, the IPR teams are worth naming — but note these are PTAB appearances, not C.D. Cal. appearances:

• Harper Batts (Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, Palo Alto) — Hulu/Netflix's lead counsel at the PTAB oral argument in IPR2020-00647, with Chris Ponder (Sheppard Mullin). See the June 14, 2021 hearing transcript in IPR2020-00647 (Docket Alarm). This is a correction/refinement of the earlier section's suggestion of "Hulu's IPR counsel at Sheppard Mullin (Harper Batts)" — confirmed here as documented in a primary transcript.
• David L. Cavanaugh (WilmerHale, Washington DC) — lead counsel, and Mary V. Sooter — first back-up counsel, in Hulu's IPR2021-01418/01419 (the '443 patent).
• DivX's opposing IPR counsel was Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP (Kenneth J. Weatherwax, Parham Hendifar, Nathan Lowenstein, Patrick Maloney) — for context only, not Hulu's side (Patent Owner's Updated Mandatory Notices).

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5. What I could not verify (please don't cite these as settled)

1. Keith T. Howell's firm and the firms for Aaron Shawn Thompson and Joseph Taylor Gooch — the docket shows their appearances but I did not locate a firm affiliation from a reliable source. A PACER docket-sheet "attorney" tab pull (or the Dkt. 101 application and the Thompson/Gooch G-64 notices) would resolve all three.
2. Jason F. Choy's firm history — WilmerHale is supported by the Dkt. 156 signature block/email; a Tensegrity Law Group association appears in one extract and I could not reconcile it.
3. Whether any Hulu-side attorney was formally designated "lead trial counsel" in a written order — the C.D. Cal. docket does not typically enter such a designation; Dowd's functional lead role is inferred from the substitution order (Dkt. 95), his signature on the principal filings (Dkt. 152, 156), and WilmerHale's own case description.
4. Existence of sealed appearances — I found no indication that Hulu appeared through sealed or pseudonymous counsel; all appearances above are from public docket entries, so the absence is a negative finding rather than a confirmed one.

Fastest verification path: CourtListener docket 14613534 — check entries 94–101 (pro hac vice orders), 95 (substitution), 116–118 (notices of appearance), 125 (Choy contact change), and 156–157 (dismissal) — or the UniCourt attorney list for this case (UniCourt), which enumerates the full defendant-side roster including the attorneys not resolved above.