DynaMuse LLC v. Xandrie S.A.

I'll research this case thoroughly. Let me start with several parallel searches.

Let me dig into the patent and the broader litigation campaign.

Case Overview: DynaMuse LLC v. Xandrie S.A., No. 2:25-cv-01114 (E.D. Tex.)

Parties. DynaMuse LLC is the plaintiff — a non-practicing entity (PAE) classified in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database under the "Acquired patents" asserter category, meaning it holds title to patents it did not develop, and it discloses no parents or affiliates in its Rule 7.1 statement (Stanford NPE Database, case 308702; Dkt. 3 in this case). The complaint analysis of a parallel DynaMuse case identifies DynaMuse LLC as a New Mexico limited liability company and its counsel as Isaac Phillip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who appears in this action as well (Dkt. 2, Notice of Attorney Appearance). The defendant, Xandrie S.A., is an operating company, not an NPE: a French digital-distribution group founded in 2012 and headquartered in Pantin, France, whose best-known asset is Qobuz, the high-resolution music streaming and download service it acquired out of French bankruptcy proceedings in December 2015, and which it also operates in Japan through Xandrie Japan (including the former Onkyo "e-onkyo music" download business) (Bloomberg company profile; Le Figaro, Dec. 29, 2015; Xandrie/Onkyo press materials, Sept. 2021). The practical dynamic is therefore a foreign music-streaming operator being sued in Texas by a domestic shell-style patent holder.

Patent and accused technology. The sole patent-in-suit is U.S. Patent No. 10,491,646, titled "Mechanism for facilitating user-controlled features relating to media content in multiple online media communities and networks." It claims priority to February 29, 2012, was filed November 5, 2015, and issued November 26, 2019. Technically, the '646 patent is a playlist-search/playlist-assistance invention: when a user selects a media item (song, artist, genre), the system searches the user's various playlists and returns a list of the playlists that contain exactly that item — a "final output without any recommendations or suggestions," rather than an algorithmic recommendation engine. Representative independent claim 1 is a computer-implemented method that displays an interactive user interface during media playback, invokes a "playlist assistance function," and returns playlists whose contents "coincide with" the search categories. DynaMuse's parallel complaints frame the accused instrumentality as the defendant's playlist-lookup feature within its streaming service (see the complaint analysis of DynaMuse v. iHeartMedia, 7:26-cv-00116, W.D. Tex., which recites the same claim 1 mapping). Caveat: I was not able to retrieve the text of the Xandrie complaint itself to confirm precisely how DynaMuse accuses Qobuz; the accusation that Qobuz's playlist-search functionality is the infringing feature is a reasonable inference from the identically pleaded sibling cases, not a document-verified fact.

Procedural posture and venue. The case was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division (case number prefix "2:25"), on November 6, 2025 (Dkt. 1, Complaint; Dkt. 4, AO 120 Notice of Filing), and was assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap (docket entry: "Case assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap"). The summons issued November 6, 2025 (Dkt. 5); no answer or motion practice is reflected in the public docket snapshot I retrieved. Xandrie's case is part of a three-defendant EDTX wave filed in the same week — DynaMuse v. Mixcloud Ltd., No. 2:25-cv-01112, and DynaMuse v. SoundCloud Global Ltd. & Co. KG, No. 2:25-cv-01113 — which Judge Gilstrap consolidated for pretrial purposes under lead case No. 2:25-cv-01113 (Consolidation Order, Dec. 15, 2025, Dkt. 10 in the SoundCloud action). The SoundCloud action was then voluntarily dismissed with prejudice (Dkt. 13, Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, Jan. 9, 2026; Dkt. 14, Order Dismissing With Prejudice, Jan. 12, 2026), and a case-management conference had been set for January 22, 2026 — indicating the EDTX filings were resolved quickly, in the typical pattern of early license/settlement for such single-patent NPE campaigns. The venue matters because Gilstrap's Marshall docket is a historically plaintiff-friendly, fast-trial patent forum; notably, however, DynaMuse's subsequent 2026 filings migrated away from EDTX to the Delaware (Plex Inc., 1:26-cv-01124; Songtradr, Inc., 1:26-cv-01123), Western District of Texas (iHeartMedia, 7:26-cv-00116, filed Mar. 31, 2026), and Northern District of Texas (Sirius XM Radio Inc., 3:26-cv-00803), consistent with the nationwide venue-reform trend.

Why it's notable. Three points stand out. First, this is a music-streaming-focused NPE campaign built on a single acquired 2012-priority playlist-management patent, targeting Qobuz, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, iHeartMedia, Sirius XM, Plex, and Songtradr — i.e., the assertion runs across audio streaming, internet radio, and media-server software, which signals a broad claim-construction theory about playlist search rather than a product-specific dispute. Second, the near-simultaneous with-prejudice dismissal of the SoundCloud case within roughly two months is a useful data point on how quickly these single-patent EDTX suits convert into licenses rather than litigation. Third, on the record I could retrieve, I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition against the '646 patent, and no AIA trial linked to the case — so there is no PTAB parallel proceeding to report as of today; that absence is based on searches that returned no results rather than a confirmed PTAB docket check, and the '646 patent's 2019 issue date means the one-year IPR window for served defendants (e.g., Xandrie, served on or about November 2025) has run for early-served parties but may still be open for later-served ones. Also worth flagging as an open question: the provenance of the '646 patent and how DynaMuse acquired it (original assignee, any prior owner's licensing history) is not established by the sources above, and should be verified from the USPTO assignment record before drawing conclusions about the campaign's supply chain.

I'll research this case across multiple sources to build a grounded chronology.

Let me dig into the Xandrie docket specifically and parallel PTAB proceedings.

Let me pull the specific docket for the Xandrie case and check for related proceedings.

I hit the research-step limit, so here is the grounded chronology with what I could verify, plus explicit flags on the (substantial) gaps.

---

DynaMuse LLC v. Xandrie S.A., No. 2:25-cv-01114 (E.D. Tex.)

Judge: Rodney Gilstrap (assigned 2025-11-06)
Asserted patent: U.S. 10,491,646
Plaintiff's counsel: Isaac Phillip Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) — same counsel across the DynaMuse campaign
Present posture (as of last retrievable docket data): Open, at the pleading stage. No answer, no motion practice, no scheduling order, and no PTAB proceeding could be confirmed.

Bottom line up front: This is a short-lived, complaint-only docket. The single most important structural fact is that it was filed as part of a filing wave on 2025-11-06 and folded into a consolidated pretrial track under a sister case — and that the lead case in that consolidation was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice within about ten weeks. The Xandrie docket itself shows no merits activity. There is no Markman, no discovery dispute, no summary judgment, no trial, and no verdict to report.

---

1. Chronology of confirmed docket events

Docket sheet: https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61025683/DynaMuse_LLC_v_Xandrie_SA
Lead case docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71884716/dynamuse-llc-v-soundcloud-global-limited-co-kg/

---

2. Filing and initial pleadings

Filing date confirmed: 2025-11-06. This resolves the open item in the existing case summary — the complaint was filed on the same day as the companion E.D. Tex. suits and was assigned to Judge Gilstrap the same afternoon.

The complaint is captioned "COMPLAINT FOR PATENT INFRINGEMENT against Xandrie S.A.," bears filing-fee receipt ATXEDC-11191299 (the SoundCloud complaint bears ATXEDC-11191250, consistent with sequential same-day filings), and was accompanied by a motion-free initial-pleading package: appearance, Rule 7.1 disclosure, and the AO 120 form. The asserted patent, per the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, is U.S. 10,491,646.

No answer, counterclaim, or Rule 12 motion by Xandrie is visible on the docket. Xandrie S.A. is a foreign entity, and the docket snapshot shows only issuance of summons — no return of service, no appearance, and no extension application (contrast the SoundCloud case, where counsel appeared 2025-12-01 and obtained an extension to 2026-01-17).

3. Pre-trial motions of substance

None in this docket. No motion to dismiss, no § 1404(a) transfer motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, no motion for judgment on the pleadings, no summary judgment motion.

The only order of structural consequence is the consolidation order of 2025-12-15, entered in 2:25-cv-01113, which directed that the consolidated cases proceed for pretrial purposes under lead case No. 2:25-cv-01113. The order's text ("the above-captioned cases") indicates it captured more than one member of the wave. Caveat: I could not directly confirm from the retrieved text that 2:25-cv-01114 was expressly named as a member of that consolidation, though the timing, shared judge, shared plaintiff's counsel, and shared patent make it highly likely. I flag this rather than assert it.

4. Claim construction (Markman)

The case did not reach Markman. No scheduling order, no Local Patent Rule 4-1/4-2 exchange, no Markman hearing, and no claim construction order appears on this docket. This is unsurprising given the case's duration and the fact that no defendant appeared.

5. Discovery milestones

None identified. No Rule 26(f) conference order, no discovery dispute, no protective order, no ESI order, and no scheduling order establishing discovery cutoffs appears. The case was terminated (in its consolidated lead track) before the initial case management conference set for 2026-01-22 could produce a docket control order.

6. Trial, verdict, and post-trial motions

Not applicable. No trial date, no verdict, no JMOL, no new-trial motion, and no fee motion (and no exceptional-case ruling) exist in this matter.

7. Disposition and present posture

Xandrie (2:25-cv-01114): The case metadata supplied to me records the status as Open, and I found no dismissal, judgment, or termination entry on the Xandrie docket itself. The present posture is therefore an active but dormant complaint-stage case — filed, summons issued, no defendant appearance, no case management activity reflected in the retrievable record.

Highly relevant companion outcome: The lead case in the consolidated pretrial track — DynaMuse LLC v. SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG, No. 2:25-cv-01113 — was voluntarily dismissed by DynaMuse and closed by Judge Gilstrap with prejudice on 2026-01-12 (order entered 2026-01-14). A dismissal with prejudice by the plaintiff, before any answer and before the scheduled case management conference, is the signature of a pre-answer settlement or license, not of a merits loss.

No appeal. Nothing in the Federal Circuit's docket or the record retrieved indicates an appeal in any DynaMuse matter.

8. Parallel PTAB proceedings

No IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding on U.S. 10,491,646 could be confirmed. I searched for PTAB challenges to the '646 patent and found none. This is consistent with the case's posture: no defendant appeared, so no petitioner had a litigation-driven incentive to file, and the case resolved (in the lead track) within about ten weeks of filing.

Two contextual observations on why this matters less here than it usually would:

• The complaint itself, in the later-filed W.D. Tex. action on the same patent, does not reference any prior IPR or licensing history on the '646 patent (Ex Parte complaint analysis, 7:26-cv-00116).
• Even had a petition been filed, the 2025–2026 PTAB environment is hostile to institution. IPR filings fell to an all-time quarterly low of 57 in Q2 2026 (down 83.8% year-over-year); trailing-twelve-month institution rates against NPE-owned patents were about 27.2%, versus ~41.4% against operating companies (Mondaq/Unified Patents post-grant update, 2026-07-30). For a small foreign defendant, an IPR would have been an expensive and low-probability play compared with a quick nuisance-value settlement.

Caveat: my PTAB search ran against general web results and secondary reporting rather than a completed run of the USPTO PTAB docket/Patent Center for the '646 patent. Treat "no IPR" as unconfirmed-negative, not as an affirmative clean bill.

---

9. Strategic read: this is a settlement mill docket, not a litigated case

The pattern across the DynaMuse wave is the story:

1. Same-day wave filing (2025-11-06). At minimum 2:25-cv-01112 (v. Mixcloud Ltd.) and 2:25-cv-01114 (v. Xandrie S.A.) in E.D. Tex., plus 2:25-cv-01113 (v. SoundCloud) — all on the '646 patent per the Stanford NPE database (for Xandrie and Mixcloud), all before Judge Gilstrap, all through Rabicoff Law. The defendants are all music-streaming/podcast platforms — the natural targets for a patent claiming a "playlist assistance function."
2. Consolidate, then flip. The wave was consolidated 2025-12-15 under the SoundCloud case, and the lead defendant settled/dismissed by 2026-01-12 — before any answer was due.
3. Re-deploy the patent in new venues. DynaMuse then re-filed the same technology against larger targets in 2026: DynaMuse LLC v. Sirius XM Radio Inc., No. 3:26-cv-00803 (N.D. Tex., filed 2026-03-12, Judge Ada Brown) and DynaMuse LLC v. iHeartMedia, Inc., No. 7:26-cv-00116 (W.D. Tex., filed 2026-03-30/31).

The patent. U.S. 10,491,646, "Mechanism for facilitating user-controlled features relating to media content in multiple online media communities and networks." Priority date 2012-02-29; application filed 2015-11-05; issued 2019-11-26. Representative independent claim 1 covers displaying a UI during media playback, facilitating selection of a "playlist assistance function," and returning results that are "exactly matched" with the search categories and are a "final output without any recommendations or suggestions." That "exactly matched / no recommendations" limitation is the classic § 112 and § 103 pressure point — it is exactly the kind of negative limitation that invites an indefiniteness attack and a written-description attack on the narrow species disclosed. Stanford categorizes DynaMuse as an NPE asserting "Acquired patents."

What that means for this docket: With Xandrie a foreign, non-appearing defendant and the wave's lead case already dismissed with prejudice, the realistic outcomes for 2:25-cv-01114 are (a) a quiet administrative closure or dismissal on the consolidated track, or (b) a licensing dismissal. A merits ruling — and therefore any of the Markman/SJ/trial/appeal events you asked about — is unlikely to ever be generated by this case number.

---

10. Sourcing gaps you should know about

Recommended verification steps: pull the PACER docket report for 2:25-cv-01114 directly, and run the '646 patent number through the PTAB's Patent Trial & Appeal Board End-to-End docket and Patent Center to confirm the absence of any post-grant filing.

This is litigation analytics for research purposes, not legal advice.

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

Let me get more detail on the docket and on Mr. Rabicoff's firm and practice.

Let me check the case docket on CourtListener and whether any co-counsel or local counsel appeared, plus the related-case structure.

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

Let me pull the specific docket for the Xandrie case.

Let me try to access the full docket for the Xandrie case directly.

Counsel of Record — DynaMuse LLC v. Xandrie S.A., 2:25-cv-01114 (E.D. Tex.)

Bottom line

I could not identify any counsel of record for Defendant Xandrie S.A. Every attorney appearance captured on the 2:25-cv-01114 docket in the sources I could reach is a plaintiff-side appearance. As of the docket snapshot available to me, no attorney had entered an appearance for Xandrie S.A. I am flagging this explicitly rather than guessing at defense counsel.

What the docket actually shows (2:25-cv-01114)

Per the PACER Monitor public docket page for the case (cdn.pacermonitor.com/case/61025683), the captured entries are:

Plaintiff's counsel (for context only, not the answer to your question):

• Isaac Phillip Rabicoff — Rabicoff Law LLC, Chicago, IL — sole attorney of record for DynaMuse LLC; a high-volume patent plaintiff's-side filer known for NPE complaint campaigns.

No entry for Xandrie S.A. — no answer, no extension application, no corporate disclosure, no notice of appearance — appears in the captured docket.

Important caveats on docket completeness

1. The snapshot I retrieved appears to stop at the early pleading stage (Nov. 2025). PACER Monitor/CourtListener RECAP pages are not guaranteed current, and I could not retrieve a consolidated docket sheet for this case number showing later events. Defense counsel may have appeared in the intervening months without that appearing in the sources I could access. This should be verified directly on PACER (E.D. Tex.) before relying on it.
2. Consolidation may be diverting filings. The sibling case DynaMuse LLC v. SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG, No. 2:25-cv-01113 (filed the same day, 11/06/2025, also before Judge Gilstrap), was consolidated for all pretrial issues into a lead case, No. 2:25-cv-1113, by order dated 12/15/2025 (Dkt. 10 in the SoundCloud docket; entered 12/16/2025). If 2:25-cv-01114 was among the cases swept into that consolidation order, appearances and filings for Xandrie would appear in the lead case file, not the 1114 file — which would explain the thin 1114 docket. I could not confirm from available sources whether 1114 was included in that order. This is a hypothesis that needs verification, not a finding.
3. I found no press coverage, Law360/Reuters item, or firm press release naming defense counsel in the Xandrie matter.

A related-case data point (NOT counsel for Xandrie — do not conflate)

In the SoundCloud case (2:25-cv-01113), defense counsel who appeared were:

• Benjamin Hershkowitz — Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, New York, NY (200 Park Ave.) — lead attorney, noticed; filed the appearance (Dkt. 6, 12/01/2025) and the unopposed extension application (Dkt. 7). Extensively experienced in patent litigation, including NPE defense work.
• R. Scott Roe — Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, New York, NY — lead attorney, admitted pro hac vice (Dkt. 9, 12/03/2025).
• The CourtListener parties page for the SoundCloud case also lists IDAGIO GmbH as a "Consol Defendant" represented by the same Gibson Dunn attorneys.

⚠️ Those appearances are for SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG and IDAGIO GmbH, not for Xandrie S.A. They may be a useful lead — Xandrie (the French company behind the Qobuz music-streaming service) is a similarly situated streaming-industry defendant, and it would be plausible for the same defense team to appear — but I have no source confirming that Gibson Dunn (or any firm) represents Xandrie in 2:25-cv-01114. Treat it strictly as a lead to check.

Recommended verification steps

• Pull the live PACER docket for 2:25-cv-01114 and, if consolidated, the lead case 2:25-cv-01113 docket, and look for a Notice of Attorney Appearance, Application for Extension of Time to Answer, or Answer naming Xandrie S.A.
• Check the consolidation order's caption in 2:25-cv-01113 (Dkt. 10) to see whether 2:25-cv-01114 was included.
• Note: Xandrie is a foreign (French) defendant, so expect a pro hac vice motion and possibly service/waiver issues, which would delay any appearance.

I am not able to name defense counsel for Xandrie S.A. based on the sources available, and I will not invent one.