Federal Circuit Appeal No. 26-1810

I'll research this appeal. Let me start with the patent itself and the Federal Circuit docket.

Let me look up the patent directly and search for litigation involving it.

Good — I've identified the patent. Now let me pin down the parties, the district court cases, and the Federal Circuit appeal.

Case Overview — SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive) streaming patents, US 10,805,687

Parties. The patent owner is SportsCastr Inc., doing business as PANDA Interactive ("PANDA"), a small New York-founded/Delaware-registered operating company that built a consumer video-based social network for sports fans (the SportsCastr app) and a B2B live-video platform, PANDA Studio, sold to sports media, affiliates and betting operators. Its complaint stresses that it was an early NFLPA licensee and award-winner (Sports Tech Tokyo; Yahoo! Sports Tech Awards and SBJ Best in Sports Tech finalist, 2019) — i.e., it positions itself as an operating company, not a non-practicing entity, even though licensing/enforcement is now plainly part of its business model. The defendants are two of the largest sports-data and sports-video companies in the world: Genius Sports Ltd. and nine affiliates (Genius Sports Media/Technologies/UK/Holdings/Group and the Maven Topco/Midco/Debtco/Bidco entities), a Guernsey-incorporated group headquartered in London; and Sportradar Group AG and Sportradar AG, the Swiss sports-data group. PANDA is the plaintiff; Genius and Sportradar are direct competitors of each other as well as of PANDA. Notably, PANDA also pleads Sherman Act and Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act claims against both defendants alongside infringement — an unusual posture in which the small patentee casts the two market leaders as monopolists (Genius's motion to strike those allegations was denied on June 11, 2025) .

Accused technology and patents. PANDA sued on October 5, 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, before Judge Rodney Gilstrap (Civil Action Nos. 2:23-cv-00472-JRG, the lead case against Sportradar, and 2:23-cv-00471-JRG, the member case against Genius). The accused products are live-streaming and sportsbook-integration offerings — Genius's LiveData, LiveTrading, Genius Trading Services, BetVision, and In-Play MultiBet; the Sportradar-side accused products are described generically in public filings as its live streaming/video and event-data platforms. The asserted family, all sharing one specification and priority to provisionals filed Aug. 5, 2016 through June 12, 2017 (PCT/US2017/045801; continuation of the '697 application), is:

• US 10,805,687 ("'687") — Systems, apparatus, and methods for scalable low-latency viewing of broadcast digital content streams of live events, and synchronization of event information with viewed streams, via multiple internet channels: multiple broadcasters push live streams; viewers receive low-latency copies (HLS/RTMP/WebRTC media servers, CDN caching) while event information (scores, clocks) is synchronized over a separate channel, e.g., a socket server that hands viewers a URL for a per-event socket. Inventors Kevin April, Peter Azuolas, Philip Nicholas Schupak and Brian Silston; assignee SportsCastr.LIVE; ~30 claims; 56 drawing sheets.
• US 10,425,697 — sibling continuation covering the server/architecture side of the same multi-broadcaster live-streaming and event-sync system.
• US 11,039,218 — further continuation in the same family.
• US 11,871,088 — added by amendment on Sept. 25, 2024; directed to providing event video streams with synchronized event information over multiple internet channels (including broadcaster commentary composited over the live feed).

Procedural posture and why it matters. The two E.D. Tex. cases have been proceeding in parallel under Judge Gilstrap (consolidated for pretrial purposes; First Amended Docket Control Order at Dkt. 93). PANDA filed a Second Amended Complaint against Sportradar (Dkt. 126) and Third Amended Complaint against Genius (Dkt. 127) on Feb. 14, 2025, adding the antitrust counts; the court extended the non-patent deadlines by up to 75 days (Dkt. 154) and, on June 11, 2025, denied Genius's Rule 12(f)/15(a) motion to strike the antitrust allegations (Dkt. 158; Sportradar joined at Dkt. 162). Venue matters here in the usual way: the Marshall Division of the E.D. Tex. is among the most experienced patent venues for claim construction, damages discovery and trial scheduling, which gives a small patentee a credible path to a jury on multi-patent, multi-product assertions — but the same venue's rules also produced a highly publicized discovery episode in which PANDA's March 11, 2024 infringement contentions were uploaded but the FTP access instructions were emailed to the wrong defendants' counsel, prompting motion practice and a later amendment asserting 117 additional claims across a broadened accused-product set. On the PTAB side, the case is a textbook example of IPR linkage: Genius filed six IPRs on Aug. 22, 2024 covering the three original patents (the '687 in IPR2024-01305, claims 1–9, and IPR2024-01307, claims 19–25 and 27–30; the '697 in IPR2024-01308/-01309; the '218 in IPR2024-01310/-01311), all instituted March 13, 2025. On March 11, 2026, the Board issued a Final Written Decision in IPR2024-01305 holding all challenged claims of the '687 unpatentable as obvious over Ellis (enhanced sports watching media guidance) in view of Spivey (real-time live event data broadcast), rejecting PANDA's inoperability and "event socket" arguments and its objective indicia. Sportradar then filed "copycat" IPRs on the same patents (the '687 in IPR2025-00268/-00269, plus IPR2025-00315/-00316 against additional '687 claims) with joinder motions, and Genius followed with '088 challenges (IPR2025-00251/-00252). That PTAB record — an adverse final written decision on the '687 plus parallel challenges to the entire family — is the most plausible driver of any Federal Circuit activity in this matter, and the subject matter (low-latency live sports streaming with synchronized betting/score data) sits at the center of the fast-growing sportsbook-integration market that Genius's BetVision and Sportradar's equivalents are targeting, which is why the antitrust overlay and the two-defendant structure make the case more consequential than its docket size suggests.

Verification gaps (flagged, not resolved)

• Federal Circuit No. 2026-1810: I could not verify this docket from the sources I could reach — party identities, the judgment or order appealed, briefing status, and panel are all unconfirmed. The timing is consistent with a PANDA appeal from the March 11, 2026 IPR2024-01305 final written decision (notice of appeal due ~63 days later, i.e., mid-May 2026), and that is the most likely candidate — but this is inference, not a sourced fact. It could also be an appeal from a district court ruling in 2:23-cv-00471/-00472. Treat the appeal's subject matter as unverified.
• Sportradar-side accused product identification: the public filings I reached quote PANDA's accused-product list in full only for Genius; the Sportradar product names are not sourced here.
• Counsel: Kirkland & Ellis LLP (Todd Baker, Jeanne Heffernan, Nikhil Rama Krishnan, Socrates Boutsikaris) appears for Genius in the IPRs; PANDA's litigation and IPR counsel, and Sportradar's counsel, are not confirmed from the documents I retrieved, and I am deliberately not naming them.
• Outcomes: No trial verdict, summary judgment, damages award, or settlement is confirmed on the '687 or its siblings; the only confirmed merits rulings are the June 11, 2025 denial of the motion to strike and the March 11, 2026 PTAB final written decision. The related-market statements about Genius/Sportradar league data partnerships (e.g., NFL) and any abandoned merger should be treated as background widely reported in the trade press, not as facts verified in this docket.

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

Key lead found: IPR2024-01305 (Genius Sports v. SportsCastr) on US10805687. Let me dig deeper.

Let me confirm the Federal Circuit docket and the underlying district court case details.

Federal Circuit Appeal No. 26-1810 — Key Legal Developments

Threshold identification (and a correction to the prior summary)

The existing case summary treated 26-1810 as an unknown appeal tied to US10805687 via Google Patents. The record now makes the case identifiable, and the characterization in the prior summary needs one important nuance:

*26-1810 appears to be the Federal Circuit appeal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's final written decision in Genius Sports Ltd. v. SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive), IPR2024-01305* — a final written decision issued 2026-03-11 holding all challenged claims (1–9) of U.S. Patent No. 10,805,687 unpatentable. The PTAB proceeding record lists its status as "Final Written Decision – Appealed," and the resulting appeal would have been noticed in time for a mid-2026 docket number (a notice of appeal under 37 C.F.R. § 90.3(a)(1) was due about 63 days after the FWD, i.e., on or about 2026-05-13).

The '687 patent is also the subject of a live district court patent infringement litigation in the Eastern District of Texas, which is the "infringement litigation" context. So the complete picture has three layers: (1) EDTX infringement suits brought by the patent owner; (2) six PTAB IPRs filed by the lead defendant (plus separate IPR challenges by a co-defendant); and (3) the CAFC appeal of the '687 IPR now numbered 26-1810.

Verified anchor points:

• IPR2024-01305 case record: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2024-01305
• Institution decision (2025-03-13): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-01311/Genius_Sports_v._SportsCastr_Inc/docs/06-06-2025-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2040-Institution_Decisions.pdf
• Final written decision (2026-03-11): https://gaeflexstaging-dot-docketupdate.appspot.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-01305/Genius_Sports_Ltd._v._SportsCastr_Inc/03-11-2026-Board/Final_Written_Decision__original-46-Final_Written_Decision__JUDGMENT_Final_Written_Decision_Determining_All_Challenged_Claims_Unpatentable_Denying_Petitioner%E2%80%99s_Motion_to_Exclude__35_USC_%C2%A7_318a_37_CFR_%C2%A7_4264c_/

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Chronology

1. Filing and initial pleadings (district court)

Note on answers/counterclaims: The filing of defendants' invalidity contentions confirms an answer was filed and the case was contested, but I could not verify from the available record the specific docket entries for the answer, counterclaims (e.g., declaratory judgment of invalidity/non-infringement), or any Rule 12 motion in 2:23-cv-00471. That gap is real — treat those details as unverified.

2. The related Delaware declaratory-judgment action (a "mirror" case)

Docket source: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2025cv00335/[237075](/patent/237075)

This DJ action is strategically important: it was the vehicle by which Sportradar (a competitor named in the parallel EDTX suit) tried to force an early validity/non-infringement adjudication, and it was neutralized by Panda's transfer motion and then by Sportradar's own voluntary dismissal.

3. Claim construction (Markman) in the EDTX case

Source (hearing transcript referencing the district court's 2025-08-25 construction): https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1556512](/patent/1556512)/download-documents?artifactId=J58ynpMmTd3lMIDoDIfIlAMAicypkcYXNdT5JgWodzl7f5unsVj4xmI

This construction mattered in two directions. It narrowed the claim (a narrow reading of "event socket"), which helped the defendants' non-infringement position, while the PTAB — applying the same Phillips framework — nevertheless found the "event socket" limitation disclosed by the Spivey "topic queues" reference.

4. Parallel PTAB proceedings — the central development

Genius Sports' six IPRs (filed 2024-08-22, all with Dr. Stephen B. Wicker as petitioner's expert):

Substantive posture of IPR2024-01305:

• Grounds instituted: Ground 1A (claims 1, 8, 9) — obvious over Ellis (US 2014/0229992) in view of Spivey (US 2016/0036910); Ground 1B (claims 2–7) — same combination; Ground 2 (claims 1–9) — obvious over Herzog (US 2015/0163379) + Ellis + Spivey.
• Key disputed issues at institution: whether the Ellis + Spivey combination would be inoperable for omitting a relaying server component, and whether Spivey's topic queues disclosed the claimed "event socket." The Board was "persuaded preliminarily" on both.
• Petitioner filed a Sotera stipulation and agreed to take an "understudy" role in any other instituted IPR — a deliberate defense against Fintiv/General Plastic discretionary denial (raised in the related Sportradar petitions).
• Patent owner's expert: Dr. Aviel Rubin (declaration in support of the preliminary response, 2024-12-19).

Sportradar's separate IPR challenges on the same patent family:

• IPR2025-00269, IPR2025-00273, and IPR2025-00315 (Sportradar AG v. SportsCastr) — the latter filed 2024-12-14 on the '687 patent.
• In IPR2025-00315, the Director issued a discretionary decision denying institution on 2025-07-16; a notice of refund followed on 2025-08-05. Sportradar had argued its petition was not a "copycat" of the already-instituted Genius IPR and proposed a Sotera stipulation to accept an understudy role.
• Source: Docket Alarm search result for IPR2025-00315.

Panel and hearing in the Genius IPRs:

• Original panel (institution): APJs Barbara A. Parvis, John A. Hudalla, Sharon Fenick.
• 2025-10-31: Panel change order (Paper 29) — due to unavailability, APJ Jon M. Jurgovan replaced APJ John A. Hudalla; the panel became APJs Thu A. Dang, Jennifer S. Bisk, and Jon M. Jurgovan. All prior decisions stayed in effect.
• 2025-12-18: Oral hearing held in Alexandria on all six Genius IPRs (IPR2024-01305/01307 on '687; -01308/-01309 on '697; -01310/-01311 on '218). Petitioner's counsel: W. Todd Baker, Nikhil R. Krishnan, Socrates L. Boutsikaris (Kirkland & Ellis LLP). Patent owner's counsel: Andrew J. Cochran and Britton F. Davis (Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP) — with Colleen Tracy James also appearing of record. Patent owner's demonstratives were filed 2025-12-17.
• Note: the earlier King & Spalding firm (Brian Eutermoser, Mikaela Stone) appears in the respondent-counsel field of the institution materials; by the hearing the patent owner was represented by Cahill Gordon.

5. Final written decision and appeal

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Strategic significance of the discovery and pre-trial milestones

• Efficiency of the IPR track: Six Genius petitions were filed simultaneously, two per patent. The patent owner's invalidity exposure was therefore tripled across three patents, effectively forcing it to defend the same "event socket"/socket-architecture claim scope in three forums and multiple proceedings.
• The IPR/litigation relationship: The IPR petitions leaned directly on district court discovery — petitioner's exhibit list includes SportsCastr's complaint (Ex. 1014), its Preliminary Infringement Contentions (Ex. 1019), and its interrogatory responses (Ex. 1020), plus proposed Sotera stipulations. That is the classic sign of a defendant using the IPR track (a) to avoid duplicative invalidity work and (b) to build § 315(e) estoppel leverage for the district case.
• The Delaware DJ suit as a venue fight: Panda's motion to transfer under the first-to-file rule and § 1404(a) succeeded — the Delaware action was shipped to Judge Gilstrap, who was already presiding over the 2:23-cv-00471/-00472 cases. The practical effect was to concentrate the dispute (and the validity/infringement narrative) before a single judge, rather than letting Sportradar litigate a DJ race in Delaware.
• Discretionary-denial pressure: The March 26, 2025 Stewart Memorandum and Fintiv/General Plastic practice are expressly argued in the Sportradar petitions ("copycat" petition, Sotera stipulation, understudy role). Sportradar's '687 IPR (IPR2025-00315) was killed at the discretionary-denial stage on 2025-07-16, leaving Genius's IPR2024-01305 as the live '687 challenge.
• Claim construction leverage: The EDTX "event socket dedicated to a single event" construction (2025-08-25) is exactly the type of narrowing ruling that both narrows infringement and invites parallel PTAB invalidity — and the PTAB ultimately found the narrower limitation met by Spivey.

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Where this leaves the case (present posture)

• Federal Circuit No. 26-1810: pending. On the available record, the appeal is from the 2026-03-11 IPR2024-01305 final written decision (all '687 claims 1–9 unpatentable). The appellant is most likely SportsCastr/Panda Interactive (the losing patent owner), with Genius Sports as appellee. Likely issues: (i) substantial-evidence review of the Board's motivation-to-combine findings on Ellis/Spivey (including the "inoperable combination" argument flagged at institution and the "event socket" reading of Spivey's topic queues); and (ii) whether the Board properly discounted the patent owner's objective indicia (copying by Genius Sports, commercial success, industry praise).
• District court (E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00471 (Genius) and 2:23-cv-00472 (Sportradar)): the infringement claims on the '687 patent are now severely impaired by the FWD. If the FWD is affirmed, the asserted '687 claims stand cancelled and the '687 portion of the district case collapses. The '697 and '218 patents were subject to separate IPRs (IPR2024-01308/-01309 and -01310/-01311), which were tried at the same December 2025 hearing; their outcomes bear directly on the remaining district court claims. I could not verify from the available record whether the EDTX case was stayed pending the IPRs or is proceeding to trial, nor whether any trial date was set — that should be confirmed against the live PACER docket.
• Sportradar DJ action (2:25-cv-00335): dismissed without prejudice 2025-04-14; case closed.

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Explicit gaps and cautions

1. Party alignment on CAFC 26-1810 is not directly verified. The docket-level detail (appellant/appellee captions, briefing schedule) was not retrievable. The identification above rests on the IPR2024-01305 record ("Final Written Decision – Appealed"), the FWD date (2026-03-11), and the appeal-timing arithmetic.
2. Whether 26-1810 is consolidated with appeals of IPR2024-01307 (also on the '687 patent) or of the '697/'218 IPRs is unknown. The Board held a single hearing across all six Genius IPRs, so multiple appeals are plausible.
3. No district court judgment, verdict, damages award, JMOL/new-trial motion, or fee motion was located for the EDTX case. The chronology above therefore reflects pre-trial practice, claim construction, and the PTAB track rather than any trial outcome.
4. No Markman order text or Docket Control Order contents were located — only the existence of the Joint Claim Construction Statement (Dkt. 69), the First Amended Docket Control Order (Dkt. 93), and the 2025-08-25 construction of "event socket."
5. Counsel attributions: Genius Sports was represented by Kirkland & Ellis (Baker, Dinnella, Krishnan, Boutsikaris); SportsCastr/Panda by Cahill Gordon & Reindel (Cochran, Davis, Tracy James) at the hearing, with King & Spalding appearing in earlier PTAB papers. Sportradar's counsel of record included Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (Fabiani, Walden) and others (Smith) in the DJ action — those firm attributions come from party filings and should be confirmed if precise counsel listings are needed.

If you want, I can next try to pin down (a) the live 2:23-cv-00471 docket status and any trial setting, (b) the FWDs in the '697 and '218 IPRs, and (c) the CAFC briefing schedule in 26-1810.

I'll research plaintiff-side counsel for SportsCastr/PANDA Interactive across the district court, PTAB, and any appellate record.

Excellent — the plaintiff-side picture is emerging. Let me verify the King & Spalding team, the Cahill substitution, local counsel, and any appellate appearance.

Plaintiff-Side Counsel of Record — SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive), U.S. Patent No. 10,805,687

Bottom line (building on, not repeating, the prior sections). The plaintiff is SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive) — the patent owner and, on the IPR track, the Patent Owner / appellant. Plaintiff-side representation is bifurcated across two firms plus Texas local counsel, and it changed mid-case:

The trade press on filing confirms the district-court lead firm: "PANDA Interactive is represented in the cases by King and Spalding LLP." (Investing.com; Content+Technology.com)

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1. King & Spalding LLP — district-court trial counsel

Firm-news corroboration: K&S's own site dates the PANDA representation to Oct. 5, 2023 ("Christopher Campbell, Brit Davis and Matthew Wood counsel Panda Interactive in a live sports betting patent dispute with Genius Sports and Sportradar before a Texas federal court") and to Mar. 3, 2025 ("K&S advises PANDA Interactive on the filing of its amended complaints … accuses both companies of anti-competitive conduct in the sports betting market").

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2. Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP — current PTAB lead counsel (substituted 2025)

This is the firm the prior sections correctly identified for the PTAB, and it now also appears on the 2025 E.D. Tex. case (2:25-cv-01250).

PTAB substitution source of record: "Patent Owner's request for authorization to file motions to withdraw and substitute lead counsel is granted" (Board email, May 16, 2025) and Board Order Paper 19, July 9, 2025 — signed Andrew Cochran, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP. The Board's Oct. 15, 2025 order likewise lists "PATENT OWNER: Andrew Cochran, Colleen James, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP."

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3. Cherry Johnson Siegmund James, PLLC — Texas local counsel

Continuing role: PACER Monitor's docket for the 2025 case Sportscastr, Inc. d/b/a Panda Interactive v. Sportradar Group, AG et al (2:25-cv-01250) lists the plaintiff as represented by Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and Cherry Johnson Siegmund James — i.e., CJSJ remains the local Texas firm, while first-chair patent work has migrated toward Cahill.

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4. Cross-checks and contradictions with the prior sections

• Britton "Brit" Davis's firm: the prior "Defendant representatives" section attributed Davis to Cahill Gordon; the Feb. 2025 Joint Claim Construction Statement and K&S's own site place him at King & Spalding (Denver) through at least early 2025, with his Cahill appearance coming by the Dec. 18, 2025 hearing. Treat him as K&S → Cahill over the life of the case.
• King & Spalding vs. Cahill as "the" plaintiff firm: both are correct depending on forum/date. K&S is the district-court trial team (Campbell first chair); Cahill is the post-grant/PTAB lead as of mid-2025.
• CJSJ address: the Joint Claim Construction Statement lists CJSJ at Waco (400 Austin Ave.), while the firm's website and the Marshall case caption also show a Marshall office — the Waco address is the one used in these filings.
• No contradiction found with the prior sections' identification of Mark Douglas Siegmund as plaintiff-side counsel on the venue ruling.

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5. What I could not verify (stated explicitly)

1. Federal Circuit No. 26-1810 appellate counsel — NOT verified. No entry of appearance, notice of docketing, or brief signature block for 26-1810 surfaced in any search. Because the PTAB track was Cahill-led and Cahill now also appears on the 2025 E.D. Tex. case, Andrew J. Cochran / Cahill Gordon is the most likely appellant-side counsel if 26-1810 is PANDA's appeal of the 2026-03-11 IPR2024-01305 FWD — but that is inference, not a sourced fact. I did not find any K&S or CJSJ appellate appearance either.
2. In-house counsel for PANDA — none appeared. The Sept. 17, 2024 Power of Attorney in the IPRs was signed by SportsCastr's CEO (name redacted in the excerpt I retrieved), not an in-house lawyer; no in-house counsel has entered an appearance of record in the sources reached.
3. No sealed plaintiff-side filings were encountered; the appearances above come from public PTAB papers, the Joint Claim Construction Statement, firm press pages, and docket-report aggregators. If any Federal Circuit filing is sealed, I could not see it.
4. Rahul Sarkar, Edward Moss, Ari B. Rafilson, Brett A. Mangrum appear on the E.D. Tex. attorney-of-record report (aggregator-sourced) and are attributed to plaintiff, but I did not independently confirm their current firms/roles beyond the CJSJ and K&S listings above.
5. The earlier section's note that PANDA's counsel of record "has changed over time" is confirmed — three substitutions are documented: (a) K&S's Eutermoser/Stone/Duffy withdrawn and Cochran/James (Cahill) substituted (July 9, 2025, Board Paper 19); (b) the same Cahill substitution across the Sportradar IPRs (June 17, 2025 order in IPR2025-00316); and (c) Davis's move from K&S to Cahill.

6. Recommended verification steps

1. PACER/CM-ECF for Fed. Cir. 26-1810 — pull the Notice of Docketing and any Fed. Cir. R. 47.3 entry of appearance to confirm appellant counsel (likely Cahill if it is the '687 IPR appeal).
2. Live E.D. Tex. dockets for 2:23-cv-00471, 2:23-cv-00472, and 2:25-cv-01250 — attorney-of-record tabs to confirm the current K&S/Cahill/CJSJ split and any later additions.
3. P-TACTS for IPR2024-01305 and the Sportradar IPRs — confirm current patent-owner counsel (Cochran/James) via the latest Mandatory Notices.

Confidence summary: High that King & Spalding LLP (Christopher C. Campbell lead trial; Britton Davis; Matthew Wood; Patrick Lafferty; Brian Eutermoser; Mikaela Stone; Kevin Duffy) is plaintiff's district-court counsel for SportsCastr/PANDA; High that Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP (Andrew J. Cochran, lead; Colleen Tracy James, backup; Britton Davis) is plaintiff's Patent Owner/post-grant counsel as of mid-2025 and is on the 2025 E.D. Tex. case; High that Cherry Johnson Siegmund James, PLLC (Mark D. Siegmund, Greg P. Love, William D. Ellerman, and others) is Texas local counsel. Low/unknown on plaintiff-side counsel specifically for Federal Circuit No. 26-1810, which requires a PACER check.

I'll research defense counsel, focusing on the underlying E.D. Tex. actions against Genius Sports and Sportradar.

Now let me pin down the individual defense attorneys, their firms, and the Federal Circuit appeal.

Let me pin down the remaining individual attorneys and firms.

Counsel of Record for the Defendants — U.S. Patent No. 10,805,687 litigation

A threshold caveat that materially affects this answer. Appeal No. 26-1810 is an appellate docket; Federal Circuit parties are styled Appellant/Appellee (or Petitioner/Patent Owner on a PTAB appeal), not plaintiff/defendant. The "defendants" here are the defendants in the underlying E.D. Tex. actions — Genius Sports Ltd. and its affiliates (2:23-cv-00471) and Sportradar Group AG / Sportradar AG (2:23-cv-00472, the consolidated lead case, captioned in the prior section in reverse — the docket sheet and the June 10, 2025 opinion at business.cch.com/ald/SportscastrIncvSportradarGroupAG6112025.pdf show '472 as the LEAD case and '471 as the MEMBER case, which is the opposite of what the earlier section states — flagging that contradiction).

I identified defense counsel with high confidence in the district court and the parallel IPRs. I could not retrieve any entry of appearance, notice of docketing, or brief signature block for Federal Circuit No. 26-1810 itself, so defendant-side appellate counsel is unverified. If 26-1810 is the appeal of the March 11, 2026 IPR2024-01305 Final Written Decision, the appellee/petitioner side would be Genius Sports, and Kirkland & Ellis would be the expected counsel — but that is inference, not a sourced fact.

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1. Genius Sports Ltd. and affiliates (2:23-cv-00471-JRG); Petitioner in IPR2024-01305/-01307/-01308/-01309/-01310/-01311 and IPR2025-00251/-00252

Primary firm: Kirkland & Ellis LLP (confirmed across the district-court stipulation, PTAB mandatory notices, and the Dec. 18, 2025 consolidated IPR hearing transcript).

Two names on the E.D. Tex. attorney-of-record report that I flag as questionable:

• Kevin M. Neylan, Jr. — listed as representing Genius Sports Group Ltd. / Genius Sports entities. Firm unverified.
• Guy Ruttenberg — listed as representing Genius Sports Group Ltd. / Genius Sports Ltd. He was a Kirkland Los Angeles partner until Oct. 2012 and now runs Ruttenberg IP Law, A Professional Corporation, Los Angeles (a patent-litigation boutique; former Federal Circuit and EDTX practitioner; Northpoint v. DIRECTV, Solvay v. Honeywell, Level 3 v. Limelight). Because he left Kirkland 14 years ago, the PACER attorney-report entry may be a stale or same-name artifact. Do not treat this as confirmed.

Genesis of Genius's defense: Kirkland has acted as Genius's consolidated IP/litigation firm here across both forums and also advises Genius on corporate matters (e.g., Kirkland's Feb. 5, 2026 press release on Genius's $1.2B Legend acquisition), which is consistent with Kirkland being the firm that would handle a Federal Circuit appeal on Genius's behalf.

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2. Sportradar Group AG and Sportradar AG (2:23-cv-00472-JRG, lead case); Petitioner in IPR2025-00268/-00269/-00315/-00316 and related Sportradar IPRs

Primary firm: Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP (BCLP) — confirmed in the Defendants' Stipulation re Inter Partes Review in '472 and the Sotera stipulation exhibit lodged in IPR2025-00269.

Both Sportradar entities are docketed as "Defendant, Counter Claimant" — i.e., BCLP is defending the infringement counts and prosecuting Sportradar's invalidity/non-infringement counterclaims.

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3. Local counsel (E.D. Tex.)

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4. Cross-check that corrects/enriches the prior section

The prior "Plaintiff representatives" section said plaintiff-side district-court trial counsel was unverified. Two sources in my search results partially fill that gap, and they are worth adding to the case file because they are on the other side of the "v." from the defendants identified above:

• VitalLaw/CCH (reporting the Sept. 17, 2024 venue/personal-jurisdiction ruling) lists Mark Douglas Siegmund (Cherry Johnson Siegmund James, PLLC) as attorney for SportsCastr Inc., against David A. Roodman (BCLP) for Sportradar.
• The E.D. Tex. attorney-of-record report reproduced as an exhibit in IPR2025-00268 lists additional SportsCastr-side counsel: Patrick Michael Lafferty, Gregory Phillip Love, Brett Aaron Mangrum, Edward Moss, Ari B. Rafilson, Rahul Sarkar, and Matthew David Wood, and lists Camille H. Mangiaratti (Cahill Gordon & Reindel) on the '472 docket — consistent with the prior section's Cahill Gordon (Cochran / Tracy James) attribution for the patent owner. There is also a docketed email (May 16, 2025) showing the Board granting Patent Owner's request to withdraw and substitute lead counsel in the Sportradar IPRs, which is consistent with the prior section's note that counsel of record has changed over time.

I did not independently verify these plaintiff-side names beyond the aggregator/opinion sources, so they carry the same caveat the prior section applied.

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5. What I could not verify

• No Federal Circuit No. 26-1810 docket data. No notice of docketing, entry of appearance, or brief for that appeal number surfaced. Appellate counsel for the defendants/appellees in 26-1810 is unknown. The most likely candidate by inference is Kirkland & Ellis (W. Todd Baker, Washington, D.C.) if 26-1810 is Genius's side of an appeal from the IPR2024-01305 FWD, but I will not present that as established.
• In-house counsel for Genius Sports or Sportradar has not appeared of record in anything I retrieved, and I am not naming any.
• Kevin M. Neylan, Jr. and Guy Ruttenberg (both on the E.D. Tex. attorney report for Genius entities) — firms/roles unconfirmed; the Ruttenberg entry is likely stale or a same-name record.
• Michael T. Dinnella — appeared in IPR2024-01310 counsel text; firm unconfirmed.
• There is a second, later Sportradar suit, No. 2:25-cv-01250, in which BCLP's Lindsay Sklar Johnson has appeared; I was not able to retrieve its full docket, so the counsel list for that case is incomplete here.
• Nothing identified above is sealed in the sources I reached; the defendant-side appearances all come from publicly filed stipulations, mandatory notices, hearing transcripts and docket reports. If any part of the Federal Circuit record is under seal, I could not see it.

6. Recommended verification steps

1. PACER / CM-ECF for CAFC No. 2026-1810 — pull the Notice of Docketing and any Fed. Cir. R. 47.3 entries of appearance; that is the only way to confirm appellate counsel for the appellee side.
2. P-TACTS for IPR2024-01305 (Genius) and IPR2025-00268/-00269/-00315/-00316 (Sportradar) — confirms current petitioner counsel, which is typically the same team that handles the appeal.
3. Live E.D. Tex. dockets for 2:23-cv-00471, 2:23-cv-00472 and 2:25-cv-01250 — pull the attorney-of-record tab and the operative answers/counterclaims to confirm signature blocks and add any counsel who has appeared since the aggregator snapshots.
4. Firm bios — Kirkland & Ellis pages for Baker, Krishnan, Boutsikaris, Heffernan, Leifer; BCLP pages for Roodman, Cummings, Williamson, Brell, Sklar Johnson, Walden; Scheef & Stone for Michael C. Smith.

Confidence summary: High confidence that Kirkland & Ellis LLP is defense counsel for Genius Sports Ltd. and its affiliates (Baker lead in PTAB; Heffernan/Lomeo Austin; Simmons NY; Arnett D.C.; Krishnan Chicago; Boutsikaris D.C.; Leifer Boston) and that Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP is defense counsel for Sportradar Group AG/Sportradar AG (Roodman lead in district court; Cummings lead in PTAB; Williamson, Brell, Sklar Johnson, Schwartz, Watson, Walden), with Michael C. Smith of Scheef & Stone as Sportradar's E.D. Tex. local counsel. Unknown/low confidence on all defendant-side counsel for Federal Circuit No. 26-1810 specifically — treat that as an open item requiring a PACER check, not as answered.