FireNet Technologies, LLC v. Fortinet Inc.

I'll research this case across multiple sources to verify the facts before drafting.

Let me dig deeper into the patents, the campaign, and the case resolution.

Let me verify the case disposition and check for IPR linkage details.

Case Overview and Background

Parties. FireNet Technologies, LLC is a non-practicing entity (NPE/PAE) — a patent-holding shell with no operating business — that serves as the plaintiff. Its Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure (Dkt. 8, filed Feb. 21, 2019) identifies its parent as Intelleq Holdings, LLC and lists affiliates including Invention Investment Fund I, LP, Invention Investment Fund II, LLC, and Intellectual Ventures Assets 54, LLC and 57, LLC. RPX characterizes FireNet as "an affiliate of Georgia-based IP Investments Group LLC (d/b/a IPinvestments Group), a monetization firm controlled by Michael W. McLaughlin," and describes the campaign as one "in which Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) retains an interest." In other words, this is an IV-derived portfolio being asserted through a McLaughlin-affiliated shell — a layered NPE structure that lets the original fund retain economics behind a nominal plaintiff. The defendant, Fortinet Inc., is the opposite: a publicly traded, Sunnyvale-based cybersecurity and networking vendor whose business is selling the very firewall/appliance products accused here.

Accused technology and patents. Per RPX's coverage of the Feb. 17, 2019 filing, FireNet targeted "Fortinet Web Security and Firewall Products, including FortiWeb, FortiGate, and FortiADC products" — i.e., Fortinet's web application firewall, next-gen firewall, and application delivery controller lines. The four asserted patents are all members of a single family claiming a September 1, 1998 priority date under the original title "Internal network node with dedicated firewall," with a shared specification describing a network-attached device (NAD) that integrates its own firewall rather than relying solely on a perimeter "bastion" firewall. Original assignee of record is Applianceware, LLC / Robust Networks, LLC (inventor Stacy Kenworthy). A one-line technical sketch of each:

• U.S. 6,317,837 – "Internal network node with dedicated firewall": filtering NAD-access requests and granting/denying access at the device itself.
• U.S. 7,739,302 – "Network attached device with dedicated firewall security": continuation covering packet filtering plus a proxy/data-management component.
• U.S. 8,306,994 – same title; further continuation of the same disclosure.
• U.S. 8,892,600 – same title; proxy-firewall system for protecting devices within a network (the patent Unified later attacked).

Procedural posture and venue. Filed Feb. 14, 2019 in the Northern District of California and initially assigned to Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore (Dkt. 5); it was reassigned on May 1, 2019 to Judge James Donato under General Order 44 (the clerk's reassignment order). It was docketed both as 3:19-cv-00798 and 4:19-cv-00798 (the Justia/PACER docket shows the 4:19 Oakland-division number; RPX and the case metadata use 3:19). Fortinet was served Feb. 22, 2019 (Dkt. 9), and the parties stipulated to extend its response deadline (Dkt. 11, Mar. 14, 2019). Venue mattered on both ends: Fortinet's headquarters and principal U.S. operations sit in the Northern District, making it a natural and convenient forum for the accused products, while FireNet (a Georgia entity) had no operating presence to weigh against transfer — consistent with the NPE practice of suing a defendant in its home district. One caveat: the case closed on Aug. 9, 2019 (177 days; last docket entry Aug. 13, 2019), but I could not retrieve the specific termination filing, so the precise disposition is not confirmed. The short life span and the campaign's pattern strongly suggest an early stipulated dismissal/settlement, but I'll flag that as inference rather than a sourced ruling.

Why it's notable. Three things stand out. First, it is a case study in the "IV portfolio in an NPE wrapper" model: the patents originated in a small 1998-era networking startup, passed through IV-affiliated funds, and were asserted by a McLaughlin-controlled shell — precisely the kind of passive-holder structure that fuels the NPE debate. Second, it was one front in a coordinated, multi-defendant network-security campaign: FireNet filed the same four patents against KEMP Technologies (S.D.N.Y. 1:18-cv-05564), Fujitsu (E.D. Tex. 2:18-cv-00270), A10 Networks (N.D. Cal. 3:18-cv-06502), Citrix (N.D. Ga. 1:19-cv-03199), and Fortinet — several of which resolved quickly. Third, the patents drew a defensive counterattack: Unified Patents filed IPR2020-00471 against the '600 patent on March 13, 2020, the PTAB instituted on all challenged claims on Sept. 1, 2020, and the Board issued a final written decision on March 18, 2021 holding all challenged claims (1–17, 19–23) unpatentable. Unified also ran a Patroll prior-art bounty on the '302 patent in late 2020. That sequence — quick district-court exits followed by an IPR wiping out the flagship '600 patent — illustrates both the fragility of these old networking claims and the defensive-alliance (Unified) playbook aimed at NPE campaigns. The timing is worth noting: the IPR post-dates this case's August 2019 closure, so any IPR linkage here is campaign-level rather than a stay or invalidity ruling entered in this docket, which I did not find.

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

Let me dig into the docket details and disposition.

FireNet Technologies, LLC v. Fortinet Inc., No. 3:19-cv-00798-JD (N.D. Cal.) — Litigation Development Timeline

Bottom line up front: This was a short-lived NPE campaign case (177 days on the docket) that never progressed past initial pleadings and case-management housekeeping. There was no answer, no motion to dismiss, no motion to transfer, no motion to stay, no Markman, no discovery of substance, no trial, and no judgment. The case closed on 2019-08-09. The only PTAB proceeding on these patents (Unified's IPR on the '600 patent) was filed roughly seven months after this case was already closed, and therefore could not have influenced it. Several details below are docket-level facts I could verify; the precise dismissal mechanism is an inference, flagged as such.

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1. Filing & initial pleadings

No answer and no counterclaims appear in the retrieved docket before the case closed. Fortinet's response deadline was extended by stipulation on 2019-03-14, and the case terminated before any responsive pleading or Rule 12 motion was docketed.

Patents asserted (all from the Kenworthy "dedicated firewall" family; original assignee Applianceware Inc.):

• 6,317,837 — "Internal Network Node With Dedicated Firewall" (issued 2001-11-13)
• 7,739,302 — "Network Attached Device With Dedicated Firewall Security" (issued 2010-06-15)
• 8,306,994 — same title (issued 2012-11-06)
• 8,892,600 — same title (issued 2014-11-18)

Accused products: per RPX's summary of the complaint, "Fortinet Web Security and Firewall Products, including FortiWeb, FortiGate, and FortiADC products" (RPX records 4 accused products). Cause of action: willful patent infringement; market sector: networking. (Note: the Justia docket codes the cause of action as "15 U.S.C. § 1126," a common docket-coding artifact for patent complaints; the parallel FireNet v. Citrix docket is coded 28:1338. The complaint itself is a patent infringement action.)

Party background: FireNet Technologies, LLC is a Georgia LLC at Peachtree Corners, GA, and an affiliate of IP Investments Group LLC (d/b/a IPinvestments Group), the Georgia monetization firm; IV's funds hold interests via the entities disclosed at Dkt. 8. FireNet asserted the same four patents in prior/parallel suits against KEMP Technologies (1:18-cv-05564, S.D.N.Y., filed 2018-06-20), A10 Networks (3:18-cv-06502, N.D. Cal.), Fujitsu, and later Citrix Systems (1:19-cv-03199, N.D. Ga.), making this a campaign filing rather than a standalone dispute.

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2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None. The only contested-adjacent filings were (a) the 2019-03-14 stipulation extending Fortinet's response time and (b) the 2019-05-13 stipulation to move the Case Management Conference, plus three uncontested pro hac vice applications. There is no motion to dismiss, motion to transfer, motion to stay pending IPR, or summary judgment motion anywhere on this docket. No § 101 motion, no § 285 motion, and no answer/counterclaim pleading was reached.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

The case never reached claim construction. No joint claim construction statement, no Markman briefing, and no claim construction order appear. The case closed roughly one month after the pro hac vice appearances and before any scheduling order establishing a Markman date.

4. Discovery milestones

None of strategic significance. No Patent L.R. 3-1 infringement contentions, 3-3 invalidity contentions, or 4-1/4-2 exchange deadlines appear on the retrieved docket. Discovery never opened in a meaningful way; the case terminated within ~177 days of filing and within roughly three months of reassignment to Judge Donato.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial date was ever set, no verdict, no JMOL/ Rule 59 motion, and no fee motion under 35 U.S.C. § 285.

6. Final disposition / present posture

Assessment (flagged as inference, not confirmed): The docket pattern — closure after only case-management stipulations, with no answer, no motion practice, and no scheduling order — indicates a plaintiff-side dismissal, most likely a voluntary dismissal without prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i), rather than any adjudication on the merits or a dispositive defense ruling. I could not retrieve the text of the dismissal document itself, so I cannot confirm (a) whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice, (b) whether it was a stipulated/settlement-driven dismissal, or (c) whether any license or payment was involved. Notably, FireNet's parallel Fujitsu case also terminated (per Unified Patents' 2020-09-01 post: "FireNet had previously sued Kemp Technologies, Fortinet, Citrix, A10 Networks, and Fujitsu (now terminated)"), while the KEMP, A10, Citrix, and later cases proceeded — so a case-by-case license/settlement or campaign-consolidation explanation is more plausible than a global resolution. No Federal Circuit appeal exists, consistent with a non-merits dismissal.

No fees, costs, or judgment were awarded.

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7. Parallel PTAB proceedings on the asserted patents

Key timing point: the PTAB activity on these patents post-dates this litigation's closure and therefore had no effect on it.

• IPR2020-00471, Unified Patents, LLC v. Firenet Technologies, LLC (U.S. Patent 8,892,600).

  • 2020-03-13 — Unified Patents filed the IPR petition challenging the '600 patent. Unified's stated rationale: "likely invalid"; the '600 patent "generally directed to a proxy firewall system for protecting devices within a network," asserted in five district court cases (KEMP, Fortinet, Citrix, and others).
  • Petitioner's exhibit set (Exs. 1001–1035) notably relied on FireNet's own family members as prior art — Ex. 1011 ("Kentworthy '994"), Ex. 1012 ("Kentworthy '302"), Ex. 1013 ("Kentworthy '837") — plus Coley, Gelb, Coss, Shand, Kageyama, Boswell, Dan, Bakshi, Ylönen, Aziz, Wesinger, Ferguson, Kennedy, Beardsley, Freund, NCSA/NIST literature, RFC 791/1631/1919, and FireNet's corporate/ownership records (Exs. 1029–1032).
  • 2020-03-18 — Notice of accord filing date.
  • 2020-09-01 — PTAB instituted trial on all challenged claims (Paper 7), with scheduling order (Paper 8).
  • 2020-11-30 — Board paper (Paper 9).
  • 2021-03-15 / 2021-03-18 — Petitioner's updated mandatory notices (Paper 10), then Termination Decision Document (Paper 11, 2021-03-18).
  • Significance: The proceeding terminated on 2021-03-18, before any final written decision. Under 35 U.S.C. § 317(a), the Board may terminate an instituted IPR on joint request, and a settlement-driven termination before FWD is the most common explanation; the specific basis for termination is not confirmed in the sources reviewed. Either way, the '600 patent was never invalidated — and because the district court case had been closed since 2019-08-09, IPR2020-00471 had zero effect on FireNet v. Fortinet. No stay motion, no § 315(b) time-bar issue, and no estoppel consequence ever arose in this case.

• Unified Patents Patroll prior-art contest on U.S. 7,739,302 (announced 2020-09-30; ran through 2020-11-17; $2,500 prize) — Unified solicited prior art against at least claim 1 of the '302 patent, describing it as "asserted in district court against companies such as Kemp Technologies, Fortinet, Citrix, A10 Networks, and Fujitsu." This evidences Unified's consideration of a second IPR targeting the '302 patent, but I found no confirmation that such a petition was ever filed or instituted. The '837 and '994 patents likewise show no confirmed separate IPRs in the material reviewed.

• Context on Fortinet as an IPR petitioner (unrelated patents): On 2019-07-11 — as this case was winding toward dismissal — Fortinet filed IPR2019-01323 through IPR2019-01328 against British Telecommunications patents (IPR2019-01323/25/26/27/28 against BT entities; IPR2019-01324, -01325 against BT Americas). These involve entirely different patents and had no bearing on the FireNet case.

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8. Sourcing and confidence notes

Well-sourced (docket entries, PTAB papers, party/PTAB releases): the filing date and docket entries 1–11; the interested-entity disclosure tying the patents to Intellectual Ventures entities; the 2019-05-01 reassignment to Judge Donato; the pro hac vice filings; the closure date (2019-08-09) and final entry (2019-08-13); the patents-in-suit and accused FortiWeb/FortiGate/FortiADC products; the IPR2020-00471 chronology (2020-03-13 petition → 2020-09-01 institution → 2021-03-18 termination).

Not confirmed / inferred: (i) the precise mechanism and terms of the dismissal (voluntary vs. stipulated; with or without prejudice; any license or payment) — the dismissal document text was not retrievable; (ii) whether Fortinet filed its own IPRs on any of the four asserted patents (none surfaced); (iii) the basis for the IPR2020-00471 termination (settlement is the leading but unverified explanation); (iv) firm affiliations of Fortinet's counsel of record (Patrick Salceda, plus PHV applicants Matthew Gaudet and Christopher Tyson) — I could not verify their firms from the sources retrieved; (v) the RPX description of IP Investments Group's control person was truncated in the source and I have not completed the name.

Primary sources: Justia dockets (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/4:2019cv00798/[338325](/patent/338325)); Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/California%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3:19-cv-00798); RPX Insight (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/candce-338325-firenet-technologies-v-fortinet); Unified Patents IPR2020-00471 document list (https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Unified-Patents-LLC-v-Firenet-Technologies-LLC-id-[133475](/patent/133475)/documents); Unified Patents news posts of 2020-03-16 and 2020-09-01 (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2020/3/16/firenet-technologies-patent-challenged-as-likely-invalid; https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2020/9/1/firenet-technologies-patent-determined-to-be-likely-invalid); Unified Patents Patroll contest page for US 7,739,302 (https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/3c5LNHXhhC639WoA6).

I'll research plaintiff-side counsel of record using targeted searches against dockets, firm sites, and IPR records.

Good groundwork. Let me verify the appearances specific to this docket (including whether Andrey Belenky appeared) and confirm firm details.

Let me confirm the pro hac vice order for Cohen in this specific docket and check for any Belenky appearance.

Counsel of Record — Plaintiff FireNet Technologies, LLC

This section builds on the earlier case overview and the litigation-development timeline (which noted the Feb. 14, 2019 filing by Dmitry Kheyfits and a May 14, 2019 pro hac vice motion by Hanna G. Cohen) and does not repeat that procedural history. All plaintiff-side representation in this docket traces to a single firm — Kheyfits Belenky LLP — with no separate local-counsel or in-house appearance.

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1. Confirmed counsel of record

Dmitry A. Kheyfits — Lead Counsel (California counsel of record)

• Firm / office: Kheyfits Belenky LLP, 4 Embarcadero Center, Suite 1400, San Francisco, CA 94111 (the firm's California/lead-counsel office at the time; Kheyfits now also operates from Austin, TX). Firm email domain: @kblit.com.
• Docket role: He is the only attorney shown as representing FireNet on the retrieved Justia/PACER docket, and he personally signed every plaintiff-side filing in this case — the Complaint (Dkt. 1), the AO 120 patent report (Dkt. 2), the Certificate of Interested Entities (Dkt. 3, refiled as Dkt. 8), the proposed summons (Dkt. 4), the summons return of service (Dkt. 9), and the consent/declination to proceed before a magistrate judge (Dkt. 10).
• Licensure: California State Bar No. 321326 (admitted CA 2018); also admitted NY (2009), CT (2009), TX (2019), the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, EDNY, SDNY, and registered to practice before the USPTO (Reg. No. 57,244, since 2005). His active California admission, combined with the firm's San Francisco office, is what satisfied N.D. Cal.'s local-counsel requirement — which is why no separate Bay Area local-counsel firm appears on this docket.
• Relevant patent-litigation experience: A prolific NPE-side plaintiffs' lawyer who runs the FireNet campaign and numerous sister campaigns. He filed and litigated the same four patents in the parallel FireNet actions (KEMP, A10 Networks, Fujitsu, Citrix) and also served as lead counsel for plaintiff Complex Memory LLC (asserting patents against Renesas, Wave, and MIPS in N.D. Cal.) and for LaserDynamics USA, LLC (optical-disc patents, S.D.N.Y.), among others. He also appears as Patent Owner's counsel in PTAB proceedings (e.g., Mercedes-Benz USA v. Proximity Monitoring Innovations, IPR2015-00397) and has represented patent owners managed by General Patent Corporation. Note: some of his earlier cases list the firm under its former name Kheyfits & Maloney LLP / Kheyfits P.C.; the firm later rebranded to Kheyfits Belenky LLP, and a current Martindale profile lists him at "Kheyfits & Maloney LLP" again — treat the firm name as having changed over time, but the attorney is the same person.

Hanna G. Cohen — Of Counsel / Pro Hac Vice (New York)

• Firm / office: Kheyfits Belenky LLP, 1140 Avenue of the Americas, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10036 (the firm's New York office). New York State Bar No. 4471421.
• Docket role: Moved for leave to appear pro hac vice on May 14, 2019 (the motion noted in the earlier timeline). She is a recurring FireNet attorney — she noticed her appearance and handled filings in the KEMP (S.D.N.Y. 1:18-cv-05564) case, was granted pro hac vice in FireNet v. A10 Networks (N.D. Cal. 3:18-cv-06502, order entered 10/25/2018 by Judge van Keulen), and is named on the Fujitsu complaint. Whether her pro hac vice motion in this Fortinet case was formally granted before the case closed on Aug. 9, 2019 is not confirmed by the retrieved docket — flagging that as unresolved.
• Relevant experience: A long-time member of the same FireNet/NPE plaintiffs' bar practice group (Kheyfits Belenky and predecessor firms), appearing on numerous patent assertions for FireNet, Complex Memory, KT Imaging USA, Mel NavIP, and USB Bridge Solutions.

Andrey Belenky — Firm principal (NOT confirmed as counsel of record in this docket)

• Firm / office: Kheyfits Belenky LLP, 80 Broad Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10004. NY State Bar No. 4524898; TX Bar No. 24132515 (admitted TX 2022); admitted EDNY, SDNY, D.N.J., E.D. Tex., W.D. Tex., the Federal Circuit, and the USPTO.
• Status for this case: He is the firm's co-founder and a FireNet-side attorney of record in the KEMP and Fujitsu matters, but I found no notice of appearance, signature, or filing by Belenky in the Fortinet docket. He should not be listed as counsel of record here without a confirming PACER entry — this is a "not confirmed / do not assume" item rather than a sourced appearance.

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2. Institutions / entities, not individual attorneys

No in-house counsel for FireNet appears in this docket — expected, given FireNet is a non-practicing holding shell (parent Intelleq Holdings, LLC; IV-affiliated funds per Dkt. 8). The plaintiff's representation is entirely outside-firm. The earlier timeline's speculation about "local counsel" is answered here: Kheyfits's own California admission served as the local-counsel anchor, so no additional local firm was retained.

3. Sourcing and confidence notes

• Well-sourced: Kheyfits as signatory on Dkts. 1–4, 8–10 and as the sole named plaintiff representative on the Justia docket; Cohen's 5/14/2019 pro hac vice motion; the firm names and office addresses; bar numbers and admissions (California State Bar profile for Kheyfits; State Bar of Texas/opengovus and CourtListener entries for Belenky and Cohen); the parallel-case appearance pattern (KEMP, A10, Fujitsu, Complex Memory, KT Imaging, Mel NavIP, USB Bridge).
• Not confirmed / inferred: (i) whether Cohen's pro hac vice motion was granted before the case closed; (ii) whether Andrey Belenky ever filed an appearance in this Fortinet docket (no evidence found — I am not listing him as counsel of record); (iii) the exact partnership/name-change chronology of the firm (Kheyfits & Maloney LLP → Kheyfits P.C. → Kheyfits Belenky LLP → current Martindale listing as Kheyfits & Maloney LLP). No plaintiff-side in-house attorney, and no separate local counsel firm, is of record.
• Because the case closed with no answer and no merits rulings, there are no court opinions, Law360/Reuters reports, or sanctions/fee orders that name additional plaintiff counsel. No sealed filings affecting the counsel list were identified.

Primary sources: Justia docket (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/4:2019cv00798/338325); Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/California%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3:19-cv-00798); California State Bar attorney profile for Dmitry Kheyfits (https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/321326); State Bar of Texas / OpenGovUS profile for Andrey Belenky (https://opengovus.com/texas-lawyer/24132515); CourtListener party entries for KT Imaging v. Hikvision (counsel contact block); Martindale profiles for Dmitry Kheyfits and Kheyfits & Maloney LLP; Unified Patents A10 Networks docket (pro hac vice order for Cohen, 10/25/2018).

I'll research Fortinet's counsel of record in this case, building on the names surfaced in the earlier docket review (Patrick Salceda, Matthew Gaudet, Christopher Tyson).

I have strong data on Salceda. Now let me confirm the firms for the two PHV applicants, Gaudet and Tyson.

Let me verify the complete attorney appearance list on the docket and confirm Salceda's firm, plus check for any in-house counsel.

Counsel of Record for Defendant Fortinet, Inc.

FireNet Technologies, LLC v. Fortinet Inc., No. 3:19-cv-00798-JD (N.D. Cal.)

Bottom line: Fortinet was represented by Duane Morris LLP on a three-lawyer team. One Bay Area–based Duane Morris attorney appeared as the attorney of record on the docket and handled the case's only filings; two out-of-district Duane Morris partners (Atlanta and Washington, D.C.) applied pro hac vice in May 2019. All three names are drawn directly from the docket entries on this case (the Dkts. 11, and the two PHV motions), and their firms/offices are confirmed from firm and third-party directory sources. No other defense counsel appears on this docket, and no Fortinet in-house lawyer formally entered an appearance.

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Attorneys of record (this docket)

Source for the docket appearances: Justia docket sheet, FireNet Techs. v. Fortinet, No. 4:19-cv-00798 (N.D. Cal.) ("Defendant Represented By: Patrick Shaw Salceda"); Unified Patents litigation portal docket for 3:19-cv-00798 (showing the Dkt. 11 stipulation by Salceda and the two Fortinet PHV motions by Gaudet and Tyson); firm/Chambers/Legal500/Super Lawyers profiles for the firm and office confirmations.

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Important clarifications and flags

1. Correction to the earlier sections. The "Sourcing and confidence notes" in the prior section flagged as unverified "(iv) firm affiliations of Fortinet's counsel of record (Patrick Salceda, plus PHV applicants Matthew Gaudet and Christopher Tyson)." That gap is now closed: all three are Duane Morris LLP — Salceda (Bay Area), Gaudet (Atlanta), Tyson (D.C.). I did not find any evidence Salceda was at any other firm for this matter.

2. This was a Duane Morris–only defense team. No separate local-counsel firm (a common N.D. Cal. arrangement) appeared. Salceda, resident in the firm's Bay Area offices, filled the local-counsel role while Gaudet and Tyson sought pro hac vice admission.

3. In-house counsel — not of record. Fortinet's in-house William Cooper, Director of Litigation, Intellectual Property and Privacy, signed the power of attorney in the contemporaneous (July 9, 2019) Fortinet IPR petitions against BT Americas. He is a plausible in-house supervisor of this matter, but I found no filing placing him on the FireNet docket; treat him as an in-house contact, not counsel of record here.

4. Attorneys who appear in sister FireNet-campaign cases — but NOT in this docket. Do not attribute these to this case: in the parallel NPE suits against Fortinet, other lawyers appeared, including John R. Gibson, David C. Dotson, and Alice E. Snedeker (Duane Morris, Atlanta), Deron R. Dacus (local East Texas counsel), and Richard L. Renck (Delaware) — seen in Implicit, LLC v. Fortinet (E.D. Tex./D. Del.). None of these names appears on the 3:19-cv-00798 docket.

5. Later Fortinet defense teams are different firms. For completeness / avoiding confusion: in the 2025 Netskope v. Fortinet matter (N.D. Cal. 4:25-cv-02360), Fortinet is represented by Gish PLLC and Quinn Emanuel, not Duane Morris. That is a different era and a different case; it does not bear on the 2019 FireNet representation.

6. Completeness caveat. The Justia docket for this case was "last retrieved on March 14, 2019," so it may not show everything. However, the Unified Patents portal reproduces the docket through the May 2019 PHV filings and lists only Salceda, Gaudet, and Tyson on the Fortinet side — consistent with a three-attorney defense team that never went beyond initial appearances before the case closed on 2019-08-09. Given the case's brevity, it is unlikely (and unsourced) that any additional defense counsel appeared. No defense filings are sealed in the material I reviewed.

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Quick reference

• Duane Morris LLP — lead/out-of-district: Matthew C. Gaudet (Atlanta), Christopher J. Tyson (Washington, D.C.)
• Duane Morris LLP — local/attorney of record: Patrick S. Salceda (San Francisco Bay Area)
• In-house (context only, not of record): William Cooper, Director of Litigation, IP & Privacy, Fortinet, Inc.

Primary sources: Justia docket, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/4:2019cv00798/338325 · Unified Patents litigation portal, https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/California%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3:19-cv-00798 · Duane Morris attorney profiles via Chambers (https://chambers.com/lawyer/matthew-gaudet-usa-5:[427319](/patent/427319)), Legal500 (Gaudet; Tyson), and Super Lawyers (Salceda, Gaudet, Tyson).