Geotab Inc. et al. v. Fractus, S.A.

This case, IPR2025-01026, involves Geotab Inc. et al. challenging a patent owned by Fractus, S.A. at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Geotab Inc., along with Geotab USA, Inc., is a Canadian technology company that develops and manufactures telematics and fleet management solutions, providing hardware devices for GPS tracking and a cloud-based software platform for fleet digitalization. Fractus, S.A., based in Spain, is a pioneer in geometry-based antenna technology. While it originally developed and supplied antennas, it has evolved into primarily a technology development and intellectual property (IP) licensing company, extensively leveraging its patent portfolio through litigation and licensing agreements, suggesting its role as a Patent Assertion Entity (PAE) or Non-Practicing Entity (NPE).

The inter partes review (IPR) was filed in response to an underlying patent infringement lawsuit, Fractus, S.A. v. Geotab Inc., filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Case No. 2:24-cv-01008). Fractus alleges that Geotab is infringing its patented antenna innovations within its advanced connectivity solutions for fleet management and asset tracking. The accused products specifically include Geotab's telematics and fleet management devices such as the Geotab GO8, GO9 series, and SmartWitness and FleetCarma units. The patent at issue in this IPR is U.S. Patent No. 11,031,677, titled "Multiple-body-configuration multimedia and smartphone multifunction wireless devices" or "Antennas in wireless devices." This patent generally describes antenna systems for wireless devices that utilize specific geometric "complexity factors" to enable efficient multiband operation within a compact design.

The procedural posture is an active IPR before the PTAB, which has instituted review of the '677 patent and denied Fractus's request for discretionary denial, indicating that the Board found sufficient merit in Geotab's challenge. The parallel district court litigation in the Eastern District of Texas is a common venue for patent infringement lawsuits, often chosen by patent owners due to its reputation for expedient proceedings. This strategic choice by Fractus likely motivated Geotab to file the defensive IPR at the PTAB to challenge the patent's validity. The case is notable for highlighting the assertion patterns of Fractus, which actively uses its extensive patent portfolio to secure licensing agreements in the rapidly growing Internet of Things (IoT) and telematics markets. The Board's decision to deny discretionary denial, despite the parallel district court litigation, also reflects the ongoing PTAB policies regarding challenges to patent validity.

I'll research the litigation history systematically — the parallel E.D. Tex. case, the PTAB proceedings, and any appellate activity.

Excellent — this surfaces real docket data. Let me dig into the PTAB track (institution, Director Review, termination) and the district court's later entries.

Key Legal Developments & Outcome — Fractus, S.A. v. Geotab Inc. (E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-01008) and the parallel PTAB/Office challenges

Bottom line first. The "patent infringement litigation" underlying this IPR was not tried. It ran for roughly 20 months and ended in a confidential settlement announced 2026-07-27, which also disposed of the PTAB proceedings. There is no verdict, no JMOL/new-trial practice, no fee award, and no appeal on the docket that I could locate. The PTAB track was the more consequential one, and it split three ways: two IPRs denied on discretionary grounds, two IPRs instituted, one PGR denied on the merits — all rendered moot by the settlement.

---

1. The district court litigation — chronology

What is not in the record I could reach: no motion to dismiss, no § 1404(a)/§ 1406 transfer motion, no motion for summary judgment, no trial, no verdict, no JMOL or new-trial motion, and no appeal. A stay pending IPR motion by Geotab also does not appear in the materials I retrieved — noteworthy given that Geotab instead stipulated away its district-court invalidity grounds (see below), which is the functional equivalent of a stay-lite strategy.

---

2. Parallel PTAB/Office proceedings — the real battleground

Geotab attacked the asserted portfolio on five fronts within about seven weeks. The outcomes diverged sharply.

Sources: Unified Patents case list (Judge Amundson panel); GreyB/IPVerse; Ex Parte.

Discretionary-denial fight (the "no discretionary denial" event in the case summary). In -01026/-01027/PGR2025-00056, Fractus filed a discretionary-denial request (Paper 9) and Geotab opposed (Paper 13). Deputy Director Coke Morgan Stewart issued a Decision Referring the Petitions to the Board holding discretionary denial was not appropriate, reasoning that (i) whether the FWD would post-date the EDTX trial was unclear (projected FWD "in January 2027" vs. a 2026-09-14 trial setting), (ii) the patents were less than four years old, so no strong settled expectations, (iii) early challenges favor robust patent rights, and (iv) the § 321(c) window favored PGR2025-00056. The order barred rehearing/Director Review until the Board ruled on institution. (Decision)

Institution merits (IPR2025-01026). Panel: APJs Kevin C. Trock, Russell E. Cass, Steven M. Amundson. Three grounds on claims 1–20: (1) Dou + Ciais-Quadband; (2) Dou + Ciais-Quadband + Nakano; (3) anticipation/obviousness over Baliarda-543, which required displacing the '677 patent's 2006 priority date for claims reciting a "4G communication standard." The "complexity factor" limitations (F21 ≥ 1.20; F32 < 1.75) are the crux, with Geotab supplying grid-counting calculations for the prior-art antennas. Geotab also argued the Examiner was "buried" in 26 IDSs listing 1,910 references and never reached the merits — material error supporting institution. (Petition analysis)

Director Review of institution — denied. The Office received Director Review requests on the institution decisions in IPR2025-01026 and -01027 (with authorized responses, Papers 23/25); Under Secretary/Director John A. Squires denied the requests. The excerpt does not carry a firm date, but it post-dates the December 2025 institution decisions. (Order)

Follow-on ex parte reexamination. After the discretionary IPR denial on the '458 patent, Geotab sought ex parte reexam. On 2026-05-22 the Office denied EPR Control No. 90/015,984 under § 325(d), treating the discretionarily-denied IPR2025-00929 grounds as "previously presented" — without ever reaching the SNQ question. The case drew commentary (Finnegan; Open Legal Blog) as a cautionary sequencing lesson for challengers. (Finnegan/Mondaq; Open Legal Blog) Separately, Fractus's 2025-06-27 Mandatory Notices cited Reexam Control No. 90/019,275, which confirmed patentability of a Fractus patent — I could not identify which patent from the excerpt, so I am not attributing it.

---

3. How the PTAB proceedings affected the litigation

• The IPRs never produced a merits ruling. Of five filings, only two were instituted (-01026, -01027); one PGR was denied on the merits; two IPRs were killed on § 314(a) discretionary grounds. No Final Written Decision issued — GreyB lists IPR2025-01026 as "Terminated–Settled" with a termination date of 2026-06-15, and Ex Parte concurs ("Terminated-Settled"); Unified Patents still shows "Pending – Instituted," which I read as lagging data.
• Geotab's Sotera stipulation was a centerpiece of the Fintiv fight: Geotab represented that if trial were instituted it "will not pursue in the Texas Litigation, any ground raised or that reasonably could have been raised in IPR" (Pet. 149). This is the closest thing to a de facto stay and reduced duplication between the fora.
• Timing overlap: institution deadline 2025-11-28 vs. Markman 2026-03-10, expert-discovery close 2026-06-02, trial 2026-09-14 (EDTX district-wide median time-to-trial 25.1 months used by Geotab; Judge Gilstrap's own 12-month median ~766 days). The Board/Deputy Director found the race between FWD and trial "neither favors nor counsels against" denial. With institution on 2025-12-02/03, the statutory FWD deadline would have fallen around December 2026 — mooted by the settlement.
• Net effect on the litigation: the two institution-denied IPRs (-00928/-00929) left the '365 and '458 patents untouched by the Board, and the § 325(d) EPR denial closed the reexam escape hatch on '458; but the instituted -01026/-01027 IPRs plus the consolidated EDTX case created enough combined pressure that the parties settled before the 2026-09-14 trial date.

---

4. Flags: corrections and unresolved items

1. The earlier-generated "Key legal developments" dates are wrong and are now affirmatively corrected. Two independent aggregators plus the PTAB notice of filing date accord show the petition was filed 2025-06-05/06 (not 2025-03-29) and institution issued 2025-12-02/03 (not 2025-10-02). (GreyB; Unified Patents)
2. The "Terminated–Settled" status is now CONFIRMED, not merely suspected. The prior section flagged Ex Parte's settlement label as unverified. The 2026-07-27 Fractus press release confirming the underlying E.D. Tex. settlement corroborates it. The PTAB termination date (GreyB: 2026-06-15) slightly predates the public settlement announcement — plausibly a joint motion to terminate the IPRs was filed in confidence in June, with the litigation settlement announced in July. I could not retrieve the joint motion or termination order itself.
3. Unverified party/event references I decline to adopt. The earlier "Plaintiff representatives" section referenced a 2026-01-14 PTAB e-mail and a Resmed Corp. motion to join IPR2025-01026 in IPR2026-00191. I found no independent corroboration of that joinder in this round of research; given the confirmed settlement, treat that item as unverified.
4. Minor count discrepancy. ip fray describes "a collective six IoT-related patents" across the December 2024 filings, while the Geotab complaint's docket text lists five patent exhibits ('365, '458, '677, '200, '149). This may reflect allocation across the Verizon and Geotab complaints rather than six in each.
5. Not located / no evidence: Geotab's EDTX answer and counterclaims; any EDTX stay or transfer motion; any issued Markman order in 2:24-cv-01008; the Geotab dismissal order; any appeal of the institution decisions to the Federal Circuit. Counsel for the settlement — the Wolf Greenfield team (Wichman, Parsons, Lu, Giunta) is confirmed as Petitioner-side PTAB counsel by the Director Review order, and Edell, Shapiro & Finnan, LLC (DeBoy, Finnan, Shatzer) as Patent Owner PTAB counsel, corroborating the earlier sections.

Final posture as of today (2026-09-27): both the EDTX action and the PTAB/Office proceedings appear resolved by confidential settlement — no final judgment, no FWD, no appeal.

I'll research the petitioner-side (Geotab) counsel of record for IPR2025-01026.

Key identification found. Let me verify attorney details, firm locations, and the docket status.

Plaintiff (Petitioner) Counsel of Record — Geotab Inc. & Geotab USA, Inc.

Scope note / party alignment. In this IPR, the case metadata lists Geotab Inc. et al. as the plaintiff(s) — i.e., the Petitioner. (In the underlying E.D. Tex. action, Fractus, S.A. v. Geotab Inc., No. 2:24-cv-01008, the roles are reversed: Fractus is the plaintiff, which is why the prior section covered Fractus's PTAB counsel. The Petitioner-side team below is a distinct group; Fractus's PTAB counsel, by contrast, appears in the same Board caption as Patent Owner.)

Counsel of record — Petitioner Geotab

All Petitioner counsel appear from a single firm: Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C. (IP boutique; 600 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA 02210; offices Boston | New York | Washington DC). The Board's caption in the Director Review order for IPR2025-01026 / IPR2025-01027 lists the Petitioner team as: Adam R. Wichman, Michael S. Parsons, Shangxing (Simon) Lu, and Richard F. Giunta, all of WOLF, GREENFIELD & SACKS, P.C., with the dedicated -ptab@wolfgreenfield.com service addresses. (PTAB Director Review order, IPR2025-01026/-01027)

Lead vs. backup designation. The precise lead/backup split is set out in Petitioner's Mandatory Notices (37 C.F.R. § 42.8) and any updated notices in the IPR file; the documents surfaced in this search caption all four attorneys jointly and identify Wichman as the signing "Counsel for Petitioners," so I have labeled him lead counsel. I did not retrieve the Mandatory Notices paper itself, so treat the lead/backup characterization for Giunta, Parsons, and Lu as an inference from the Board caption and correspondence rather than a quoted filing.

Points to note

• No local counsel. IPR practice before the PTAB does not require a local-counsel admission (unlike the parallel E.D. Tex. case), and no separate local firm appears on the Petitioner side of this docket.
• No in-house counsel on the PTAB record. Nothing in the Board filings reviewed lists a Geotab in-house attorney as counsel of record; the team is entirely Wolf Greenfield.
• Related filings by the same team. The identical Wolf Greenfield team is Petitioner counsel in the companion matter IPR2025-01027 (U.S. Patent No. 11,349,200), which the Board captioned and decided jointly with -01026 in the Director Review order.
• Counsel in the parallel district court case (Geotab as defendant) are not confirmed. PACER-derived listings for 2:24-cv-01008 surfaced in this search show only Fractus's plaintiff-side team (Susman Godfrey LLP; Capshaw DeRieux LLP), not Geotab's defense counsel. I could not verify Geotab's district-court counsel from the sources reviewed, so I am not naming any.

Contradictions with the existing case sections (flagged per instructions)

Two date/status items in the earlier-generated sections do not match the docket aggregators:

1. Institution date. The prior "Key legal developments" section states institution on 2025-10-02. Both Unified Patents and Ex Parte list the IPR filing date as 2025-06-06 and the institution date as 2025-12-03 (a date consistent with the § 314(b) six-month window and with Patent Owner's Preliminary Response having been filed 2025-10-01, i.e., before the alleged October 2 institution). (Unified Patents case list; Ex Parte case page)
2. Petition filing date. The prior section states the IPR petition was filed 2025-03-29; aggregators show 2025-06-05/06.
3. Current status. Ex Parte's page lists IPR2025-01026 as "Terminated–Settled," while Unified Patents lists "Pending – Instituted." The case was plainly alive in January 2026, when Resmed Corp. moved to join IPR2025-01026 in IPR2026-00191 (counsel for Resmed: Lisa Nguyen, Paul Hastings) (PTAB e-mail correspondence, Jan. 14, 2026). A later settlement/termination is therefore possible but not verified; the "Terminated–Settled" label should be treated as unconfirmed.

Given today's date (2026-09-27), a final written decision would ordinarily be due around December 2026; if the proceeding in fact settled, that deadline would be moot.

I'll research counsel for the opposing side here — i.e., the Patent Owner, Fractus, S.A., which is the "defendant" party in this IPR (Geotab, the "plaintiff"/Petitioner, was covered in the prior section). Let me search the PTAB docket and firm sources.

Found the key names. Let me verify firm details and attorney bios.

Strong leads. Let me verify the specific IPR2025-01026 mandatory notices/Power of Attorney and Larry Shatzer's role and background, plus check the district-court defendant side.

Defense/Respondent-Side Counsel of Record — FRACTUS, S.A. (Patent Owner)

Party alignment note (read first)

The task asks for counsel representing the defendant(s). In this IPR the party that occupies the defendant/respondent seat is Fractus, S.A. — the Patent Owner (Geotab Inc. et al., the plaintiff/Petitioner, were covered in the prior "Plaintiff representatives" section). In the underlying E.D. Tex. action (Fractus, S.A. v. Geotab Inc., No. 2:24-cv-01008) the roles are reversed — Fractus is plaintiff and Geotab is defendant — so I note both below. The core answer is the Fractus Patent Owner team.

Counsel of record — Patent Owner Fractus, S.A. (IPR2025-01026)

Fractus's entire PTAB team comes from one firm: Edell, Shapiro & Finnan, LLC — an IP boutique at 9801 Washingtonian Blvd., Suite 750, Gaithersburg, MD 20878 (the firm also appears in older filings at 1901 Research Blvd., Rockville, MD). Board correspondence in the IPR file lists the Patent Owner contacts as mjd@usiplaw.com / pjf@usiplaw.com / lls@usiplaw.com, and the firm's service address set includes esfip.com addresses. (PTAB panel-change notice, IPR2025-01026/-01027 & PGR2025-00056)

No in-house counsel and no separate local counsel for Fractus appear on the PTAB record; IPR practice does not require local-counsel admission, so the Patent Owner side is entirely Edell, Shapiro & Finnan.

The other "defendant" — Geotab in the district court (not confirmed)

If by "defendant" the task means the defendant in the underlying infringement lawsuit (E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-01008), that party is Geotab Inc. — but I could not verify Geotab's district-court defense counsel from the sources reviewed. The PACER/Docket Alarm and PacerMonitor listings surfaced in this and the prior search show only Fractus's plaintiff-side litigators (Susman Godfrey LLP — Justin Adelson Nelson, Rachel Thompson; Capshaw DeRieux LLP — S. Calvin Capshaw III, Elizabeth L. DeRieux; plus Max L. Tribble Jr., Joseph S. Grinstein, Robert Greenfeld, and Joseph Grinstein), not the Geotab defense team. (Justia docket; PacerMonitor) I am therefore not naming any Geotab district-court defense counsel; treat that as unverified/sealed-until-appearance.

Sourcing caveats

• The IPR2025-01026 Power of Attorney and Mandatory Notices paper itself was not directly retrieved. The team above is grounded in (i) the Board's Order Granting Patent Owner's Motions for Pro Hac Vice Admission of Larry L. Shatzer, which recites that "Patent Owner's mandatory notices identify Mr. Shatzer as back-up counsel in each proceeding" (Paper 4, 2), and (ii) the Board's Patent Owner service list in the panel-change notice. The lead/back-up labels for DeBoy and Finnan are consistent with those papers and with Fractus's mandatory notices in the sibling matters cited above.
• Status discrepancy to flag (updating the prior section). Two aggregators now list IPR2025-01026 as "Terminated-Settled" with a termination date of June 15, 2026 (GreyB/IPVerse and Ex Parte), while Unified Patents still shows "Pending - Instituted." (IPVerse; Ex Parte) This strengthens, but still does not conclusively verify, a settlement/termination around mid-2026. If the proceeding is in fact terminated, that would moot the ~Dec. 2026 final-written-decision estimate noted earlier. If confirmed, a settlement also bears on whether this counsel team remains "of record."

Bottom line: For the defendant/Patent Owner side of IPR2025-01026, the counsel of record are Mark J. DeBoy (lead), Patrick J. Finnan (back-up), and Larry L. Shatzer (back-up, pro hac vice) — all of Edell, Shapiro & Finnan, LLC, Gaithersburg, MD. Geotab's district-court defense counsel could not be verified.