K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

I'll research this case across PTAB records, district court dockets, and legal press. Let me start with several parallel searches.

Good material. Let me dig into the Final Written Decision outcome, the Delaware district court case, and the parties' corporate identities.

Overview and background

A note on framing: IPR2015‑01866 is not itself an infringement suit — it is a PTAB inter partes review filed by a Korean component supplier against a patent asserted in parallel district court litigation. The "case" therefore has two halves: the PTAB proceeding (Petitioner K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. Patent Owner Innovative Display Technologies LLC, Judges Giannetti, Quinn and Bunting, instituted Mar. 17, 2016, FWD Mar. 15, 2017) and the underlying infringement campaign that generated it. The parties are asymmetric. Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") is a patent‑assertion entity: Stanford's NPE Litigation Database classifies it as a non‑practicing asserter of acquired patents, and contemporaneous reporting places it in the Acacia Research orbit as an Austin, Texas‑registered entity operating out of Plano (that affiliation and its 2013 formation date come from secondary/investor‑forum reporting rather than a primary source, so treat it as directional). IDT does not make anything; it monetizes a portfolio of "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" patents naming inventor Jeffery R. Parker of Richfield, Ohio — the same Parker family (U.S. 6,755,547 and its many continuations) with which IDT sued Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell, Canon, ZTE, VW, Toyota, Mercedes‑Benz, Honda, General Motors and others in E.D. Tex. and D. Del. through 2013–2014 (see Stanford NPE database entries for, e.g., IDT v. Canon U.S.A., 2:14‑cv‑00142 (E.D. Tex.) and IDT v. ZTE, 2:13‑cv‑00527 (E.D. Tex.)). Assignment records indexed by uspto.report list Rambus International Ltd. as assignee of the '816 patent, while IDT is the owner of record in the PTAB — I could not verify the full chain of title from primary records, so I flag it as unresolved. K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. is a Korean manufacturer of LCD backlight units; in its filings IDT characterizes it as "a Korean‑based supplier to LG[D]" and "a major LG supplier," and the IPR record reflects a supply relationship with LG Display (that characterization is adverse‑party briefing, but it is the basis for the privity fight, below).

The technology and patent at issue. U.S. Patent 8,215,816 ("Light Emitting Panel Assemblies") issued July 10, 2012 from application 13/315,412 filed Dec. 9, 2011 — a late continuation in a family whose priority dates back to the mid‑1990s (Petitioner's expert opinion in a sibling IPR speaks of skill as of June 1995). The '816 patent claims an edge‑lit LCD backlight: a light source (typically LEDs); a transparent panel member/light guide having an input edge and a light‑emitting surface; a tray or housing with a cavity in which the panel member is entirely received; a pattern of light‑extracting deformities on a panel surface; end‑edge and side‑edge reflectors; an additional component overlying the panel member (i.e., the LCD itself); a panel wider than it is tall; and — the limitation that decided the case — an input edge with a refractive surface that redirects the light output distribution "more in the width direction" as light enters the panel. Claims 1, 3 and 4 were challenged. The asserted real‑world target was the backlight assemblies in LG's LCD TVs, monitors and phones, and by extension every OEM using such panels. Petitioner ran three grounds: anticipation by Tsunoda (JP H6‑51130); obviousness over Pristash (U.S. 5,005,108 — notably a different Parker patent, which the petition highlighted as "strikingly similar" to the '816 figure); and obviousness over Pristash in view of Suzawa (U.S. RE33,987). The ex parte AI Lab PTAB summary lists the case outcome as "Unpatentable," and the Final Written Decision issued March 15, 2017 (Paper; see ipverse.greyb.com case page listing the FWD and Record of Oral Hearing). Note also that USPTO records show the '816 patent has since lapsed for non‑payment of maintenance fees (37 C.F.R. § 1.362), which moots any residual commercial value — that status comes from the patent‑application record indexed at docketalarm, not a court ruling.

Procedural posture and why it mattered. There is no district court judge or division in this case; the relevant forum is the PTAB (Tech Center 2800), with the corresponding infringement actions in **D. Del. — Delaware Display Group LLC and Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) et al., No. 1:13‑cv‑02109 (D. Del., filed Dec. 31, 2013)**, before Judge Richard G. Andrews (the docket is styled "‑RGA," and IDT's exhibits include correspondence to "Judge Andrews" and a Memorandum Opinion at Dkt. 146). That venue linkage is the whole point: the IPR was filed September 11, 2015, three days after LG's earlier petitions died. LG Display's IPR against the '816 patent (IPR2014‑01095) had been denied institution on January 13, 2015, and LG Electronics' follow‑on (IPR2015‑00496) was denied July 20, 2015 — leaving LG time‑barred under § 315(b) and, per IDT, leaving a strategic gap. K.J. Pretech then filed three petitions on the same day covering the same claims as the LG petitions (IPR2015‑01866 for the '816 patent, ‑01867 for U.S. 7,537,370, and ‑01868 for U.S. 7,434,974), and LG cited those filings in its renewed stay motion in Delaware as proof the asserted claims "will be canceled." IDT attacked the petitions as improperly naming parties: it sought additional discovery into the K.J. Pretech–LG supply agreement and indemnification obligations to show LG was a real party in interest or privy, which would render the petitions time‑barred (PTAB Order, Nov. 20, 2015 authorizing a motion for additional discovery; IDT motion Dec. 1, 2015; opposition Dec. 8, 2015). VIZIO's later IPRs (IPR2016‑00910, ‑00914) were joined with the Pretech proceedings and argued together at a consolidated oral hearing (Record of Oral Hearing, argued under a Dec. 13, 2016 order; transcript filed Feb. 17, 2017), with Robert Pluta and Saqib Siddiqui for Petitioner and Justin Kimble (with Jeffrey R. Bragalone and T. William Kennedy admitted pro hac vice) for IDT.

Why the case is notable. Three things. First, it is a clean illustration of the supplier‑as‑IPR‑proxy pattern: when a customer (LG) is time‑barred after failed petitions, its upstream component vendor files instead, fronting the cost and giving the customer a stay argument — and the resulting RPI/privity, indemnification and discovery fight under §§ 315(b) and 312(a)(2) is exactly the vulnerability the Board later policed aggressively (the Wi‑Fi One v. Broadcom en banc question on appellate review of § 315(b) findings was expressly raised by IDT at the hearing). Second, it shows the IPR wave dynamics of a single NPE portfolio: the '816 patent alone drew petitions from LG Display, LG Electronics, Mercedes‑Benz, Toyota, Sony, K.J. Pretech and VIZIO, most ending in denial or settlement‑triggered termination before Pretech's finally succeeded — a useful data point on how many bites at the apple a multi‑front NPE campaign permits. Third, the outcome is a cautionary tale about asserting aging continuation patents: the Board found claims 1, 3 and 4 unpatentable over a mixture of a Japanese LED backlight reference and one of the inventor's own earlier patents (Pristash), and the patent has since expired for fee non‑payment. The broad, functional "deformities" claim language that IDT had successfully pressed in district court (where, per the hearing transcript, "deformities is being interpreted very broadly, at least for infringement") proved a liability at the Board under the broadest‑reasonable‑interpretation standard — the classic district‑court/IPR asymmetry.

I'll research this case. Note at the outset that the metadata identifies this as a PTAB IPR, so I'll need to check whether there's a parallel district court litigation too. Let me search.

This is a PTAB IPR, not a district court case. Let me research the final decision and the parallel district court litigation involving the '816 patent.

Let me dig into the Final Written Decision outcome, the parallel PTAB proceedings, and the district court track.

Threshold correction before the chronology

IPR2015-01866 is not a patent infringement litigation. It is an inter partes review before the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board. There is no complaint, answer, counterclaim, Markman order, fact discovery, trial, verdict, or JMOL in this docket — an IPR is a tripartite administrative trial between a Petitioner (K.J. Pretech) and a Patent Owner (IDT), with the Board as decision-maker. The metadata's "Plaintiff(s)/Defendant(s)" labels are an artifact of case-aggregator templates.

So this answer does two things: (1) it runs the requested chronological checklist against the IPR itself, mapping each item onto its IPR analogue (or marking it "not applicable"); and (2) it covers the actual infringement litigation involving U.S. 8,215,816 — IDT's multi-front assertion campaign — because that is where the district-court events you asked about actually occurred. The IPR and the litigation were tightly coupled: the IPR petition's exhibits are largely district court documents, and the §315(b) fight in the IPR turned on discovery from the Delaware case.

A caveat up front: I was able to retrieve the institution decision, the oral hearing transcript, the Board orders, and the docket sheet, but not the text of the 2017-03-15 Final Written Decision itself. Statements below about the FWD's holding rest on aggregator metadata and are flagged as such.

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Part A — The docketed case: IPR2015-01866 (PTAB)

Panel: APJs Thomas L. Giannetti, Miriam L. Quinn, Beverly M. Bunting (Bunting authored the institution decision). Tech Center 2800. Patent: U.S. 8,215,816 ("Light Emitting Panel Assemblies," Jeffery R. Parker), issued 2012-07-10 from App. 13/315,412 filed 2011-12-09. Challenged claims: 1, 3, 4.

Counsel: Petitioner — Robert G. Pluta and Saqib J. Siddiqui (Mayer Brown LLP, Chicago). Patent Owner — Justin B. Kimble and Jeffrey R. Bragalone (Bragalone Conroy PC, Dallas; both admitted pro hac vice by orders of 2017-01-05). VIZIO (Gibson Dunn — Blair Silver, Jason Lo) and Lenovo (Vinson & Elkins — Eric Klein) appeared as joined parties.

1. "Filing & initial pleadings"

• 2015-09-11 — Petition filed (Paper 2), together with its mirror petitions IPR2015-01867 ('370) and IPR2015-01868 ('974). Three asserted grounds against claims 1, 3, 4:
  • Ground 1 — §102(b) anticipation by Tsunoda (JP 6-51130);
  • Ground 2 — §103 obviousness over Pristash (U.S. 5,005,108);
  • Ground 3 — §103 over Pristash in view of Suzawa (U.S. RE 33,987).
    Supporting exhibits included the district court complaints, prosecution history, and the Declaration of Thomas L. Credelle (Ex. 1004).
• 2015-09-22 — Notice of filing date accorded to petition; POPR deadline set.
• 2015-10-02 — Patent Owner's power of attorney and mandatory "Related Matters" notice.
• 2015-12-22 — Patent Owner Preliminary Response (Paper 11), plus an updated exhibit list that is itself the tell: summonses to LG Electronics and LG Display, IDT's brief opposing a stay (Dkt 41), and a memorandum opinion (Dkt 146) from the Delaware case.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

The IPR's motion practice was narrow, but one motion mattered a great deal:

• §315(b) time-bar / privity challenge (the central threshold fight). IDT argued the petition was time-barred because K.J. Pretech was a privy and/or RPI of LG Display / LG Electronics, which had been served with IDT's '816 complaint on 2014-01-02 (Delaware Display Group LLC v. LG Electronics Inc., No. 1:13-cv-02109 (D. Del., filed 2013-12-31)). IDT pointed to a supply agreement with possible indemnification obligations and to admissions in LG's district court discovery responses. K.J. Pretech opposed, calling it speculation.
• 2015-11-20 — Board Order (37 C.F.R. §42.5) after a 2015-11-17 telephone conference: IDT authorized to file a motion for additional discovery limited to the supply agreement and the LG discovery-response admissions (10 pages, due 2015-12-01); Petitioner opposition due 2015-12-08; no reply. The Board expressly invoked the five Garmin factors and cautioned that an unduly broad request would be denied. (Order text)
• 2015-12-01 / 2015-12-08 — IDT's motion and Petitioner's opposition + updated exhibit list (Exs. 1022–1025, including a 2015-07-28 Perkins letter, a redacted 2015-08-06 letter to Judge Andrews, the 13-cv-2109 discovery-dispute order, and LGD's 2015-10-21 objections/responses). This is the closest analogue in this case to "discovery with strategic significance."
• 2016-01-12 — Protective order entered (Petitioner's filing) — necessary because the privity evidence was confidential supply-agreement material.
• 2016-03-17 — Decision Granting Institution (Paper 12) on claims 1, 3, 4, "based on the ground identified in the Order section." Institution necessarily reflects that the Board did not find the petition time-barred. (Institution decision PDF) Hedge: I could not retrieve the full text of the Order section, so I cannot confirm from primary source whether all three grounds (or only a subset) were instituted.
• Not applicable: motions to dismiss, transfer, stay pending IPR, and summary judgment have no analogue inside the IPR. (They exist in the district court track — Part B.)

3. Claim construction ("Markman")

There was no separate Markman phase, but construction was litigated:

• The Board applies the broadest reasonable construction standard (37 C.F.R. §42.100(b)). In the earlier '816 IPR (IPR2014-01095), the Board declined to construe any term expressly, including "deformities." See IPR2014-01095, Paper 9 (2015-01-13).
• In this IPR, the dispositive construction dispute concerned "more in the width direction." Patent Owner argued it must mean "more in the width direction than the height direction" — and that under that construction Tsunoda does not anticipate because Tsunoda's light distribution is isotropic (equal in all directions), so the light entering at a normal angle is not refracted at all. (This is the Patent Owner's Response argument, filed 2016-07-01.)
• The Board's construction of "deformities" ("any change in the shape or geometry of a surface and/or coating or surface treatment that causes a portion of the light to be emitted") was carried over into the sibling '370/'974 cases and drove the hearing argument.

4. Discovery milestones

• 2016-05-05 — Notice of cross-examination deposition of Petitioner's expert Thomas L. Credelle.
• 2016-07-01 — Patent Owner's Response + Werner Declaration + Credelle deposition transcript + LG's Reply ISO Renewed Motion to Stay (again importing the district court record).
• 2016-09-09 / 2016-10-03 — Notice of deposition of IDT's expert Kenneth Werner; Werner's deposition transcript filed as Ex. 1026 with Petitioner's Reply.
• Strategic texture at the hearing: Petitioner attacked Werner's credentials ("hasn't designed an LCD or backlight since 1971") versus Credelle ("named inventor in over 70 patents related to flat panel displays"), and used Credelle's report from a Mercedes-Benz matter (Ex. 2008) to test whether Credelle had treated a limitation as expressly disclosed (anticipation) or only obvious — a credibility point about hindsight.

5. "Trial," verdict, and post-trial motions

• 2017-01-10 — Oral hearing, Hearing Room G, USPTO, 300 River Place, Detroit; 45 minutes per side. (Record of Oral Hearing)
  • Patent Owner renewed the §315(b) privity argument orally, flagging the then-pending en banc Wi-Fi One v. Broadcom appeal as potentially giving the Federal Circuit authority to review the Board's institution-stage time-bar determinations (pre-Cuozzo framing).
  • The Board pushed hard on the '816 issues: on Tsunoda's isotropic light distribution and whether any refraction (as opposed to reflection) occurs, and whether Werner had done any experimentation (he had not).
• Not applicable: no jury, no verdict, no JMOL/new-trial/fee motions — those are district court mechanisms.
• 2017-02-17 — Record of Oral Hearing entered.
• 2017-03-15 — Final Written Decision; proceedings terminated. Aggregator data (IP Verse / Ex Parte) records the outcome as "Unpatentable" — i.e., claims 1, 3, and 4 cancelled. (Case detail) Flag: I could not obtain the FWD text; the specific ground(s) on which the Board prevailed (Tsunoda anticipation vs. the Pristash grounds) is unverified in my research. No Federal Circuit appeal of this FWD is reflected in the sources I could reach — also unverified.

IPR chronology at a glance

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Part B — The real infringement litigation over the '816 patent

IDT is an Acacia Research subsidiary; co-plaintiff Delaware Display Group LLC (DDG) is a separate Acacia sub. The seven litigated light-emitting-panel patents (6,755,547; 7,300,194; 7,384,177; 7,404,660; 7,434,974; 7,537,370; 8,215,816) were previously owned by Rambus and transferred to Acacia in March 2013. DDG owned an eighth patent (7,914,196). (RPX Insight, 2014-01-09)

Filing & initial pleading wave

• June 2013 — IDT opens the campaign in E.D. Tex. asserting the seven-patent group.
• July 2013 — E.D. Tex. complaints against Acer (2:13-cv-00522), Dell (…523), Hewlett-Packard (…524), Huawei (…525), BlackBerry (…526), ZTE (…527); plus Microsoft (2:13-cv-00783) and Nokia (…784).
• 2013-12-31 — D. Del. wave by DDG + IDT: Amazon (1:13-cv-02106), HTC (…107), Lenovo (…108), LG Electronics (…109), Pantech (…110), Sony (…111), VIZIO (…112).
• 2014 — a second, larger E.D. Tex. wave: Apple (2:14-cv-00030; 2:14-cv-00301), BMW (…106), Canon (…142), Garmin (…143), MiTAC (…144), Nikon (…145), TomTom (…146), Toyota (…200), Hyundai (…201), Nissan (…202), American Honda (…222), Volkswagen (…300), Google (…302), Mercedes-Benz (…535, consolidated into Lead Case 2:14-cv-201), Best Buy (…532), Mazda (…624), AT&T (…720), Sprint (…721), Verizon (…722), T-Mobile (…723); and Ford (1:14-cv-849) and GM (1:14-cv-850) in D. Del. This defendant list is reproduced verbatim in Mercedes-Benz's IPR2015-01114 petition "Related Matters" section.

Pre-trial motions of substance

• Stay litigation pending IPR — actively and repeatedly litigated. In D. Del. 1:13-cv-02109, LG moved to stay; IDT filed a Brief in Opposition to Stay (Dkt 41); LG then filed a Reply in Support of a Renewed Motion to Stay (p. 5). Both documents were later filed as exhibits in IPR2015-01866. A Memorandum Opinion (Dkt 146) in that case was also lodged as an exhibit. This is the concrete instance in which the district court and PTAB tracks were litigating the same patents in parallel.
• In E.D. Tex., a Joint Status Report on the IPR Petitions and a Defendants' Stay Hearing Presentation appear as exhibits in the PTAB docket (2015-12-01) — evidence that stay briefing was orchestrated across the MDL-style consolidated E.D. Tex. cases.
• Transfer/dismissal motions: I did not locate specific rulings; unverified.

Claim construction outcomes

• "First Texas Markman" — E.D. Tex. Claim Construction Order in IDT v. Acer, No. 2:13-cv-00522, ECF No. 101 (2014-08-26); plaintiff's opening claim construction brief at ECF No. 69 (2014-06-16). Both were filed as exhibits in the PTAB cases.
• "Second Texas Markman" — referenced in the Delaware opinion (see below) as a separate construction exercise; I could not retrieve its order.
• D. Del. — DDG/IDT v. Lenovo, No. 1:13-cv-02108, Dkt 112 (2015). (Justia) This opinion addressed '816 claim 1 and the disputed term "more in the width direction." The court noted the parties agreed there were three possible interpretations — (1) more in the width direction than the height direction; (2) more in the width direction than the length direction; (3) more in the width direction than the light was otherwise traveling after exiting the light source — and that defendants bore the burden to show at least two were plausible to render the claim indefinite under §112 ¶2. The opinion also records that the same three interpretations had been presented in both Texas Markman proceedings. LG's IPR2015-00496 filing likewise described the D. Del. court as having "issued a claim construction order" by late 2015, after more than 10 depositions.

Discovery milestones with strategic significance

• D. Del. 1:13-cv-02109: 10+ depositions taken by late 2015, with more being scheduled (per IDT's own PTAB filing); a court order resolving discovery disputes (Ex. 1024 in the IPR); LGD's objections and responses to Plaintiffs' Fourth Set of Requests (2015-10-21, Ex. 1025); and a supply agreement between K.J. Pretech and LG Display/LGE that surfaced in the district court record and became the sole basis for the PTAB privity-discovery motion. This is the single most consequential discovery event of the entire dispute: it was the vehicle by which IDT tried to knock out the K.J. Pretech IPRs on §315(b) grounds.
• Trial proximity as strategic leverage: at the 2017-01-10 PTAB hearing, Petitioner's counsel noted on the record that both VIZIO and Lenovo had imminent district court trials on two of the three patents "within the next month or so" — i.e., roughly February 2017 in D. Del. That is why VIZIO and Lenovo joined the PTAB proceedings and appeared at the hearing.

Trial events, verdict, post-trial motions, and final disposition

I was not able to verify any jury verdict, JMOL/new-trial ruling, fee award, or specific settlement in the district court cases involving the '816 patent, and I will not guess at them. What the record does establish:

• Numerous cases ran to claim construction (at least three constructions: two in Texas, one in Delaware), and at least two cases (VIZIO, Lenovo) reached the eve of trial in early 2017 — at which point the joined IPRs were being decided.
• The K.J. Pretech IPR itself was not a party to the Delaware litigation (IDT acknowledged in its PTAB filing that "Petitioner is not a party to the aforementioned district court proceedings").
• The IPR campaign accelerated once institution issued in 2016: VIZIO's IPR2016-00910 and Lenovo's IPR2016-00914 were joined into IPR2015-01866/01867/01868.

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Part C — Parallel PTAB proceedings on U.S. 8,215,816 and their effect

Effect on the litigation. The K.J. Pretech/Mercedes-Benz/VIZIO/Lenovo IPR campaign produced institution denials twice for LG (2015-01-13 and 2015-07-20), which is why LG could not itself invalidate the '816 at the PTAB and instead fought the §315(b) privity battle through K.J. Pretech's petition. Conversely, the K.J. Pretech petition did institute where LG's had failed — a materially different prior-art combination (Tsunoda alone for anticipation; Pristash alone and Pristash+Suzawa for obviousness). The March 2017 cancellation of claims 1, 3, and 4 would, if carried into a certificate, have removed the asserted '816 claims from the district court cases that had not yet gone to trial (VIZIO, Lenovo) and undercut the remaining E.D. Tex. and D. Del. actions asserting the '816. I could not verify from primary sources whether an IPR certificate issued or how the district courts handled the FWD — that is the key open question.

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What is verified vs. not

Well sourced (primary or near-primary): IPR2015-01866 filing date, grounds, exhibits, counsel, judges; the 2015-11-20 Board order and Garmin framing; institution date 2016-03-17; the wiring of the sibling '370/'974 cases; the 2017-01-10 hearing (transcript); IDT's §315(b)/privity theory and the K.J. Pretech–LG supply agreement; the exhaustive list of district court suits asserting the '816; the D. Del. Lenovo claim construction opinion on "more in the width direction"; the two Texas Markman constructions; IPR2014-01095 and IPR2015-00496 denials; IPR2015-01867/-01868 and IPR2016-00910/-00914.

Not verified / flagged: the text and precise holding of the 2017-03-15 FWD (aggregator metadata says "unpatentable"); the full set of grounds instituted on 2016-03-17; the disposition of IDT's motion for additional discovery; any Federal Circuit appeal; and any verdict, settlement, or dismissal in the district court cases.

Bottom line: if you are looking for a litigation with pleadings, a Markman order, a trial, and a final judgment, the "litigation" is IDT/Delaware Display Group's multi-district assertion campaign (principally E.D. Tex. 2:13-cv-522 et seq., Lead 2:14-cv-201, and D. Del. 1:13-cv-02106 through -02112). IPR2015-01866 was the PTAB flank of that campaign — filed by a Korean backlight supplier (K.J. Pretech) aligned with LG, financed by the same customer relationship that IDT tried to use to time-bar the petition, and decided in Petitioner's favor on 2017-03-15.

I'll search several angles for press coverage of this IPR and the underlying IDT assertion campaign.

Initial results are mostly primary sources and aggregators. Let me hunt specifically for press reporting on the outcome, the Delaware trials, and the Acacia/NPE angle.

Press coverage specifically about IPR2015‑01866 is thin and almost entirely practitioner-facing rather than mainstream. The most direct piece I found is a case note authored by Drinker Biddle (now Faegre Drinker) and carried in the National Law Review, "K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC: Motion for Additional Discovery Authorized" (published Jan. 1, 2016). It reports that the Board authorized IDT to move for additional discovery into whether "LG Display or LG Electronics and Petitioner are privies," based on a supply agreement between K.J. Pretech and LG that "may contain indemnification obligations," plus "admissions of payment made in conjunction with discovery responses." The takeaway the firm drew — "providing specific information gleaned from a related district court litigation that suggests that additional discovery may exist to show that there are other real parties‑in‑interest will increase a patent owner's chances of getting authorization" — is the only substantive analyst gloss I found on the case's central threshold fight. Separately, the same outlet's PTO Litigation Center Report for September 14, 2015 (National Law Review) recorded the bare filing — trial number, 9/11/2015 filing date, patent 8,215,816, "LIGHT EMITTING PANEL ASSEMBLIES," petitioner K.J. Pretech, Tech Center 2800 — with no analysis. I found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Ars Technica, The Verge, Patently‑O, EFF Deeplinks, JD Supra, or Law360 article discussing the Pretech IPR itself, and nothing at all reporting the March 15, 2017 Final Written Decision.

The broader IDT/Acacia assertion campaign that spawned the IPR drew more coverage, most of it hostile and NPE-focused. Techdirt published "Know Your Troll: Innovative Display Technologies Targeting Any Company That Creates A Product With An LCD Screen," describing IDT as an Austin, Texas entity that "doesn't make any products or even have its own website," tracing its patents to Acacia and, upstream, to Rambus, and cataloguing suits against "cell phone distributors like Verizon, AT&T and Apple" plus "auto manufacturers (Volkswagen, Mercedes‑Benz, Mazda), camera companies (Canon, Nikon) and GPS suppliers (TomTom, Garmin)." Two reported figures from that piece are worth flagging because they go beyond the court record: Techdirt said IDT's second suit against Apple asked for "nearly $6 billion in 'accrued royalties,'" and that IDT had "already secured a licensing agreement from Garmin" but otherwise had a low conversion rate across "34 cases in litigation." The article also quotes Acacia's Marvin Key defending the model — "The implication in almost everything you read is that there is nothing positive at all about licensing patents… And that's simply untrue" — alongside Techdirt's own count that Acacia ran "63 subsidiaries [and] 669 lawsuits." I could not confirm the article's exact publication date from my results; its figures are consistent with the 2014 campaign, so treat the numbers as point‑in‑time.

Law360 covered the automotive flank of the same campaign, in Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Volkswagen AG et al.: a April 7, 2014 item reporting that "Volkswagen AG and Audi AG were hit with a patent suit in Texas federal court Monday… for allegedly infringing seven of its patents for light-emitting panel assemblies — mechanisms used to display speed and other information on car dashboards," and a June 3, 2014 item reporting that "Two Volkswagen Group of America units urged a Texas federal judge… to toss a lawsuit… saying the allegations are so broad that they encompass 'essentially every Volkswagen and Audi' vehicle sold in the U.S." That breadth objection is the press-side echo of the same overbroad-claim problem that later defeated the '816 claims at the Board. A Taiwan trade/policy outlet, the Science & Technology Policy Research and Information Center (STPI) (iknow.stpi.niar.org.tw), ran a Chinese-language analysis of the June 2013 Dell/Acer/HP/Huawei/ZTE/BlackBerry wave that is the most detailed published account I found of the chain of title — Lumitex → Lee Mang‑Shiang/Solid State Opto → Rambus → Acacia → IDT — and reports that Rambus paid US$26 million for part of the optics portfolio while retaining a right to continue using the patents; STPI also flags IDT as a Texas‑based NPE holding some 51 U.S. patents. That title narrative is secondary reporting, not a court finding, and it partially conflicts with the metadata‑flagged uncertainty in the earlier sections about Rambus's role as assignee of record.

Net assessment: this is a case the trade press tracked as a data point about Acacia's IDT campaign and about supplier-as-proxy IPR filing, not as an event in its own right. The only outlet to treat the Pretech proceeding on its own terms was a law‑firm client alert, and no outlet I could find reported the outcome — the cancellation of claims 1, 3 and 4 — or any damages award, settlement term, or market reaction tied to IPR2015‑01866. I found no reporting on a district‑court verdict in the parallel LG or Lenovo actions, so I cannot corroborate (or contradict) the earlier sections' open question about how those cases resolved.

Sources

• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• And, by the way, this is a much thicker device
• KJ Pretech filed a petition to institute an inter partes review of claims 1, 4- 6, 9, 13, 29, and 47 of the '370 patent on Septe...
• 571- 272- 7822
• Filed on behalf of Innovative Display Technologies LLC By: Justin B
• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• Innovative Display competitive analysis - IP Verse
• PTO Litigation Center Report – September 14, 2015 - September 29, 2024
• K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies, IPR2015-01866 (P.T.A.B.)
• PLAINTIFFS' COMPLAINT
• Jeffrey R
• Filed on behalf of Innovative Display Technologies LLC By: Justin B

I'll research counsel of record for the petitioner (the "plaintiff" side) in IPR2015-01866, building on the names already surfaced in the prior section (Pluta, Siddiqui).

Good — the petitioner's counsel list is clear (Mayer Brown). Let me verify the individual attorneys, confirm the power of attorney / counsel of record, and check whether VIZIO's joined counsel were added.

Counsel of Record — Petitioner K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd.

Framing caveat first. There is no plaintiff's complaint in this matter, and no district court docket for IPR2015‑01866. The case is an inter partes review, and the party occupying the plaintiff-side posture is K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. (Petitioner). For consistency with the case metadata — which lists K.J. Pretech as "Plaintiff(s)" and IDT as "Defendant(s)" — the table below covers Pretech's counsel. If what you actually need is the patent owner's side (IDT, the party that filed the underlying Delaware infringement actions and would be the plaintiff there), that team — Justin B. Kimble, Jeffrey R. Bragalone and T. William Kennedy of Bragalone Conroy P.C. — was already identified in the prior section and is not repeated here.

The team: Mayer Brown LLP

Every attorney of record for Pretech in this IPR was from Mayer Brown LLP. The roster is confirmed in two independent Board/party filings: the Board's Order — Conduct of the Proceedings, Paper 17 (Apr. 20, 2016) and Petitioner's Notice of Deposition of Kenneth Werner (Sept. 9, 2016). Both list the full names, registration numbers, firm, and addresses:

No local counsel and no in-house counsel appear in the PTAB record — unsurprising for a Board proceeding, where pro hac vice admission substitutes for the local-counsel requirement. IDT's pro hac vice motion in the companion case (IPR2015‑01868, Paper 28) confirms the Board's dual-track convention: a registered practitioner as lead (Kimble, for IDT; Pluta, for Pretech) with non-registered litigators appearing by PHV motion. Beaber is the Pretech-side instance of that pattern.

Two points worth flagging

1. Stale/conflicting firm data on one attorney. Some aggregator pages (PlainSite, and the ipverse Greyb case page) show Pluta affiliated with Brinks Gilson & Lione, and ipverse lists only "Robert Pluta" as petitioner counsel. The Brinks record appears to reflect early-career prosecution filings under the same registration number (50,970) and is not the counsel of record here; every operative PTAB paper in 2015–2017 shows him at Mayer Brown. I flag this so a downstream reader doesn't cite Brinks for this case.

2. The counsel overlap is the RPI story. All six Pretech attorneys were Mayer Brown attorneys, and the same firm and largely the same individuals were simultaneously defending LG Electronics / LG Display in the very Delaware actions (No. 1:13‑cv‑02109 and sister cases) in which IDT was asserting the '816 patent and its siblings. That is the factual backdrop to IDT's § 312(a)(2)/§ 315(b) real‑party‑in‑interest and privity challenge and its motion for additional discovery into the Pretech–LG supply and indemnification arrangement (PTAB Order Nov. 20, 2015; IDT motion Dec. 1, 2015; opposition Dec. 8, 2015) — a fight in which the identity of counsel on both sides of the supply relationship was itself a data point. Sources corroborating the cross-representation: Mayer Brown attorney bios (Paul, Streff Bonner, Pluta) listing IDT v. LG Electronics/LG Display and IDT v. Hyundai defense work, and the LG amicus/conflict filings in the Federal Circuit and later Pantech matters.

Sourcing note. The names, registration numbers, firm, and addresses above come from primary PTAB filings (Paper 17 Order; Petitioner's Sept. 9, 2016 Notice of Deposition; the consolidated oral hearing transcript) as indexed on Docket Alarm and the USPTO PTAB E2E system. Biographical detail (bar admissions, prior employers, case credits) comes from Mayer Brown's own attorney pages and from IPWatchdog/Lawtally profiles — i.e., attorney/firm self-reporting, not court findings. I did not retrieve a signed Power of Attorney or an updated mandatory-notices paper from the Pretech side specifically; the roster above is reconstructed from Board orders and party filings that list counsel of record. If any attorney withdrew or substituted after the March 15, 2017 Final Written Decision, no such entry surfaced in my searches. The VIZIO petitioners whose IPRs were joined (IPR2016‑00910, ‑00914) would have had their own separate counsel; I did not confirm who those attorneys were, so I do not attribute VIZIO's counsel to Pretech.

I'll research counsel of record from several angles. Note up front: this "case" is an IPR, so the responding party is the Patent Owner (Innovative Display Technologies), while the parallel infringement actions have OEM defendants (LG, etc.). I'll pursue both to make sure I capture whoever counts as "defendant" here.

Excellent — I now have the core rosters. Let me verify office locations, registration numbers, and the parallel district-court defense teams.

Counsel of Record — IPR2015‑01866 (and the parallel infringement action)

Threshold framing (important). The case as docketed is an inter partes review, not an infringement suit. There is no "defendant" in the Article III sense: the parties are Petitioner K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. (the plaintiff analogue) and Patent Owner Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") (the responding party — functionally the defendant). So the direct answer to "who represents the defendant" in IPR2015‑01866 is IDT's counsel of record, the firm Bragalone Conroy P.C. of Dallas. Because the prompt frames this as "the patent infringement case," I also give the actual infringement defendants' counsel in the parallel D. Del. action Delaware Display Group LLC v. LG Electronics Inc., No. 1:13‑cv‑02109 (D. Del.) — where the defendants are the LG entities — since that is what "defendants" would mean if the question is directed at the underlying suit. I flag clearly which is which.

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A. IPR2015‑01866 — Patent Owner (responding party) counsel of record

Roster taken from the Board's Order — Conduct of the Proceedings, Paper 17 (Apr. 20, 2016) in IPR2015‑01866/‑01867/‑01868, which lists the appearance of record, together with the § 42.10(c) pro hac vice motions filed in the three related proceedings.

No local counsel exists at the PTAB — unlike district court, the Board does not require a Delaware/venue‑local attorney, so the entire IDT trial team is the Dallas firm. (Note: one hearing transcript renders the name as "Justine Kimble"; the filings and signature blocks consistently show Justin B. Kimble.)

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B. IPR2015‑01866 — Petitioner counsel (for symmetry / adverse‑party context)

Notable overlap worth flagging: the same Mayer Brown team (Pluta, Streff, Paul, Lam) represented the LG defendants in the parallel Delaware infringement action while representing K.J. Pretech in the IPRs — precisely the overlap that fueled IDT's § 315(b) real‑party‑in‑interest/privity fight and its additional‑discovery motion (authorized Nov. 20, 2015). Pluta's own firm bio confirms he represented LG Electronics/LG Display in Innovative Display Technologies (D. Del. 2013).

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C. The actual infringement defendants — Delaware Display Group LLC v. LG Electronics Inc., No. 1:13‑cv‑02109‑RGA (D. Del., Andrews, J.)

Defendants: LG Electronics Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., LG Display Co., Ltd., and LG Display America, Inc. Counsel appearing on the 1:13‑cv‑02109 docket sheet:

• Benjamin J. Schladweiler — lead (Delaware) counsel, Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP, 100 S. West Street, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE.
• Mayer Brown LLP (pro hac vice) — Robert G. Pluta, Amanda K. Streff, Baldine B. Paul, Anita Y. Lam, Jamie B. Beaber, Kfir B. Levy, Michael L. Lindinger, Tiffany A. Miller, Alison T. Gelsleichter — the national/LG‑side team. (Robert G. Pluta is listed by his firm as counsel "representing defendants LG Electronics, Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., LG Display Co., Ltd., and LG Display America, Inc." in this D. Del. action.)
• Mark H. Remus and Taras A. Gracey (Steptoe) appear on the docket as terminated 05/29/2014, i.e., early counsel who withdrew; I did not verify which defendant they initially served, so treat that assignment as unconfirmed.

(In the companion case 1:13‑cv‑02108 against Lenovo, Judge Andrews' summary judgment opinion confirms the same plaintiff‑side structure — Bragalone Conroy + Farnan LLP — appeared for IDT/Delaware Display Group. I did not separately verify the Lenovo defendants' counsel roster.)

Plaintiff‑side counsel (for contrast, IDT in Delaware): Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Bragalone, Conroy, Kimble, Olejko, Kennedy — all pro hac vice) with Farnan LLP as Delaware local counsel — Joseph J. Farnan, Jr. (lead), Brian E. Farnan, Michael J. Farnan, 919 N. Market Street, 12th Floor, Wilmington, DE.

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D. Caveats and sourcing

• The Board record does not designate any "defendant." If the question is read strictly against the case metadata (an IPR), the correct "defense‑side" roster is § A above (Bragalone Conroy for IDT); the LG defendant team in § C answers only if the question is aimed at the underlying infringement litigation.
• Roster currency: the § A/§ B names come from the Apr. 20, 2016 appearance order and the Dec. 2016 pro hac vice filings; I did not retrieve a mid‑2017 notice confirming no further substitutions before the Mar. 15, 2017 FWD. Counsel lists in PTAB are typically static within a trial once briefs close, so this is a low risk.
• Not verified / not stated: Nicholas C. Kliewer's registration number; VIZIO's counsel in the joined IPRs (IPR2016‑00910/‑00914); the initial defendant assignments for the terminated Steptoe attorneys. I have deliberately omitted these rather than guess.
• No sealed‑counsel issue: the IPR had a protective order (Apr. 18, 2016 call) but the counsel designations are public. In the D. Del. case some filings were sealed, but the attorney appearances are on the public docket sheet.

Primary sources: PTAB Order — Conduct of the Proceedings, IPR2015‑01866/‑01867/‑01868, Paper 17 (Apr. 20, 2016) (counsel list); Patent Owner § 42.10(c) motions to admit Bragalone and Kennedy (Dec. 15, 2016); Record of Oral Hearing, consolidated argument (transcript filed Feb. 17, 2017); D. Del. Civil Docket 1:13‑cv‑02109‑RGA (Ex. 2011 docket sheet); Bragalone Conroy pro hac vice declaration (IPR2014‑01094); Mayer Brown attorney bios for Pluta and Siddiqui; GreyB IP Verse case page (IPR2015‑01866 "Respondent Counsel: Justin Kimble / Petitioner Counsel: Robert Pluta").