Lab Technology LLC v. Verizon Communications Inc.

I'll research this case across dockets, patent records, and litigation news.

Some important discrepancies are emerging (the docket shows the case was dismissed and the caption changed). Let me dig deeper.

Now let me verify the docket outcome, prior campaigns, and any IPR activity.

Case Overview and Background

Parties. Plaintiff Lab Technology LLC is a non-practicing entity (NPE/PAE) — a shell plaintiff formed in New Mexico on January 8, 2024, with no apparent operations, personnel, or products, that acquired a portfolio of telecom patents originating with TP Lab, Inc., a Palo Alto R&D shop whose founder/CEO is Chi Fai Ho and whose prolific inventor is Shin Cheung Simon Chiu (Mondaq, "Yet Another New Mexico Plaintiff Launches Patent Litigation," May 31, 2024). Lab Technology's counsel in this case was Isaac Phillip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Dkts. 20, 21, 27), a repeat filer for recently formed NPEs. Defendant Verizon Communications Inc. — the named defendant per the case metadata — is the Verizon holding company; early in the case the parties stipulated to substitute the operating subsidiary Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless, and the caption was amended accordingly (Dkts. 20–24; Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne's Aug. 22, 2024 orders dismissing Verizon Communications without prejudice and amending the caption). Verizon's defense team included Duane Morris LLP (Kevin Paul Anderson, Elissa Sanford) and DNL Zito (Benjamin Charles Deming) per the PACER Monitor docket; I could not verify the roles of other attorneys listed on aggregated docket pages (Deron Dacus, Holly Engelmann), so I flag those as unconfirmed.

Accused technology. The accused instrumentality is Verizon's Care Smart app/device ecosystem — a companion smartwatch product sold for kids and seniors that provides "communications and location services for smartwatches" (Mondaq; RPX, "Seven Defendants Hit with Patents from Former TP Lab Portfolio," June 8, 2024). Notably, the complaint's substantive infringement allegations were thin: a third-party complaint analysis of the original pleading found that the complaint identified only undefined "Exemplary Defendant Products" and incorporated claim charts (Exhibits 4–6) that were not filed with the court, so the operative mapping of claim elements to the Care Smart app is not publicly documented in the pleadings (ex parte complaint analysis, 2:24-cv-00323). The metadata lists only U.S. Patent No. 9,219,982 as at issue, and that is the patent Lab Technology has consistently pressed in later suits; however, the May 2024 complaint as filed pleaded three patents — the '982, 8,503,973 (emergency-caller location data / E911 family) and 8,515,032 (recording and analyzing voice-message usage data) — and RPX recorded three patents-in-suit. I treat '982 as the operative asserted patent per the metadata while noting the broader original pleading.

The '982 patent. Apparatus and method for automatically refreshing a display of a telephone — U.S. 9,219,982, application 14/730,866, filed June 4, 2015, issued Dec. 22, 2015, with an earliest priority date of June 22, 2006, and sole named inventor Shin Cheung Simon Chiu (originally TP Lab). It claims a telephone whose display is automatically "refreshed" to show context-appropriate communication services, where a "function selector" obtains the phone's current location from a location server (e.g., a Wi-Fi network element, not GPS) and selects a stored "function" mapping that location/context to services. Independent claim 1 is an apparatus claim and claim 13 a method claim; Lab Technology's later suits have asserted claim 13 specifically.

Procedural Posture, Venue, and Why It Matters

The case was filed May 3, 2024 in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas (2:24-cv-00323), assigned to Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap with referral to Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne (RPX Insight; PACER Monitor). The same day Lab Technology filed a companion case against Samsung (2:24-cv-00324) before the same judge. Venue here is the standard E.D. Tex./Gilstrap calculus: a high-volume patent docket, established local rules and scheduling order pushing cases toward claim construction and trial relatively quickly, and — critically post-TC Heartland — a defendant footprint that supports venue, which is likely why plaintiff swapped the holding company (Verizon Communications) for the operating subsidiary (Cellco/Verizon Wireless), an entity with retail and network presence in the district. The case did not reach Markman: after Cellco answered the amended complaint on Sept. 4, 2024 (Dkt. 25), the parties filed a joint motion to dismiss on Nov. 21, 2024 (Dkt. 27), and Judge Gilstrap dismissed the case on Dec. 3, 2024, with the AO-120 form sent to the PTO on Dec. 4 (Dkts. 28–29). This is a material point of divergence from the case metadata's "asserted" status: public docket records show the action closed on Dec. 4, 2024 after 216 days, and RPX lists it as closed. The motion was joint (rather than a plaintiff's unilateral Rule 41(a) dismissal), which is the usual signature of a confidential settlement or license. I could not verify the dismissal's prejudice terms from the available sources, so I flag that as an open item.

Why the Case Is Notable

1. It is a node in a large, fast-moving 2024–2026 NPE campaign. Lab Technology immediately expanded to Amazon, Anritsu, AT&T, Bose, Ericsson, Quectel, and Stryker (RPX, June 8, 2024) and later to Lumen, Mitel, 3CX, Sangoma, Everbridge, LifeStation, ETA Transit, Greenlight, and Solera, among others. Cases in this campaign typically end quickly — Sangoma dismissed 44 days after filing, Lumen roughly two months, LifeStation settled in 110 days — so the Verizon case's 216-day lifespan fits the pattern rather than departing from it. Unified Patents has run PATROLL crowdsourcing contests on Lab Technology's '982 and '032 patents, stating the '982 patent "had been asserted against Samsung, HTC, LG, Verizon, and Lyft" (Unified Patents News & Views) — I could not independently verify the Lyft assertion, so treat that as a source-attributed claim.

2. The '982 patent's validity story has now turned decisively against the plaintiff. The patent survived an Alice §101 challenge in Local Intelligence, LLC v. HTC America, Inc., No. 5:17-cv-06437-EJD (N.D. Cal. Apr. 6, 2018) (Davila, J.), where the court relied on Core Wireless and held the claims recited a specific improvement to user interfaces (patentdocs/JD Supra summary). That same family was previously asserted by Dominion Harbor's Local Intelligence against Samsung (E.D. Tex.), HTC (N.D. Cal.), and LG (D. Del.) — the California and Texas cases ended in the run-up to claim construction, and LG was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice. But in Lab Technology LLC v. Greenlight Financial Technology, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01356-JCB (D. Del. July 23, 2026), the court held claim 13 of the '982 patent ineligible under §101 and dismissed with prejudice, denying leave to amend (VitalLaw/IP Law Daily). A 2026 third-party docket analysis also references a Jan. 30, 2026 decision involving USAA said to have upheld '982 eligibility; I have not verified that ruling, so it should be treated as unconfirmed. The practical significance for the Verizon matter is that the sole metadata-listed patent has now been invalidated by a district court, which would have sharply reduced settlement value had the case still been pending.

3. Chain-of-title opacity and the broader "New Mexico plaintiff" pattern. As of mid-2024, USPTO assignment records reportedly did not reflect any assignment of the asserted patents from TP Lab to Lab Technology, even though the complaint pleaded ownership (Mondaq). That combination — newly formed entity, unrecorded assignment, bare-bones claim charts, Rabicoff Law as counsel — is the archetype that commentators and Unified Patents have flagged, and it overlaps with the E911/Kari's Law and RAY BAUM'S Act compliance exposure that makes the sibling '973 patent commercially salient for VoIP/UCaaS providers. Finally, Verizon's Care Smart line is a repeat target: WirelessWerx IP LLC v. Verizon Communications Inc., No. 7:25-cv-00198 (W.D. Tex., filed Aug. 19, 2025), asserts a geofencing/"movable entity" patent against the same Care Smart products — so even with this case closed, Care Smart remains a live NPE target for Verizon.

Sourcing gaps to note: I found no evidence of an IPR or PGR petition against the '982 patent at the PTAB (no IPR number surfaced in searches of Unified Patents/PTAB coverage), but I did not run an exhaustive PTAB docket check, so absence of an IPR is an inference, not a verified fact. The terms (with or without prejudice) of the Dec. 3, 2024 dismissal order are not visible in the free docket excerpts I could access.

I'll research this case across dockets, PTAB, and legal news sources.

Lab Technology LLC v. Verizon Communications Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00323 (E.D. Tex.) — Key Legal Developments and Outcome

Bottom line: This case never reached the merits. It was filed 2024-05-03, saw two non-substantive procedural events (a party substitution and a protective/discovery order), an answer, and was then voluntarily dismissed on joint motion on 2024-12-03/04, roughly seven months after filing and well before any Markman, summary-judgment, or pretrial activity. No PTAB proceeding on the '982 patent was found. The dismissal generated no opinion, no judgment, and no appeal.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

2024-05-03 — Complaint filed (Doc. 1). Lab Technology LLC (a New Mexico entity formed 2024-01-08, represented by Isaac Phillip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC) sued Verizon Communications Inc. in E.D. Tex., assigned to Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap with Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne. Cause: 35 U.S.C. § 271 patent infringement; Nature of suit 830. Filing fee receipt ATXEDC-10120484.

• Patents asserted at filing: The complaint asserted three patents traced to the TP Lab, Inc. portfolio — U.S. 9,219,982 (the '982 patent, "Apparatus and method for automatically refreshing a display of a telephone"); U.S. 8,503,973 (emergency caller location); and U.S. 8,515,032 (voice message recordation/analysis). (Note: the case metadata circulated for this matter lists only the '982 patent; that reflects the case as later characterized, but the operative pleading asserted the three-patent set, and the complaint's internal counts run separately for each.)
• Accused instrumentality: the Verizon Care Smart app (a communications/location service for smartwatches), consistent with the case summary. The Mondaq/RPX analysis also notes the '973 patent was directed at the Verizon Webex Cloud Communication platform and Enhanced 911 (E911) functionality, i.e., the '982 and '973 counts had distinct accused products.
• Pleading quality: The complaint incorporated claim charts by reference to Exhibits 4–6, which were not filed with the complaint; the body pleaded only generic "Exemplary Defendant Products" and "satisfy all elements" language. Independent claims 1 and 13 were the representative asserted claims of the '982 patent. This is thin pleading of the type that invites a § 101 or § 112 motion — which never materialized here.
• Related same-day filing: Lab Technology also sued Samsung Electronics America in E.D. Tex. (2:24-cv-00324) the same day, asserting five patents including the same three; that case was voluntarily dismissed 2024-05-07/13 (Docs. 5–7), an early signal of the campaign's churn rate.
• Portfolio provenance: the asserted patents issued to TP Lab, Inc. (sole inventor Shin Cheung Simon Chiu for the '982 patent; priority date ~2006-06-22), were previously held by Dominion Harbor's Local Intelligence, LLC, were transferred back to TP Lab in Nov. 2019, and were asserted by Lab Technology in 2024. Public USPTO assignment records at the time reportedly did not reflect the assignment to Lab Technology, which the plaintiff nonetheless pleaded.

Context on the '982 patent's § 101 exposure (pre-suit):

• Local Intelligence, LLC v. HTC America, Inc., No. 5:17-cv-06437-EJD (N.D. Cal.) — Judge Edward J. Davila denied HTC's Rule 12(b)(6) Alice motion (order at Dkt. 37, Apr. 2018), concluding the claimed "specific improvement to user interfaces" was not an abstract idea. This was Lab Technology's principal shield on eligibility.
• Local Intelligence v. Samsung (E.D. Tex.) — dismissed with prejudice January 2019, before claim construction.
• Local Intelligence v. LGE (D. Del.) — voluntarily dismissed with prejudice before any responsive pleading.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

There were no substantive contested motions. The docket reflects only case-management and party-structure motions:

No motion to dismiss (§ 101 or Rule 12(b)(6)), no motion to transfer venue, no motion to stay pending IPR, and no summary-judgment motion was filed. The verdict of the docket is the absence of any merits litigation.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

None. The case was dismissed before the scheduling order's claim-construction phase matured. No claim terms were construed, no Markman opinion or order issued, and no local-rule P.R. 4-1 through 4-5 exchange is reflected. This matters doctrinally: the '982 claims' scope — particularly the "location server" limitation that later drove a prosecution-disclaimer fight — was never judicially construed here.

4. Discovery milestones with strategic significance

• Discovery Order (Doc. 14) and Protective Order (Doc. 22, entered 2024-08-22) were the only discovery-related events. The protective order was entered one day after the amended complaint and substitution motion, which is a common sequencing where a defendant agrees to case-management orders on condition that the originally-named (and potentially mis-joined) entity be replaced by the operating subsidiary.
• No infringement contentions, invalidity contentions, or document-production disputes appear on the docket. There is no evidence in the available record of a stay request, an IPR filing as leverage, or settlement-track mediation being docketed.
• The absence of any docketed discovery motion practice, combined with the joint dismissal ~3 months after the answer, is consistent with an early business resolution rather than litigation attrition — but the docket does not disclose the terms, and I could not source any settlement or license announcement. Treat that characterization as inference, not fact.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial date was set, no pretrial order issued, no verdict, no JMOL/new-trial motion, and no fee motion (no "exceptional case" motion under § 285 is docketed, which is notable given the case terminated by agreement rather than by judgment).

6. Disposition / present posture

• 2024-09-04 — Answer (Doc. 25) filed by Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless to the First Amended Complaint, together with a Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1(a)(1) disclosure statement (Doc. 26). The docket entry is a straight answer; no counterclaims for declaratory judgment of invalidity or non-infringement appear on the docket as captured. (A DJ counterclaim would be the natural defensive move given the § 101 history — its absence is worth verifying against the native PACER docket.)
• 2024-11-21 — JOINT MOTION to Dismiss (Doc. 27), filed by Lab Technology (Rabicoff) with proposed order. A joint motion signals both sides agreed to end the case.
• 2024-12-03 — ORDER DISMISSING CASE signed by District Judge Rodney Gilstrap (Doc. 28, entered 2024-12-04), terminating Doc. 27.
• 2024-12-04 — AO 120 patent/trademark form transmitted to the USPTO Director (Doc. 29); case closed.
• Present posture: Closed/terminated 2024-12-04, 216 days in litigation. No appeal was taken — no Federal Circuit docket on this case was found. No re-filing against Verizon, Cellco, or Verizon Wireless by Lab Technology has been located as of today.

⚠️ Unsourced point: Available aggregators (RPX Insight, Patexia) classify the disposition as "Dismissed – Other," and the PACER Monitor docket abstract of the dismissal order does not recite "with" or "without prejudice." Because it was a joint motion to dismiss, the proposed order likely specified the prejudice term, but I could not retrieve Doc. 27-1 or the full text of Doc. 28. Do not assume with-prejudice effect without pulling the order.

Counsel of record (from docket): Plaintiff — Isaac Phillip Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC. Defense — Kevin Paul Anderson and Elissa Sanford (Duane Morris LLP, Washington); Benjamin Charles Deming (DNL Zito); Deron R. Dacus (The Dacus Firm, PC); Holly Elin Engelmann.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings on the asserted patents

• No IPR, PGR, or CBM petition against the '982 patent was found. Targeted searches of PTAB records returned no petition or instituted trial on U.S. 9,219,982. Verizon/Cellco did not use the IPR lever here — which is itself telltale: the case ended too fast (7 months) for an IPR (filed + 6-month institution window + 12-month trial) to have influenced it, and no stay motion was ever filed. Accordingly, PTAB activity had zero effect on this litigation.
• The same appears true for the co-asserted '973 and '032 patents based on available searches, though I could not exhaustively verify each family member's PTAB history within this review.
• Caveat: Absence of evidence in indexed search results is not proof of absence. Confirm against the PTAB Patent Trial and Appeal Board Endpoint / USPTO Patent Center docket for each of the three asserted patents before relying on this.

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8. The development that actually matters for the '982 patent (post-dismissal)

Because this case produced no merits ruling, the value of the '982 patent was determined elsewhere in Lab Technology's broader campaign — and the results are adverse to the patent:

• Lab Technology LLC v. Greenlight Financial Technology, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01356-JCB (D. Del.) — On 2026-07-23, Judge Barker granted Greenlight's motion to dismiss, holding claim 13 of the '982 patent invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101: under Alice step one the claim is directed to the abstract idea of displaying different content on a telephone based on the phone's location, and under step two it adds only generic computer components. The court denied leave to amend and dismissed with prejudice (reported 2026-07-30, Bloomberg Law / IP Law Daily). The court rejected the prosecution-disclaimer theory (finding the applicant disclaimed only the '313-Patent-style self-contained tracking, not all GPS/triangulation, and not the remote "location server"), but that victory for Lab Technology was mooted by the eligibility holding.
• Meanwhile, Lab Technology continued to assert the '982 patent against other defendants (e.g., Solera Holdings, N.D. Tex. 4:26-cv-00297, filed 2026-03-12), on the theory that § 101 eligibility had previously been upheld in the HTC case (2018) and in a USAA matter. The Greenlight ruling materially undercuts that position, and by extension undercuts the settlement leverage the '982 patent supplied in cases like this Verizon matter.

Analytical takeaway for this case: Lab Technology v. Verizon is a "dismissed-before-substance" file. The only genuinely litigated question — § 101 eligibility of the '982 claims — was never reached, was never the subject of a motion here, and was ultimately decided against the patent in a different district in 2026. Any current assessment of the Verizon/Cellco dismissal's litigation value should account for the fact that the '982 patent's validity is now compromised by the Delaware judgment, and that the dismissal here (with the prejudice term unverified) was the patent's high-water mark against Verizon.

Key sources: PACER Monitor docket 2:24-cv-00323 (docs. 1, 14, 19–29); RPX Insight litigation profile (txedce-229877) and RPX news, "Seven Defendants Hit with Patents from Former TP Lab Portfolio" (2024-06-08); Mondaq, "Yet Another New Mexico Plaintiff Launches Patent Litigation" (2024-05-31); Local Intelligence, LLC v. HTC America, Inc., No. 5:17-cv-06437-EJD (N.D. Cal.) (order denying motion to dismiss); Lab Technology LLC v. Greenlight Financial Technology, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01356-JCB, Doc. 35 (D. Del. 2026) via Justia; Bloomberg Law / IP Law Daily summary (2026-07-30).

I'll research the counsel of record for the plaintiff in this case.

I found the key plaintiff-side filing attorney. Let me verify the full appearance list and any additional plaintiff counsel.

Let me pull the actual docket sheet to confirm the plaintiff's appearances.

Plaintiff's counsel of record — Lab Technology LLC v. Verizon Communications Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00323 (E.D. Tex.)

Bottom line: The only attorney appearing for the plaintiff in this case is Isaac Phillip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago). He is plaintiff's sole counsel of record; the docket shows no separate local counsel, no co-counsel, and no in-house appearance for Lab Technology.

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Attorney detail

Docket evidence for Rabicoff's appearances (all plaintiff-side filings signed by him):

• Dkt. 1 – Complaint for Patent Infringement (filed 05/03/2024) — (Rabicoff, Isaac)
• Notice of Attorney Appearance by Isaac Phillip Rabicoff on behalf of Lab Technology LLC (filed 05/03/2024, in the companion case 2:24-cv-00324 and consistent with the appearance pattern in -00323)
• Dkt. 19 – Joint Motion for Entry of Protective Order by Lab Technology LLC (08/20/2024)
• Dkt. 20 – First Amended Complaint against Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless (08/21/2024)
• Dkt. 21 – Unopposed Motion to Substitute Party / Amend Caption (08/21/2024)
• Dkt. 27 – Joint Motion to Dismiss by Lab Technology LLC (11/21/2024) → granted, Dkt. 28 (order dismissing, 12/03/2024); Dkt. 29 AO-120 form.

Sources: PacerMonitor docket, 2:24-cv-00323; RPX Insight case page; CourtListener representation record for Lab Technology in the parallel Zoom matter (confirming Rabicoff Law LLC's Chicago address of record).

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Important caveats and things I could not confirm

1. No Texas local counsel is confirmed. E.D. Tex. practice commonly involves a Tyler/Marshall-based local attorney, and aggregator party blocks for this docket also list Deron R. Dacus (The Dacus Firm, PC) and Holly Elin Engelmann. Based on how those names align with the defense entries (and The Dacus Firm's typical role as defense-side local counsel in E.D. Tex.), I assess them as defendant-side, not plaintiff-side — but the scraped party blocks are ambiguous, so I cannot state with certainty that Dacus/Engelmann never appeared for the plaintiff. Direct PACER docket review of Dkts. 2–5 is needed to close this out.

2. No pro hac vice motion located. I did not find a pro hac vice application for Rabicoff in this case (he does file them where required — e.g., Lab Technology v. LifeStation, S.D.N.Y., Dkt. 6). He appears to have filed directly in E.D. Tex.

3. Other attorneys appear for Lab Technology in other cases but not this one. Brian E. Lutness (Silverman, McDonald & Friedman) represented Lab Technology in the Delaware Greenlight case (Lab Technology LLC v. Greenlight Financial Technology, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01356-JCB (D. Del. Jul. 23, 2026)), and Glenn Truitt (Private Wealth Law, Inc.) appeared in Lab Technology v. TELUS International (U.S.) Corp., No. 2:26-cv-00127 (D. Nev.). Neither is counsel of record in 2:24-cv-00323.

4. Case posture. The action against Verizon Communications Inc. was dismissed without prejudice and the caption amended to Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless (Dkt. 23, 24, 8/23/2024). The entire case was then dismissed on the parties' joint motion (Dkt. 28, 12/03/2024 — RPX records closure 12/04/2024). So the "counsel of record" snapshot above is as of dismissal; there is no pending litigation in this docket.

5. In-house counsel: No in-house attorney for Lab Technology (a New Mexico entity formed January 8, 2024, with "uncertain management or personnel") appears on the docket. I found no evidence of any.

6. For context (not plaintiff's counsel): Defense-side counsel appearing included Kevin Paul Anderson and Elissa Sanford (Duane Morris LLP) and Benjamin Charles Deming (DNL Zito), per the PacerMonitor party listing.

If you need the appearance list verified line-by-line, the next step is a direct PACER pull of the docket report (all entries, "Attorney(s) appearing" section) for 2:24-cv-00323, which I could not fully retrieve from public aggregators.

I'll research the counsel of record for Verizon in this case using multiple search approaches.

Let me dig into the docket and firm information for the specific attorneys listed.

Counsel of Record — Defendant Side

Important scope caveat first: This docket has an unusual posture that affects the answer. The case as filed on 5/3/2024 named Verizon Communications Inc., but on 8/21/2024 Lab Technology filed an unopposed motion to substitute party and amend the caption (Dkt. 21); Magistrate Judge Payne granted both on 8/23/2024 (Dkts. 23, 24), dismissing Verizon Communications Inc. without prejudice and re-captioning the defendant as Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless. The case was then closed on 12/4/2024 on a joint motion to dismiss (Dkt. 27; Order, Dkt. 28, signed by Judge Gilstrap 12/3/2024; AO 120 at Dkt. 29). So the defense roster below is a historical, closed-case roster, and the operative defendant at the end was Cellco, not Verizon Communications Inc.

Also, the free PACER-monitor docket page mixes parties' counsel and does not cleanly label roles. I flag below where attribution is firm vs. inferred.

Duane Morris LLP (primary defense firm)

Local counsel

Do not attribute

• Benjamin Charles Deming (DNL Zito) appears in the same PACER-monitor attorney table, but DNL Zito is a plaintiff-side NPE firm (Zito/Deming regularly represent plaintiffs such as Innovation Sciences, Factor2 Multimedia, GlycoBioSciences — see e.g. Innovation Sciences LLC v. MGM Security Services, W.D. Tex., where Deming, Zito and Ray Mort appear for the plaintiff). I could not verify a docket entry showing Deming appearing for the Verizon defendant in 2:24-cv-00323, and given the jumbled rendering of that attorney table I would not list him as defense counsel without confirming the docket entry.
• For completeness, the plaintiff's counsel is Isaac Phillip Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC (he filed the complaint, the first amended complaint at Dkt. 20, and the joint motion to dismiss at Dkt. 27). He is adverse, not defense counsel.

Bottom line

The defense team was Duane Morris LLP (Washington, DC and Austin offices) — Kevin P. Anderson as the attorney of record carrying the substantive filings, with Elissa Sanford (and apparently Holly E. Engelmann) appearing on the defense, plus a Tyler-based local firm (Deron R. Dacus / The Dacus Firm) reflected in the PACER party/attorney table. No in-house Verizon attorney identified in this case appears in the sources I could reach; the Rule 7.1 corporate disclosures (Dkts. 18, 26) were filed by outside counsel, not in-house. I could not verify a pro hac vice order, a formal "lead counsel" designation, or attorney-appearance docket entries individually by number for Sanford/Engelmann/Dacus because the free docket text available to me was truncated — if you need document-level confirmation, pull the ECF attorney-appearance entries and the Dkt. 17/25 signature blocks directly from PACER.