LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Delaware Display Group LLC

I'll research this case before drafting the overview.

Let me dig deeper into the parties, ownership, and the parallel district court litigation.

Now let me verify the litigation outcomes, appeal status, and the patent's provenance.

Framing note (important)

The caption and metadata supplied for this matter describe the PTAB proceeding IPR2015-00506, not a district court infringement action. In the PTAB caption, "Petitioner" LG Display effectively occupies the plaintiff-side role (the party attacking the patent) and "Patent Owner" Delaware Display Group occupies the defendant-side role. The underlying infringement litigation — where the roles reverse — was Delaware Display Group LLC et al. v. Lenovo Group Ltd. et al., No. 1:13-cv-02108-RGA (D. Del.) and its companion actions, plus related E.D. Tex. suits. Everything below is grounded in the PTAB papers (Petition, Institution Decision, Final Written Decision) and reporting from RPX, Justia/Docket Alarm docket records, and the National Law Review. Facts I could not source are flagged.

Parties, accused technology, and patent

Petitioner LG Display Co., Ltd. is the Korean flat-panel display manufacturer (the world's largest LCD panel maker for much of this period) and a member of the LG corporate group; the Board noted it is not majority-owned by [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) LG Electronics, Inc. — the consumer-device arm and itself a defendant in the district court campaign — separately filed IPR2015-01666 against the same claims and was joined into this proceeding (Paper 24, Feb. 5, 2016), after which the Board referred to both LG entities jointly as "Petitioner" (FWD at 1–2). Patent Owner Delaware Display Group LLC (DDG) is a licensing vehicle — an Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTG) subsidiary — asserting the patent alongside sister Acacia entity Innovative Display Technologies LLC (IDT). The patents came out of a long monetization chain: invented by Jeffery R. Parker, Gregory A. Coghlan and Robert M. Ezell, originally associated with Lumitex/Solid State Opto Limited, sold to Rambus, and then transferred by Rambus to an Acacia subsidiary in the March 7, 2013 display-portfolio deal announced by both companies, under which Rambus took an upfront payment plus future payments and retained a license.

The accused technology is the edge-lit backlight assembly used in LCD displays — light guide/panel members with an LED array coupled to the panel's input edge and a patterned light-extracting structure that redistributes (and ideally uniformizes) the light. DDG/IDT's infringement allegations targeted devices "found in smart phones, tablets, laptop computers, and televisions," as its own counsel described in the IPR (Ex. 2005, Decl. of Jeffrey R. Bragalone, ¶ 9). RPX reported the campaign defendants as Amazon, HTC, Lenovo, LG, Pantech, Sony and VIZIO. U.S. Patent No. 7,434,973 B2, "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" (issued Oct. 14, 2008; claims 1–5 challenged) claims a panel having multiple light sources optically coupled to different portions of the input-edge width, plus "a pattern of individual light extracting deformities" that increase in density, size, depth and/or height with distance from the respective light sources, and are greatest at approximate midpoints between adjacent pairs of light sources (claim 1, 14:64–15:13). The patent claims priority to a June 27, 1995 application (U.S. Patent No. 5,613,751). Co-asserted siblings in the same campaign included the '177 patent (7,384,177) and '660 patent (7,404,660) — also subjects of parallel LG-filed IPRs (IPR2015-00489 and IPR2015-00487) — plus the '974, '196, '816, '547, '194 and '370 patents per RPX's campaign coverage.

Procedural posture and why the forum mattered

LG Display filed the petition on December 30, 2014 (Tech Center 2800). The Board instituted on July 6, 2015 on only one of five asserted grounds — Ground 2, § 102 anticipation by Shinohara — denying the § 103 combinations for failure to articulate a reasoned motivation to combine, and denying one ground for failure to furnish a copy of the asserted published application under 37 C.F.R. § 104(b)(5). The panel (Chief-adjacent APJs Giannetti, Bunting, Wormmeester; opinion by Wormmeester) held oral hearing March 1, 2016 and issued the Final Written Decision June 23, 2016, holding claims 1–5 unpatentable as anticipated (Paper 26). Two aspects of that decision are worth flagging: the Board rejected DDG's real-party-in-interest challenge to the omission of LG Electronics and LG Electronics U.S.A. from the petition, reasoning that RPI turns on "control or the ability to control the proceeding" and that shared counsel with the district court defense was insufficient; and it declined to decide the priority-date dispute on the merits, holding that the question of whether the 1995 grandparent disclosure supported claim limitations added by later amendment is "ultimately a written description issue" that the Board does not resolve in an IPR — so it used the '973 application's own filing date "for this proceeding only."

The forum linkage is the story. This IPR was a defensive counter-move to the District of Delaware campaign before Judge Richard G. Andrews (Wilmington). RPX reported that in October 2015 Judge Andrews offered to stay the related D. Del. cases entirely only if IDT/DDG dropped, without prejudice, its claims on the '177, '660 and '973 patents — each already under an instituted LG IPR. DDG dropped those patents, the stay was then denied as moot, and in December 2015 DDG/IDT refiled separate complaints against Lenovo (1:15-cv-01220), LG Electronics (1:15-cv-01221) and VIZIO (1:15-cv-01222) expressly agreeing to stay those new cases pending the IPRs. Judge Andrews also handled the parallel merits work: a Nov. 6, 2015 claim construction covering the '974, '816 and '196 patents (including construing "deformities" in agreed form, which the PTAB then adopted), a Feb. 23, 2016 discovery ruling on subpoenas to Rambus, and a Jan. 18, 2017 opinion allowing DDG/IDT's damages expert to testify. A separate Eastern District of Texas action, Innovative Display Technologies v. Acer, No. 2:13-cv-522, produced the earlier claim construction order DDG cited in its preliminary response. I did not locate a Federal Circuit appeal of the '973 FWD, so I treat the June 23, 2016 decision as final on this record; if an appeal exists it is not reflected in the sources I reviewed.

Why the case is notable

It is a compact case study in the post-AIA NPE/defensive-IPR dynamic in the display sector. A portfolio that Rambus had shelved after failing to monetize it was sold to Acacia in 2013 and asserted within months against nearly the entire consumer-electronics value chain, drawing from the panel supplier (LG Display) — which was not itself the original target — an IPR that killed the patent outright, with LG Electronics buying in via joinder to bind the whole corporate family. It exemplifies the era's practice of defendants filing IPRs to force plaintiffs into dropping IPR-subject patents from district court, the tactical use of joinder to preempt RPI arguments, and the PTAB's willingness to sidestep § 112 priority/ written-description questions by re-dating the patent only "for this proceeding" (a workaround with its own appellate history). The campaign cut both ways for the NPE: the '973 was invalidated and a claim term of the co-asserted '816 patent was held indefinite, but other patents and the damages case survived into 2017 — a useful illustration that a sustained display-backlight assertion campaign produced mixed, not one-sided, results.

Sourcing caveats: The exact list of accused product models per defendant, the settlement/license outcomes of the D. Del. and E.D. Tex. actions, any post-2017 appellate activity, and current ownership of the '973 patent (post-Acacia) are not well documented in the sources I found, so I have not stated them. The E.D. Tex. judge's identity for No. 2:13-cv-522 was not verified.

I'll research this case. Note the metadata indicates this is an IPR proceeding at the PTAB (not a district court litigation), so I'll need to verify the posture and also look for the parallel district court case involving these parties.

I have strong PTAB material. Now let me research the parallel district court litigation and any appeal.

Let me pin down the district court outcome and any appeals.

Important framing note before the chronology

The case identified in the metadata — LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Delaware Display Group LLC, Case No. IPR2015-00506 — is not a district court infringement action. It is an inter partes review before the PTAB (Technology Center 2800) of U.S. Patent No. 7,434,973 B2 ("Light Emitting Panel Assemblies," issued 2008-10-14; inventors Jeffery R. Parker, Gregory A. Coghlan, Robert M. Ezell). Accordingly, there is no complaint, answer, Markman order, verdict, or JMOL in the named case. Those items exist (where they exist) in the parallel district court litigation that the '973 patent was asserted in, which I cover below.

I've also flagged several items in your requested list that I could not confirm from available sources, rather than speculate.

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1. The named case: IPR2015-00506 (PTAB) — chronological

Counsel: Petitioner — Mayer Brown LLP (Robert G. Pluta, Amanda K. Streff, Baldine B. Paul, Anita Y. Lam, Jamie B. Beaber). Patent Owner — Bragalone Conroy PC (Justin B. Kimble, Jeffrey R. Bragalone, T. William Kennedy).

Appeal: I found no Federal Circuit appeal of the June 23, 2016 Final Written Decision in my searches. The 63-day statutory appeal window would have closed in late August 2016. I cannot affirmatively confirm non-appeal, so treat "no appeal taken" as unverified.

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2. The actual infringement litigation (context for the IPR)

The '973 patent was asserted in the Delaware actions, not in the E.D. Tex. consolidated case.

• Delaware Display Group LLC et al. v. Lenovo Holding Co. Inc. et al., No. 1:13-cv-02108-RGA (D. Del.), filed 2013-12-31 — plaintiffs Delaware Display Group LLC and Innovative Display Technologies LLC; defendants Lenovo Group Ltd., Lenovo Holding Co. Inc., Lenovo (United States) Inc.; Judge Richard G. Andrews; jury demand. The '973 patent was Exhibit E to the complaint, part of a portfolio including U.S. 6,755,547; 7,300,194; 7,384,177; 7,404,660; 7,434,974; 7,537,370; 8,215,816. Related consolidated cases: 1:13-cv-02109-RGA and 1:13-cv-02112-RGA (LG defendants). Source: Justia docket; complaint excerpt via RPX.

• Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Acer Inc. et al., No. 2:13-cv-00522 (E.D. Tex., Marshall Div.) — related Parker-portfolio case against Acer, Huawei, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Dell and HP. Markman hearing 2014-07-30; Claim Construction Memorandum and Order 2014-08-26 (Dkt. 101) construing "pattern of deformities"/"pattern of light extracting deformities," "continuous side walls," "transition region," "air gap," "well defined optical deformities," etc., and holding one claim indefinite for "quite small." The court also granted Defendants' motion to strike the Werner expert declaration (Dkt. 85, 2014-07-11) and declined to consider it. The '973 patent was not among the patents construed in this order. Source: Dkt. 101, available at Docket Alarm exhibit.

Key Delaware milestones I could confirm:

• 2015-11-06 — Markman opinion (D.I. 112). Judge Andrews construed terms in U.S. 7,434,974, 8,215,816, and 7,914,196. (Notably, this order did not construe '973 terms — the "deformities" construction used in the IPR came from the agreed/related district-court construction in the Texas litigation.)
• 2016-02-23 — Discovery opinion (D.I. 222). Judge Andrews granted a motion to compel compliance with subpoenas issued to Rambus, Inc. and Rambus Delaware LLC, rejecting work-product and common-interest privilege claims over teardown reports and emails, and also addressed a motion to amend the complaint. Covered by Mealey's (2016-02-26) and RLF summaries.
• 2016-03-29 — Discovery conference; 2016-05-10 — Memorandum Order (D.I. 264) granting in part/denying in part the joint motion to seal the transcript of that conference (denying redaction where no "clearly defined and serious injury" shown).
• 2016-11-28 — Summary judgment opinion (D.I. 351). Ruled on consolidated cross-motions: defendants' motion on standing/ownership (holding the IPAA did not convey to RDL the right to sue for prior infringement, while the IPCAAs did) was denied; plaintiffs' partial SJ on ownership/waiver/estoppel/laches/unclean hands/LICENSE/exhaustion against the LG defendants was denied for genuine disputes; plaintiffs' partial SJ of infringement against LG denied; Lenovo/LG motion for SJ of non-infringement denied (fact disputes on "projections or depressions on or in the sides" and "tray or housing includes end walls and side walls"); a motion to strike portions of the Vincent Thomas expert report was resolved at the SJ hearing (D.I. 461).
• 2017-01-18 — Memorandum Opinion (D.I. 365). Denied defendants' motion to exclude the plaintiffs' damages expert (Patrick F. Kennedy, Ph.D.) as unreliable, in C.A. 13-2108, 13-2109 and 13-2112.

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3. Parallel PTAB proceedings on the portfolio

LG Display / LG Electronics mounted a coordinated IPR campaign against the entire Parker/IDT backlight portfolio alongside IPR2015-00506, including (from the IPR2015-01666 petition's disclosures): IPR2015-00489 ('177), -00490 ('194), -00492 ('914,196), -00493 ('370), -00495 ('660), -00496 ('816), -00497 ('974), and the earlier-filed IPR2014-01092 ('974), -01094 ('660), -01095 ('816), -01096 ('370), -01097 ('194), plus IPR2014-01357/-01359/-01362 and IPR2015-00359/-00360/-00361/-00363/-00366/-00368. IPR2015-01666 (LG Electronics, on the '973) was filed 2015-08-05 and joined into IPR2015-00506 on 2016-02-05. The practical effect: by mid-2016 the PTAB had cancelled the '973 claims 1–5, stripping the patent owner of that asserted patent across the related district court actions.

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4. Outcome and present posture of the '973 proceedings

• PTAB: Claims 1–5 of the '973 patent held unpatentable (anticipated by Shinohara) on 2016-06-23; IPR2015-00506 (with joined IPR2015-01666) terminated that date. A statutory certificate cancelling the claims would follow absent appeal.
• District court: The Delaware actions proceeded past Markman (2015), through a contested discovery phase (2016) and summary judgment (Nov. 2016), with a damages-expert challenge resolved in Jan. 2017 — i.e., apparently trial-track as of early 2017. The docket shows administrative activity into August 2019 (acknowledgment of receipt / return of multi-media trial exhibits in C.A. 13-2108 and 13-2109).

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Items I could NOT confirm (do not treat as established)

1. Answer, counterclaims, or any Rule 12 motion to dismiss in the Delaware actions.
2. Any motion to transfer or to stay pending IPR in the Delaware actions — not found, though a stay motion would have been a natural move given the 2015–2016 IPR campaign.
3. Trial, verdict, or post-trial motions (JMOL/new trial/fees) in the Delaware actions. The Jan. 2017 expert-preclusion ruling and 2019 exhibit returns suggest pre- or mid-trial activity, but I could not retrieve a verdict or judgment.
4. Settlement/dismissal terms — no confirmed final disposition.
5. Any Federal Circuit appeal of the IPR2015-00506 Final Written Decision.

If you need these, the productive next steps are: (a) PACER for D. Del. 1:13-cv-02108/02109/02112 (post-2017 docket entries); (b) PAIR/PTAB for any Notice of Appeal from IPR2015-00506 and any Rule 36/opinion at the Federal Circuit; (c) USPTO assignment records for the Delaware Display Group → successor transfers. I was unable to complete those lookups within this session.

I'll research the counsel of record for the petitioner/plaintiff side in IPR2015-00506 and any related district court litigation.

Let me dig into the petitioner's counsel of record (LG Display) — the Power of Attorney and firm details.

Let me confirm the full petitioner counsel roster from the Petition and each attorney's details.

Counsel of Record — Petitioner Side (LG Display Co., Ltd.), IPR2015-00506

Framing note: Although the case is described in the metadata as a "patent infringement case" with "plaintiff(s)," IPR2015-00506 is an inter partes review before the PTAB. The initiating party ("plaintiff"/petitioner) is LG Display Co., Ltd.; the patent owner/respondent is Delaware Display Group LLC. (LG Electronics, Inc. was initially alleged to be an unnamed real party-in-interest — rejected by the Board — and later filed its own petition, IPR2015-01666, which was joined into IPR2015-00506, making the petitioners "LG Display Co., Ltd. and LG Electronics, Inc.") (IPR2015-01666 joinder decision).

All petitioner-side representation came from a single firm — Mayer Brown LLP. No separate "local counsel" appears (local counsel is a district-court concept; PTAB practice uses lead/back-up counsel). No in-house counsel of record is identified on the papers.

Petitioner counsel (Mayer Brown LLP)

Sourcing

• Hearing record (Paper 25, Record of Oral Hearing, IPR2015-00506, Mar. 1, 2016): "ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER: ROBERT G. PLUTA, ESQ.; AMANDA K. STREFF, ESQ., Mayer Brown LLP, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago" — Ms. Streff states she appears "on behalf of Petitioners LG Display and LG Electronics… with me is Baldine Paul and Robert Pluta and Jamie Beaber." (Record of Oral Hearing)
• Deposition transcripts in 00506 list "MAYER BROWN, LLP BY: BALDINE PAUL, Ph.D.; ANITA Y. LAM, ESQUIRE … Counsel for Petitioners" (Chicago and Washington, DC addresses), and Mr. Pluta entering his appearance "for LG Display and LG Electronics." (Ex. 1040 transcript)
• Joint stipulation (Sept. 1, 2015) signed "/s/ Robert G. Pluta, Attorney for Petitioner, Registration No. 50,970," with the petitioner's electronic service list: rpluta@mayerbrown.com; astreff@mayerbrown.com; bpaul@mayerbrown.com; alam@mayerbrown.com; DDGIPR@mayerbrown.com.
• Firm/site bios: mayerbrown.com – Robert G. Pluta; IPWatchdog profile.
• Counsel-of-record aggregation: RPX/ipverse case pages list "Petitioner Counsel: Robert Pluta." (ipverse)

Caveats / limits

• I was not able to retrieve the actual 00506 Petition cover page or its Power of Attorney/Mandatory Notices to confirm the precise "Lead Counsel vs. Back-up Counsel" caption designations. The lead/back-up split above rests on (a) the appearances in the 00506 record (Pluta as lead; Streff/Paul/Lam as back-up; Beaber pro hac vice), and (b) a parallel, same-team LG Display filing in the related '177-patent IPR describing "the primary attorney … Robert G. Pluta … and the secondary attorneys … Amanda K. Streff, Baldine B. Paul, and Anita Y. Lam," with "Jamie B. Beaber … intending to appear pro hac vice." The individual roles should be treated as highly likely but not literally quoted from the 00506 caption.
• No petitioner-side in-house attorney is named on the papers, and none appears to have entered an appearance.
• Nothing was sealed; counsel appeared openly.
• For completeness, the respondent/patent-owner side (the district-court plaintiff against LG entities in the parallel Delaware actions) was represented by Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Dallas): Justin B. Kimble (lead), Jeffrey R. Bragalone, T. William Kennedy, Terry A. Saad, Nicholas C. Kliewer. (Power of Attorney in IPR2015-00492/00506; Ex. 2010.) In the district court litigation the posture was reversed — Delaware Display Group/Innovative Display Technologies were plaintiffs and LG was the defendant, so if your question was aimed at the district-court plaintiff rather than the IPR petitioner, the answer is the Bragalone Conroy team.

I'll research counsel on both sides, since this case has a role-reversal dynamic (PTAB caption vs. underlying infringement suits).

I have the PTAB counsel. Now let me research the district-court infringement defendants' counsel (the true "defendants" in the underlying case) and confirm the Petitioner-side team.

Let me get the district court docket party/counsel listings.

Counsel of record — with a role-reversal warning

The question asks for counsel for "the defendant(s) in this patent infringement case." As flagged in the case overview, the caption supplied (IPR2015-00506) is the PTAB proceeding, where the parties are inverted: LG Display is the Petitioner and Delaware Display Group LLC (DDG) is the Patent Owner — i.e., DDG occupies the defendant-side chair. The actual infringement defendants (Lenovo, LG Electronics, VIZIO, etc.) are defendants only in the underlying district court suits (Delaware Display Group LLC et al. v. Lenovo Group Ltd. et al., No. 1:13-cv-02108-RGA (D. Del.) and companions). I've therefore broken this out three ways so the answer is usable regardless of which "defendant" is meant.

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1. Patent Owner (defendant-side in the IPR) — Bragalone Conroy P.C., Dallas, TX

DDG's counsel of record in the IPR were all from the same Dallas boutique, with the Delaware litigation handled by the same team:

Sourcing: PTAB Record of Oral Hearing (Paper 25, filed Mar. 31, 2016) and the pro hac vice papers on Docket Alarm/PTAB CTS (docketalarm.com, ptacts.uspto.gov). Both the Bragalone and Kennedy pro hac vice motions were granted.

Delaware local counsel (plaintiffs DDG/IDT in the D. Del. suits): the Delaware Display Group v. Lenovo docket's "Represented By" list includes Brian E. Farnan and Joseph J. Farnan, Jr. (Farnan LLP, Wilmington, DE), alongside the Bragalone Conroy names and a "Daniel F." and "Patrick J." entry I could not fully resolve. I attribute the Farnan entries to the plaintiff side with moderate confidence only — the Justia docket's counsel block is not cleanly keyed to each party, so treat the local-counsel attribution as unverified.

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2. Petitioner LG Display — Mayer Brown LLP (Chicago and Washington, DC)

Also appearing on the Mayer Brown team in the district court filings (and thus likely the same engagement): Kfir B. Levy and Mark H. Remus (named in the Nov. 6, 2015 claim-construction caption).

Sourcing: PTAB Record of Oral Hearing; Dec. 4, 2015 stipulation hosted on PTAB CTS; Nov. 6, 2015 D. Del. opinion caption (cases.justia.com PDF of D.I. 112).

Notable crossover: the same Mayer Brown team (Pluta, Streff, Paul, Lam, Beaber) appears both as LG Display's IPR counsel and as LG Electronics' district court counsel. That shared representation is exactly what DDG seized on for its real-party-in-interest challenge (Petitioner's omission of LG Electronics Inc. and LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc.), which the Board rejected in the July 6, 2015 institution decision because RPI turns on "control or the ability to control," not shared counsel. LG Electronics later filed its own IPR (IPR2015-01666) and was joined into IPR2015-00506 (Paper 24, Feb. 5, 2016).

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3. The infringement defendants (true "defendants" in the underlying case)

For the D. Del. campaign, the defendants' counsel I could confirm from the Nov. 6, 2015 claim-construction opinion caption are:

Counsel for the remaining defendants — Amazon (C.A. 13-2106), HTC (13-2107), Pantech (13-2110), Sony (13-2111), VIZIO (13-2112), and the three refiled Dec. 2015 cases against Lenovo (1:15-cv-01220), LG Electronics (1:15-cv-01221) and VIZIO (1:15-cv-01222) — I could not verify, and I have not listed them rather than guess. Note that Amazon's case was reportedly dismissed/transferred early (the Nov. 6, 2015 opinion notes the Amazon and one other case dropped out), so counsel there may not have made a durable appearance.

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Caveats and cross-checks

• Which "defendant" the question targets is genuinely ambiguous. If the intended target is the PTAB defendant-side, the answer is Bragalone Conroy (Kimble lead; Bragalone, Kennedy), with Delaware local counsel believed to be Farnan LLP. If the intended target is the infringement defendants, the confirmed names are Akin Gump (Lenovo) and Mayer Brown + Ross Aronstam (LG Electronics).
• Consistency with the existing preview: no contradiction — the earlier overview already identified Bragalone Conroy and the Mayer Brown team by implication (Ex. 2005/2006, the RPI ruling, and the D. Del. claim-construction order). This section adds the attorney-level detail.
• Unverified / missing: the "Daniel F." and "Patrick J." counsel entries on the Justia docket; VIZIO/Sony/Amazon/HTC/Pantech counsel; the precise firm name and current status of Farnan LLP's role; and whether any counsel appeared in the three refiled 2015 Delaware actions. These gaps reflect limits of the public docket snippets I could reach, not sealed filings — the IPR papers here are public on PTAB CTS, and the district court opinions cited are public.