LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

I'll research this case across docket sources, PTAB records, and industry coverage before drafting.

Good foundation. Now let me fill in the district court history, patent provenance, and follow-on IPR outcomes.

Case Overview and Background

The parties. This proceeding is an inter partes review, not a district court case, so the "sides" are an operating company petitioner and a patent-holding plaintiff. Petitioner LG Display Co., Ltd. is the Korean flat-panel manufacturer (NYSE: LPL; LG Display America, Inc. named as a real party-in-interest), one of the world's largest LCD panel makers, whose liquid-crystal-display modules ("LCMs") are the accused instrumentalities. Patent owner Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") is a non-practicing entity — a licensing subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation (IDT's mandatory notices in the related IPRs identify Acacia Research Group LLC and Acacia Research Corporation as real parties-in-interest, e.g. IPR2015-00506, Paper 5). IDT and its sister Acacia sub Delaware Display Group LLC ("DDG") ran a coordinated backlight-patent campaign; the '660 patent's named inventor is Jeffery R. Parker (the Lumitex/Solid State Opto lineage, invoked by IDT for commercial-success evidence in the follow-on IPR), and RPX reported that the litigated patents had passed through Rambus to Acacia in March 2013 — I could not verify the full chain of title from primary assignment records. LG Display's PTAB counsel was Mayer Brown LLP (Robert G. Pluta, Amanda K. Streff, Baldine B. Paul, Anita Y. Lam, Jamie B. Beaber); IDT was represented by Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Justin B. Kimble, Jeffrey R. Bragalone).

The technology and procedural posture. The sole patent at issue here, U.S. 7,404,660 ("Light emitting panel assemblies," issued July 29, 2008), claims a backlight: a generally planar optical conductor/light guide (input edge of greater cross-sectional width than thickness), a plurality of light sources — typically LEDs — positioned at the input edge and configured to emit light with an output distribution having a "greater width component than height component," a predetermined pattern of light-extracting "deformities," and a "transition region" between source and output region (claim 1; PTAB Paper 10 at 3). LG Display filed the petition on July 1, 2014, and the Board (APJs Giannetti, Powell and Bunting, opinion by Bunting) denied institution on January 13, 2015 on all four grounds — Pristash (§102(b)), Tai (§102(a)), Ciupke (§102(e)), and Tai + Funamoto (§103(a)) — holding that the petition failed to show the "output distribution … greater width component than height component" limitation and gave only "minimal consideration" to arguments incorporated by reference into Dr. Escuti's declaration (37 C.F.R. §§ 42.6(a)(3), 42.104(b)(4), 42.22(a)(2)). The Board expressly declined to reach IDT's §315(b)/real-party-in-interest attack (that LG Electronics entities, as alleged privies controlling the Dell and HP suits LG Display was indemnifying, were unnamed). The underlying infringement action is Delaware Display Group LLC & Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. LG Electronics Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., LG Display Co., Ltd. and LG Display America, Inc., No. 1:13-cv-02109 (D. Del., filed Dec. 31, 2013) — one of eight Delaware complaints filed that week against Amazon, HTC, Lenovo, LG, Pantech, Sony and VIZIO — with parallel E.D. Tex. suits against Dell, HP, Nokia, ZTE and others (e.g., IDT v. Dell, 2:13-cv-00523; IDT v. HP, 2:13-cv-00524), later consolidated in 2:13-cv-00522 and, in a 2016 re-filing, 2:16-cv-00932 (E.D. Tex., Judge Rodney Gilstrap). Venue mattered twice over: the Delaware/EDTX defendant pool of display integrators differed, and IDT obtained an E.D. Tex. claim construction of "deformities" (Innovative Display Technologies v. Acer, No. 2:13-cv-522, Dkt. 101) that both sides adopted in the IPRs.

Why it is notable. First, it is a case study in IPR linkage and serial petitioning: LG Display filed five coordinated petitions two days before its §315(b) bar date (IPR2014-01092 ('974), -01094 ('660), -01095 ('816), -01096 ('370), -01097 ('194), followed by -01357 ('547) and -01362 ('177)); after the '660 petition was denied on the merits, LG filed a second '660 petition with new art, IPR2015-00487 (filed Dec. 23, 2014), which was instituted July 16, 2015 on Oe + Etsuo and in which the Board's Final Written Decision of July 15, 2016 found no challenged claim unpatentable; LG Electronics' IPR2015-01717 was joined to it, and petitioners appealed (Fed. Cir. Appeal No. 2017-1413, notice of appeal Dec. 23, 2016 — I did not verify the appellate disposition). Because no FWD issued in IPR2014-01094, no §315(e) estoppel attached from it, which is precisely why the follow-on petition survived §325(d) arguments. Second, it illustrates the early PTAB's hostility to incorporation-by-reference petition drafting, and post-grant commentators (Scott McKeown's Patents Post-Grant, April 2015) cited the decision among patent-owner wins in that period. Third, it is a window into the Acacia/IDT backlight campaign, which spawned roughly two dozen related IPRs (including Mercedes-Benz's IPR2015-00363 and Toyota's IPR2015-00855) and a Delaware stay fight — RPX reported that in October 2015 Judge Richard Andrews conditioned a full stay on IDT/DDG dropping the '177, '660 and '973 patents, which were under instituted IPR, prompting new December 2015 complaints (1:15-cv-01220/-01221/-01222) against Lenovo, LG and VIZIO.

Sourcing caveats. Party identities, the denial of institution (Paper 10, Jan. 13, 2015), grounds, panel and counsel, the July 1, 2014 filing date, the $14,000 post-institution-fee refund request, and the IPR2015-00487 institution/FWD outcomes are grounded in PTAB papers and the decisions themselves; the Delaware stay chronology and the Rambus→Acacia transfer history rest on RPX Insight reporting (member-gated) rather than court records; the 2:16-cv-00932 docket and the '660's accused-product description (LG Display LCMs in Dell/HP laptops, TVs, tablets, monitors) come from the docket and IDT/LG briefing, and I did not confirm settlement or final judgment in any of the district court actions.

I'll research this case. Note upfront: the metadata indicates the docketed matter is a PTAB IPR (IPR2014-01094), not a district court litigation — so I'll reconstruct both the PTAB proceeding and the parallel district court litigation it belongs to.

Now let me research the parallel district court litigation and the related PTAB proceedings.

Framing note (important)

The docketed matter in the case metadata — LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, IPR2014-01094 (PTAB) — is not an infringement litigation. It is an inter partes review petition that the Board denied institution on the merits on 2015-01-13. There is therefore no complaint, answer, Markman order, verdict, or JMOL in this docket. The "patent infringement litigation" involving U.S. 7,404,660 ("the '660 patent") is a separate, parallel district court campaign brought by IDT (an Acacia subsidiary) and its affiliate Delaware Display Group LLC. Below I treat the IPR as the lead (per the metadata) and then trace the litigation it was filed into.

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1. The docketed proceeding: IPR2014-01094 (U.S. 7,404,660)

Grounds asserted and why each failed (from the 2015-01-13 decision):

• Ground 1 — Pristash, § 102(b): Board found Pristash disclosed a plurality of light sources but not sources "configured to generate light having an output distribution defined by a greater width component than height component." IDT successfully argued that petitioner's expert (Dr. Michael J. Escuti, Ex. 1004) pointed to the transition device, not a light source.
• Ground 2 — Tai, § 102(a): Same fatal limitation. IDT argued the Escuti declaration relied on Tai's light collimating assemblies 28/28′, which petitioner also mapped to the separate "transition region" limitation — an internal inconsistency. Board agreed.
• Ground 3 — Ciupke, § 102(e): Same limitation; Board held the expert's ¶ 161 statement was "conclusory."
• Ground 4 — Tai + Funamoto, § 103(a) (claim 25): Funamoto was not relied on to cure Tai's deficiency, so obviousness failed too.

The dispositive procedural holding: LGD's petition incorporated roughly 11–14 pages of expert-declaration argument by reference. The Board held this violated 37 C.F.R. § 42.6(a)(3) and the specificity requirements of §§ 42.104(b)(4) and 42.22(a)(2), gave the incorporated material only "minimal consideration," and characterized it as an abuse to "circumvent[] essentially the page limits imposed on petitions."
Not reached: IDT's § 315(b) / RPI-time-bar argument (Board exercised discretion not to address it).

Claim construction in this IPR: none. Petitioner proposed a construction of "deformities"; IDT noted the parties had already agreed to petitioner's construction in district court. The Board found "no need to construe expressly" any term.
Not appealable: denial of institution is not a final written decision appealable under § 318(a); no Federal Circuit appeal of IPR2014-01094 exists.

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2. The underlying district court litigation (chronological)

2026-06-27 isn't relevant — the '660 patent expired 2015-06-27 (20 years from the June 27, 1995 priority date), a fact the Board later used to switch from BRI to Phillips.

2013-03 — The IDT patent family (originally Rambus-owned) is transferred to Acacia; IDT and Delaware Display Group become the asserting entities. (RPX Insight, 2014-01-09.)

2013-06 onward — Filing & initial pleadings (E.D. Tex.). IDT launches the campaign asserting seven "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" patents — 6,755,547; 7,300,194; 7,384,177; 7,404,660; 7,434,974; 7,537,370; 8,215,816 — against display makers, with IDT v. Acer Inc. et al., No. 2:13-cv-00522-JRG (E.D. Tex.) as the lead case before Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap.
2013-12-31 — Filing & initial pleadings (D. Del.). Delaware Display Group LLC et al. v. LG Electronics Inc. et al., No. 1:13-cv-02109-RGA (D. Del.), assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews. IDT and DDG sue LG Electronics Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., LG Display Co., Ltd., and LG Display America, Inc., asserting nine patents including the '660 patent (D.I. 1; D.I. 3 Report to Commissioner). Plaintiff's counsel: Farnan LLP (Joseph J. Farnan, Jr.; Brian E. Farnan); LG's Delaware counsel: Benjamin J. Schladweiler (Seitz Ross Aronstam & Moritz / Ross Aronstam & Moritz). Jury demand by plaintiff. (I did not locate the LG defendants' answer/counterclaims on the public docket extracts retrieved; treat that step as unverified.)

2014-06 / 2014-07 — Pre-trial motion practice (E.D. Tex.). Plaintiff served an expert declaration (Kenneth I. Werner) with its opening claim construction brief (Dkt. 69, Ex. B). Defendants moved to strike; the court granted the motion to strike on 2014-07-11 (Dkt. 85), and the Markman order expressly states the declaration was not considered.

2014-07-30 — Markman hearing (E.D. Tex., lead case 2:13-cv-522-JRG).

2014-08-26 — Claim construction order (the key Markman outcome). Innovative Display Techs. LLC v. Acer Inc., No. 2:13-cv-522-JRG (E.D. Tex. Aug. 26, 2014). The court construed disputed terms across all seven patents, including for the '660 patent:

• "a pattern of deformities" / "a pattern of light extracting deformities" → "a random placement pattern or a variable pattern" — this construction is the one the parties then carried into the PTAB (cited in IPR2014-01094 at 4 n.1, Ex. 2002 at 11).
• Also construed: "transition region," the "different type … on the other side of the panel member" limitation, "an air gap," "desired light output [distribution/effect/color or uniformity]," "predetermined," "posts, tabs, or other structural features that provide a mount," "well defined optical elements or deformities," the "quite small in relation to the width and length" pattern term, "pass through a liquid crystal display with low loss," and "to suit/fit a particular application." The court issued preliminary constructions shortly before the hearing to focus argument. (Constructions were partly stipulated; the parties' agreements appear in Appendix A to the order via the 2014-05-05 P.R. 4-3 statement, Dkt. 61, and 2014-07-14 P.R. 4-5(d) chart, Dkt. 89.)

2014-07-01 through 2015-08 — The IPR wave (pre-trial stay lever). LGD filed five petitions on 2014-07-01 (IPR2014-01092/-01094/-01095/-01096/-01097), then IPR2014-01357 and -01362 in August 2014, followed by a second wave in 2015. See § 3 below. These were plainly timed to the § 315(b) one-year bar: LGD filed against five of the seven patents two days before the deadline, which IDT later used as evidence of LGD's control of the Dell and HP cases.

Discovery milestone with strategic significance — the indemnity/RPI discovery fight. In the related IPRs on the '660 family (e.g., IPR2014-01362 against U.S. 7,384,177), IDT built a record showing that every Mayer Brown attorney representing LGD in the IPRs also appeared for Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard in the E.D. Tex. consolidated case (No. 2:13-cv-522), with Jamie B. Beaber filing notices as "Attorney in Charge" for Dell (D.I. 148) and HP (D.I. 156) in October 2014, and with appearances by Beaber, Pluta and Streff for Dell as early as 2014-09-05 (D.I. 110–112) and for HP on 2014-10-08 (D.I. 135–143). IDT's exhibits (Ex. 2010 docket reports, Ex. 2006, Ex. 2011–2012 showing LGD labels on Dell/HP products) supported its argument that LGD was indemnifying and actively directing the customer suits and was therefore in privity for § 315(b) purposes. LGD's counsel admitted the indemnification relationship on the December 2, 2014 Board teleconference. This RPI/control battle is the single most consequential discovery episode tying the ITC-side IPRs to the district court docket.

2016-03 — PTAB oral argument (the '660 "trial" substitute). LG pressed the Board to invalidate the '660 patent in the second LG petition (Law360, 2016-03-01).

2016-08-24 — A new suit. Innovative Display Tech LLC v. LG Display Co. Ltd. et al., No. 2:16-cv-00932 (E.D. Tex.) — IDT sues LGD, LG Electronics, VIZIO, ASUSTeK and affiliates on U.S. 7,322,730 and 7,178,965 (edge-lit and 2-D array backlights; LCMs incl. LC550DUH-SCM1, LC420DUE-SFU1), alleging willful infringement and inducement based on 2012–2013 Rambus notice letters.

2016-08-29 — Summary judgment motion (D. Del.). LG Display and Lenovo moved to throw out DDG's infringement claims, arguing that after years of litigation DDG "has not provided evidence showing LG and Lenovo used its backlight technology in hundreds of their products" (Law360, 2016-08-29). (This is the substantive pre-trial motion on the merits in the Delaware track; I did not locate a ruling on it.)

2017-04-10 — Resolution of the Delaware track. The parties told the Delaware court they had agreed to drop claims in one case and were preparing dismissal papers in the other, closing out DDG's backlight suits against LG Display and Lenovo (Law360, 2017-04-10). Earlier, the Mercedes-Benz action (2:14-cv-00535-JRG) ended in a "favorable settlement following mediation" (per plaintiff's counsel's case list).

No jury verdict on the '660 patent appears in any source I retrieved. The E.D. Tex. and D. Del. campaign appears to have terminated in settlements/dismissals, not judgment. Flag this as a research gap rather than a confirmed "no verdict."

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3. Parallel PTAB proceedings on U.S. 7,404,660 and their effect

Related-family IPRs: IPR2014-01092 ('974), -01095 ('816), -01096 ('370), -01097 ('194), -01357 ('547), -01359 ('196), -01362 ('177), plus 2015 filings (-00359 through -00368, -00487 through -00497). IDT's mandatory notices list 22+ pending IPRs in the family. IDT identified Acacia Research Group LLC and Acacia Research Corporation as RPIs.

Appeal of IPR2015-00487: LGD and LG Electronics, Inc. filed a Notice of Appeal to the Federal Circuit on 2016-12-23 (after the Board denied rehearing on 2016-11-28), contesting the 2016-07-15 Final Written Decision on claims 1, 3, 5, 10, 13, 16, 17, 25–29, 33–35 — raising (1) error in the § 103 finding over Oe + Etsuo, (2) wrong obviousness legal standard, and (3) claim-construction/reference-interpretation error. Counsel: Pluta, Streff, Beaber, Paul, Lam (Mayer Brown). The Federal Circuit's disposition is not confirmed in the sources I retrieved — do not treat it as affirmed without verification.

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4. Present posture and bottom line

• IPR2014-01094: closed, denial of institution (2015-01-13), $14,000 post-institution fee refunded (2015-06-17). The denial was a pleading-quality loss, not a validity win for IDT on the merits — the Board never reached Pristash/Tai/Ciupke on the merits of the claims, and it expressly declined to reach the § 315(b) RPI issue.
• The '660 patent nevertheless survived full PTAB trial in IPR2015-00487 (FWD 2016-07-15), where it expired mid-proceeding and drew the more patentee-friendly Phillips standard.
• The district court campaign against LG, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer, and others appears to have been conditionally settled and dismissed (D. Del. April 2017), with a second wave against LG/VIZIO/ASUS on different patents ('730, '965) filed 2016-08-24.
• Attorney teams: Petitioner — Mayer Brown LLP (Robert G. Pluta, Amanda K. Streff, Baldine B. Paul, Anita Y. Lam, Jamie B. Beaber). Patent Owner — Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Justin B. Kimble, Jeffrey R. Bragalone, Terry A. Saad, Nicholas C. Kliewer). District court plaintiffs — Farnan LLP (D. Del.); LG defendants — Ross Aronstam & Moritz (Schladweiler).

Unverified / needs PACER pull: the LG defendants' answer and counterclaims in 1:13-cv-02109; any motion to transfer, stay-pending-IPR, or fees motion in that case; the ruling on the 2016-08-29 Delaware summary judgment motion; the exact dismissal orders and settlement terms (April 2017); any E.D. Tex. verdict or judgment; and the Federal Circuit's decision in the IPR2015-00487 appeal.

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

Primary documents dominate; let me target legal-trade and business press specifically.

Press and analyst coverage

Bottom line: I found essentially no press coverage of IPR2014-01094 itself. Searches across the major outlets (Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, Patently-O, JD Supra, EFF Deeplinks) and trade press did not surface a single retrievable article about this petition's denial of institution. That is unsurprising given the posture: a non-precedential denial of institution in a backlight-patent IPR attracts little news attention, and the Board's reasoning (a failure of proof on one claim limitation, plus an incorporation-by-reference pleading defect) is the kind of outcome that legal commentary digests rather than the business press reports. No damages figure, verdict, settlement sum, or market-impact estimate tied to this IPR exists in anything I found — the only dollar figure in the record is the $14,000 post-institution fee refund, which appears in the Board's own papers, not in any article.

The closest thing to trade coverage is a law-firm case digest of the companion petition, not this one. National Law Review (Vol. V, No. 27, 2015) published a Drinker Biddle PTAB summary headlined "LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC: Denying Institution IPR2014-01092," which analyzed the Board's January 13, 2015 denial on the '974 patent, identified the same three-judge panel (Giannetti, Powell, Bunting), and expressly listed IPR2014-01094 among the related proceedings challenging the '660 patent. It offers the takeaway that an obviousness showing requires "some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning." Notably, the digest does not discuss the '660 petition's holding — so even the legal-trade literature treated IPR2014-01094 as a docket entry in a portfolio fight rather than a decision worth analyzing on its own.

The commercial press covered the licensing campaign rather than the IPR. Because patent owner IDT and Delaware Display Group were Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTG) subsidiaries, their settlements were announced to investors. Business Wire reported on 2015-08-13 that the two subsidiaries "entered into a settlement and patent license agreement with Sony Corporation," resolving D. Del. litigation — a release Benzinga also carried that day. More directly relevant to LG, an Acacia Form 8-K filed 2015-06-09 disclosed that IDT and DDG "entered into a patent license agreement with LG Display Co., Ltd." (event dated 2015-06-02), and an earlier Form 8-K filed 2015-03-11 disclosed a settlement and license with Dell and Hewlett-Packard resolving E.D. Tex. Nos. 2:13-cv-523 and 2:13-cv-524. No outlet I found disclosed financial terms of any of these deals, and none of these releases mention the PTAB proceedings.

Discrepancies and verification flags for the earlier sections. (1) The previously generated "Why it is notable" section states that Scott McKeown's Patents Post-Grant cited this decision among patent-owner wins in April 2015; the only April 2015 McKeown piece I could retrieve is IPWatchdog (2015-04-09), "Petition Dismissal is Appropriate for Improper Use of PTAB Resources," which concerns Hayman Capital/Coalition for Affordable Drugs hedge-fund filings and does not mention LG Display or IDT — so that attribution should be treated as unsupported unless a specific Patents Post-Grant post is produced. (2) The earlier sections cite Law360 pieces dated 2016-03-01 (PTAB argument in the second '660 petition), 2016-08-29 (Delaware summary judgment motion), and 2017-04-10 (Delaware dismissal) — I could not retrieve or verify those in this session and did not obtain URLs for them, so they remain unconfirmed here. (3) The June 2015 Acacia–LG Display license announcement is in tension with the account of the D. Del. action running into 2017; the license appears not to have terminated the LG litigation, but I could not find reporting explaining how the two fit together. Direct Law360 and Bloomberg Law searches (both paywalled, not indexed in the results I reached) or a PACER docket pull on 1:13-cv-02109 would be the way to resolve items (2) and (3).

Sources

• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• LG Display Co., Ltd.v.Innovative Display Technologies LLC - LG Display Co
• BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
• Published on The National Law Review https://dev
• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• Case IPR2014- 01094 Patent 7,404,660
• Filed on behalf of Delaware Display Group LLC By: Justin B
• Ex. 1024 | IPR2015-01717 | LG Electronics Inc v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC | Ex Parte
• Petition analysis | IPR2015-01717 | LG Electronics Inc v. Innovative Display Technologies | Ex Parte
• IPR2015-00745, No. 2002 Exhibit - Exhibit 2002 (P.T.A.B. May. 26, 2015) - IPR2015-00745, No
• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• Complaint analysis | 2:16-cv-00932 | Innovative Display Tech LLC v. LG Display Co Ltd | Ex Parte

I'll research the counsel of record. Note one framing issue up front: this is a PTAB IPR, not a district-court infringement case, so the "plaintiff" role maps to the petitioner, LG Display. Let me search.

Now let me verify the petitioner-side counsel roster and gather firm/experience details.

Let me get details on the remaining Mayer Brown attorneys and confirm the petition's mandatory notices.

Counsel of Record — Petitioner / "Plaintiff" Side

Framing note (flagging a metadata mismatch): IPR2014-01094 is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district‑court infringement action. There is no "plaintiff"; the party aligning with that role is the petitioner, LG Display Co., Ltd. ("LG Display"), and the "defendant" role is filled by the patent owner, Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT"). Under the case metadata's Plaintiff(s)/Defendant(s) mapping, LG Display = plaintiff. No local counsel is required at the PTAB, so the petitioner is represented entirely by national counsel from a single firm — Mayer Brown LLP. Filings here are public; nothing is sealed.

The authoritative roster appears twice in the Board's own papers: (1) the Decision Denying Institution, Paper 10 (Jan. 13, 2015) (caption block, "PETITIONER:"), and (2) the Notice of Refund, Paper 20 (mailed June 18, 2015) (caption block), plus the signature block of Petitioner's Request for Refund of Post-Institution Fees (June 17, 2015). IDT's own Exhibit 2001 (a Dec. 2, 2014 teleconference transcript) independently names the same attorneys appearing for LG Display.

Attorneys for Petitioner LG Display Co., Ltd.

Source base: Board Paper 10 (Petitioner caption block: Pluta, Streff, Paul, Lam — Mayer Brown); Paper 20 Notice of Refund (same four); Petitioner's Request for Refund (June 17, 2015) (adds Beaber and the two Mayer Brown office addresses, signature by Pluta/Streff); IDT Exhibit 2001, Dec. 2, 2014 teleconference transcript (appearances: Pluta, Streff, Beaber for petitioner); IDT's RPI exhibit (stating the petition's primary attorney is Pluta; secondary attorneys Streff, Paul, and Lam; and that Beaber is the fifth Mayer Brown attorney participating). Firm/experience details from Mayer Brown attorney bios (mayerbrown.com), IPWatchdog, Martindale, and Super Lawyers profiles.

Points worth flagging

• No discrepancy in the counsel record — the Board's two caption blocks, the refund papers, and the IDT exhibit all agree on the same five Mayer Brown lawyers. There is no separate "local counsel" or co‑counsel entry because PTAB practice does not use one.
• Attorney identity caveat: the same Mayer Brown team represented LG Display's customers Dell and HP in the underlying E.D. Tex. litigation (Pluta, Streff, Paul, Lam, and Beaber all made appearances for them; Beaber filed as "Attorney in Charge"). IDT used that overlap to argue LG Display was in privity with Dell/HP and time‑barred under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) — an argument the Board expressly declined to reach because it denied institution on the merits (Paper 10, § II.E). I'm reporting this from the record, not characterizing whether the overlap was improper.
• Three attorneys' individual bios (Paul, Lam, Beaber) could not be pulled within my search budget. Their roles, firms, and offices are document‑grounded from the Board filings; their credential lines are left unembellished rather than inferred.

For cross‑reference — Patent Owner (IDT) counsel, not plaintiff side

For completeness, IDT's counsel of record (the opposing side) were Justin B. Kimble (lead; Reg. No. 58,591) and Jeffrey R. Bragalone (back‑up, admitted pro hac vice motion granted/ pending), both of Bragalone Conroy P.C., 2200 Ross Ave., Suite 4500‑West, Dallas, TX 75201, per IDT's Power of Attorney (July 22, 2014), its Updated Power of Attorney (Feb. 10/18, 2015), and the pro hac vice motion (Aug. 11, 2014). A third Bragalone Conroy attorney, T. William Kennedy, appeared for IDT at the Dec. 2, 2014 teleconference (Ex. 2001) but is not listed in the POA caption block.

Bottom line: The "plaintiff"/petitioner LG Display was represented solely by Mayer Brown LLP, with Robert G. Pluta as lead counsel (Chicago), supported by Amanda K. Streff (Chicago), Baldine B. Paul, Anita Y. Lam, and Jamie B. Beaber (all Washington, DC). This is corroborated by four independent Board/proceeding documents; the only genuinely uncertain item is Beaber's USPTO registration status, which the Board papers do not state.

I'll research counsel on both sides of the procedural posture — the PTAB proceeding (where IDT is the respondent/patent owner) and the underlying district court infringement actions (where the LG entities are defendants).

I have solid docket data. Let me now pin down defense counsel in the 2015 Delaware refilings and the E.D. Tex. actions, and verify IDT's PTAB representation.

Counsel of Record — Defense Side

Framing note (read first). This docket is an IPR, so "defendant" is doing double duty. In the PTAB caption (and in the case metadata supplied to me), Innovative Display Technologies LLC is the defendant — the patent owner/respondent in IPR2014-01094. But the patent infringement case is the parallel district court action, Delaware Display Group LLC et al. v. LG Electronics Inc. et al., No. 1:13-cv-02109-RGA (D. Del.), where the LG entities are the defendants. I address both, because the request is ambiguous and the answer differs. Where a name is not confirmed by a primary document, I say so.

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A. In IPR2014-01094 — counsel for the defendant/patent owner (Innovative Display Technologies LLC)

The Board's institution denial itself lists only Patent Owner: Justin B. Kimble, Bragalone Conroy P.C. (Paper 10, at 20), and the Board's June 18, 2015 refund notice likewise lists only Kimble for the patent owner. I found no other attorney entering an appearance for IDT in this IPR — unlike the sibling proceeding IPR2014-01096, where T. William Kennedy of the same firm also appeared for the patent owner. Because the petition was denied institution on January 13, 2015, there was no trial and therefore no post-institution defense team in IPR2014-01094.

Related-firm context (not this IPR). IDT/DDG's district-court team, per the Federal Circuit pro hac vice declaration and the district court docket, was the same boutique plus Delaware local counsel Farnan LLP: Joseph J. Farnan, Jr. and Brian E. Farnan as lead local counsel, with Bragalone Conroy's Jeffrey R. Bragalone, Patrick J. Conroy, Justin B. Kimble, Daniel F. Olejko, James R. Perkins, T. William Kennedy, Jr. and Stephanie Wood as pro hac vice counsel (see the Feb. 25, 2016 opinion in DDG v. Lenovo, C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA / DDG v. LG, C.A. No. 13-2109-RGA). Those attorneys represent the plaintiff side, not the defense — but they are the same Bragalone Conroy personnel who defended IDT at the PTAB.

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B. In the underlying infringement action, No. 1:13-cv-02109-RGA (D. Del.) — counsel for the LG defendants

Defendants: LG Electronics Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., LG Display Co., Ltd., and LG Display America, Inc.

That LG lineup is corroborated by the court's own Feb. 25, 2016 memorandum opinion (C.A. No. 13-2108-RGA, at 2), which lists "David E. Ross, Esq., Benjamin J. Schladweiler, Esq. (argued), Ross, Aronstam & Moritz LLP, Wilmington, DE; Amanda K. Streff, Esq., Robert G. Pluta, Esq., Mayer Brown LLP, Chicago, IL; Alison T. Gelsleichter, Esq., Anita Y. Lam, Esq., Baldine B. Paul, Esq., Jamie B. Beaber, Esq., Kfir B. Levy, Esq., Tiffany A. Miller, Esq., Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, D.C.; attorneys for Defendants LG Electronics, Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., LG Display Co., Ltd., and LG Display America, Inc."

Pattern: LG ran a two-tier defense — a Delaware local firm (Seitz Ross → Ross Aronstam & Moritz; Schladweiler) plus Mayer Brown as national/lead patent counsel — and staffed the IPR with the same Mayer Brown attorneys. That is consistent with the indemnity posture described in the case background (LG Display defending its OEM customers).

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C. Follow-on and refiled actions — defense counsel not confirmed

• 1:15-cv-01220/-01221/-01222 (D. Del., filed Dec. 30, 2015) — the refiled DDG/IDT complaints against Lenovo, LG and VIZIO. The UniCourt mirror for 1:15-cv-01221 lists only plaintiff counsel (Brian E. Farnan and Michael J. Farnan, Farnan LLP) and does not list any defense-side appearance. I did not obtain a docket sheet for these 2015 cases, so I cannot state LG's counsel of record there. This is a gap, not a negative finding — counsel may simply not be captured in that source.
• Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. LG Display Co., Ltd. et al., No. 2:16-cv-00932 (E.D. Tex., Judge Gilstrap, filed Aug. 24, 2016) — the later E.D. Tex. suit against LG Display/LG Electronics entities, VIZIO and ASUS. RPX shows it was closed April 13, 2017 (consistent with the April 2017 global settlement LG Display disclosed in its Form 20-F). I could not retrieve the defense-side appearance list; the sources I reached are paywalled or incomplete on defense counsel. Plaintiff's counsel is confirmed as Bragalone Conroy PC (Jeffrey Ray Bragalone).
• I did not verify the appellate counsel for Fed. Cir. No. 2017-1413 in this search; that appeal arises from IPR2015-00487, not from this proceeding.

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Sourcing caveats

• The D. Del. 1:13-cv-02109 attorney list above comes from the docket sheet as reproduced in PTAB exhibits (Ex. 2004 in IPR2015-00506; Ex. 2011 in IPR2015-01717 — a Toyota-produced annotated docket sheet), plus the Feb. 25, 2016 memorandum opinion in the related D. Del. actions. I did not pull the live PACER docket, which is why I flag the terminated Steptoe attorneys and the "UNDELIVERABLE EMAIL" notation as of the docket-sheet date rather than as of today.
• The IPR2014-01094 appearances are grounded in the papers themselves: the Power of Attorney (Paper 5/6, July 22, 2014), the Bragalone pro hac vice motion (Paper 7/8, Aug. 11, 2014), the Board's institution denial (Paper 10, Jan. 13, 2015, listing petitioner's and patent owner's counsel), and the June 18, 2015 refund notice.
• No in-house counsel is listed on the PTAB papers for IDT, and none appears on the district court docket excerpt for LG. If LG or IDT used in-house attorneys, they did not enter a formal appearance in the records I reviewed.
• No seal issue: because IPR2014-01094 was denied institution before trial, there are no sealed trial filings, and the parties' counsel of record are matters of public record. The gap is in the later district court cases (2015/2016 refilings and E.D. Tex.), where I could not obtain a complete defense appearance list.
• One minor discrepancy to flag: the docket fragment shows both "Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP" and "Seitz Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP" at the same 100 S. West Street address — the firm was renamed during the litigation (Schladweiler's bio confirms the Seitz Ross → Ross Aronstam transition, and his 2018 move to Greenberg Traurig). The metadata in the prior section is consistent with this.

Bottom line: For IPR2014-01094 itself, the defense (patent owner) representation was Justin B. Kimble (lead) and Jeffrey R. Bragalone (back-up), Bragalone Conroy P.C., Dallas. For the infringement case in which LG is the defendant, the defense team was Benjamin J. Schladweiler and David E. Ross, Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP (Wilmington, DE) as local counsel, with Mayer Brown LLP (Robert G. Pluta, Amanda K. Streff — Chicago; Alison T. Gelsleichter, Anita Y. Lam, Baldine B. Paul, Jamie B. Beaber, Kfir B. Levy, Michael L. Lindinger, Tiffany A. Miller — Washington, D.C.) as national counsel, and Steptoe & Johnson (Remus, Gracey) having withdrawn as of May 29, 2014.