Local Intelligence, LLC v. Samsung

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting the overview.

Let me dig deeper into the parties, patents, and outcome.

Case Overview & Background

The parties. The plaintiff, Local Intelligence, LLC, is a non-practicing entity (NPE/PAE) — a patent-holding shell with no operating business. It is an affiliate of Monument Patent Holdings, LLC, which is itself part of the Dominion Harbor Enterprises family of monetization entities; RPX characterized it that way in October 2017, and later reporting describes it as "an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC." Local Intelligence acquired a portfolio of 15 patents from TP Lab, Inc. in August 2017 and filed its first-ever suit the following October, making this case the opening move in its campaign. The defendants are [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. — the U.S. sales/operations arm and the Korean parent, respectively — the world's largest smartphone manufacturer (RPX, Oct. 30, 2017; Mondaq/RPX analysis, May 31, 2024).

Accused technology. The complaint targeted Samsung's Galaxy S6, S7 and S8 smartphones, with the infringement allegations centering on everyday location-aware user-interface features — specifically the use of navigation services (e.g., Google Maps) and the Galaxy "edge" display's presentation of a "My Places" listing that surfaces location-specific communication options to the user. In other words, the theory was that ordinary smartphone software — pulling a location from a location server and refreshing the handset's screen with location-relevant services — reads on the asserted claims (RPX, Oct. 2017). The asserted family traces to a June 21, 2006 priority date and names Shin Cheung Simon Chiu as sole inventor, with TP Lab founder/CEO Chi Fai Ho associated with sibling families (Unified Patents patent record).

Patents asserted. Your case metadata lists only US 9,219,982; contemporaneous RPX reporting, however, states that the complaint asserted three related patents from the same TP Lab family — identified in the parallel HTC complaint as the '067, '982 and '084 patents — "broadly concern[ing] updating a phone's display with a location-specific 'communication service.'" The '067 patent (US 8,903,067), Apparatus and method for automatically refreshing a display of a telephone (issued Dec. 2, 2014), claims a telephone that displays a screen based on a "function" (a set of conditions such as time, location or user role) and refreshes that screen with communication services tied to that function. The '982 patent is a continuation in the same family covering the location-server-driven refresh of the display with a location-associated communication service — the claim the plaintiff later re-asserted. The third patent ('084) issued July 14, 2015 and is a further sibling directed to refreshing the display based on conferencing-type communication services. I could not independently confirm the full patent number or exact claims of the '084 patent from the sources reviewed, so treat that detail as reported-but-unverified; the '982 and '067 characterizations above are grounded in the pleadings text reproduced by RPX and in the patent's own specification.

Procedural Posture, Venue & Significance

Posture and venue. The case was filed in October 2017 in the E.D. Tex., Marshall Division, and assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, then (and now) among the most active patent trial judges in the country. The docket shows a conventional Gilstrap patent schedule: a joint discovery order (D.E. 23–25, May 2018), a stipulated protective order (D.E. 29) and e-discovery order (D.E. 31), referral to mediation before the Hon. David Folsom (ret.), the former E.D. Tex. Chief Judge, with a Dec. 27, 2018 mediation deadline (D.E. 21), and a docket control order setting claim construction for Nov. 29, 2018, pretrial conference for May 6, 2019 and jury selection for June 3, 2019 (D.E. 24). The case was dismissed with prejudice in January 2019 — before claim construction and trial — which is the classic resolution pattern for a licensing-driven NPE campaign (see the Plainsite docket; Mondaq/RPX). I did not locate the specific dismissal docket entry number, and no public settlement or license terms are reported. Venue mattered here: the suit was filed months after TC Heartland (May 2017), but Samsung's substantial Texas footprint (including its Plano campus in the Eastern District) made the Marshall/Sherman venue defensible, and no transfer motion appears in the docket.

Why it's notable. First, it is a textbook example of portfolio-drop NPE economics: a 15-patent package purchased from a small R&D shop (TP Lab) and deployed within roughly six weeks of assignment, with the first suit aimed at the industry's largest handset maker to set a licensing anchor. Second, Local Intelligence ran the same patents against HTC (N.D. Cal., 5:17-cv-06437) and LG (D. Del.), a three-front Android-OEM campaign; the HTC case produced the campaign's most citable ruling — Judge Edward J. Davila denied HTC's Alice § 101 motion to dismiss, concluding that "the . . . specific improvement to user interfaces claimed here is also not an abstract idea," giving the family a survivability signal before any claim construction occurred (Mondaq/RPX; RPX docket for 5:17-cv-06437). Third, it illustrates NPE asset churn and patent recycling: Local Intelligence transferred its assets back to TP Lab in November 2019, and in 2024 Lab Technology LLC (through Rabicoff Law LLC) re-asserted the '982 patent against Samsung in 2:24-cv-00324, this time targeting the Galaxy Watch6 — which was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice. Fourth, on the IPR linkage point: I found no PTAB inter partes review of the '982 patent in the sources reviewed. Unified Patents did challenge a different Dominion Harbor/Monument patent (US 8,577,994) in November 2017, but that challenge is unrelated to this family; the absence of an IPR here is a negative finding from limited searching and should be verified directly against the PTAB docket rather than relied on.

Sourcing note: party affiliations, accused products, asserted-patent identities and the January 2019 dismissal are supported by RPX and the Mondaq/NPE-analysis article and the Plainsite docket extract; the complaint itself, the dismissal order and counsel of record (plaintiff's counsel appears as "L. Van Cleef" and Samsung's as "Melissa Smith" on the docket) should be confirmed on PACER, and I have flagged the '084 patent number and the absence of IPRs as unverified.

I'll research this case across multiple sources. Let me start with several searches in parallel.

Let me dig into the complaint specifics, Samsung's answer/counterclaims, and any PTAB proceedings.

I hit the tool-use limit before I could pull the PACER docket directly or run a full PTAB/assignment search, so the below is built from the docket aggregator (PlainSite), the RPX/Mondaq campaign reporting, and the N.D. Cal. HTC opinion that construed the same patent family. Where I could not verify something, I say so.

Local Intelligence, LLC v. Samsung — 2:17-cv-00716 (E.D. Tex.)

Court/judge: E.D. Tex. (Marshall), District Judge Rodney Gilstrap.
Patent at issue (per case metadata): US 9,219,982 ("Apparatus and Method for Automatically Refreshing a Display of a Telephone"), continuation of US 8,903,067, same specification as US 9,084,084.
Final disposition: dismissed with prejudice on 2019-01-03 (Dkt. 47), following a settlement stay entered 2018-11-27.

Caveat on the patent count: the case metadata lists only the '982 patent, and I treat that as controlling. However, contemporaneous RPX reporting on the Oct. 2017 complaint stated that three related patents were asserted and that the complaint targeted Galaxy S6/S7/S8 smartphones over Google Maps / "My Places" edge-display features (RPX News, 2017-10-30). The parallel HTC case in the same family (N.D. Cal.) did assert the '067, '982 and '084 patents together. Dkt. 1 attached Exhibits A–D. I could not retrieve the Samsung complaint itself to confirm the exact count.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

• 2017-10-27 — Complaint filed (Dkt. 1), with jury demand (Dkt. 4), Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure (Dkt. 3), and AO 120 form (Dkt. 2). Defendants: Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (the latter a Korean entity). Case assigned to Judge Gilstrap on 2017-10-30.
• The patents came from TP Lab, Inc. RPX reported in early October 2017 that 15 patents were assigned from TP Lab to Local Intelligence, LLC, "an affiliate of Monument Patent Holdings, LLC" (the Delaware action's Rule 7.1 disclosure names Monument Patent Holdings as parent; Mondaq later describes Local Intelligence as a Dominion Harbor Enterprises affiliate). Sole named inventor: Shin Cheung Simon Chiu.
• Pro se plaintiff counsel: L. Charles Van Cleef; Nicole D. Galli and Charles P. Goodwin (appearance 2017-11-16, Dkt. 9).
• 2017-10-30 / 2017-11-14 — Summonses issued to SEA (Dkt. 5) and SEC (Dkt. 6).
• 2017-11-14/15 — Joint motion and order extending time to answer, with waiver of foreign service on the Korean defendant (Dkt. 7, 8). Answers due 2018-02-21.
• 2018-02-21 — Samsung's Answer to the complaint (Dkt. 12), corporate disclosure (Dkt. 13), and jury demand (Dkt. 14). No counterclaims appear on the docket (no counterclaim entries at all through dismissal). Defense counsel: Melissa Richards Smith (Gillam & Smith) and Christopher W. Kennerly, Jeffrey A. Pade, Anand B. Patel, Koichiro Kidokoro (Paul Hastings), pro hac vice appearances Dkts. 11, 15, 16, 18.

2. Scheduling, discovery framework, and mediation referral

• 2018-03-23 — Scheduling Conference set for 2018-04-24 (Dkt. 17).
• 2018-04-12 — Plaintiff's P.R. 3-1/3-2 notice (infringement contentions served) (Dkt. 19).
• 2018-04-24 — Scheduling conference held; Judge Gilstrap set Markman and jury-selection dates and mediation deadlines (minute entry).
• 2018-04-26/27 — Mediation referral; former EDTX Chief Judge David Folsom appointed mediator (Dkts. 20–21).
• 2018-05-09 — Docket Control Order (Dkt. 24): Markman hearing 2018-11-29; amended pleadings due 2018-09-13; mediation completion due 2018-12-27; jury selection 2019-06-03; pretrial conference 2019-05-06; MILs 2019-04-15. That same day, a Discovery Order was entered (Dkt. 25).
• 2018-05-18 — Stipulated Protective Order (Dkt. 29); 2018-05-29 — E-Discovery Order (Dkt. 31).

3. Pre-trial motions of substance

There were no dispositive motions of any kind on the E.D. Tex. docket — no Rule 12 motion to dismiss, no motion to transfer (e.g., § 1404 to N.D. Cal. or D. Del.), no motion to stay pending IPR, and no summary-judgment motion. Every "motion" docketed is case-management (scheduling, protective order, e-discovery, email-custodian extensions). The only stay entered in the case was the joint settlement stay (below).

The § 101/Alice fight happened in the parallel HTC case instead: HTC moved under Rule 12(b)(6) to invalidate the same family, and Judge Edward J. Davila (N.D. Cal.) denied it on 2018-04-06, relying on Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v. LG Electronics (Fed. Cir. 2018) and holding the claims recite "the way in which [display] is accomplished," i.e., a specific UI improvement that is not an abstract idea (Order, No. 5:17-cv-06437-EJD; Patent Docs, 2018-04-18). That ruling was effectively the plaintiff's strongest defense-side victory in the campaign and would have constrained any Samsung § 101 motion.

4. Claim construction — did not reach a ruling

• 2018-07-27 — Samsung served P.R. 4-2 proposed terms/claim elements (Dkt. 34).
• 2018-08-13/16 — Plaintiff's P.R. 4-1 and 4-2 disclosures (Dkts. 36, 38); 2018-08-17 — Samsung's P.R. 4-2 disclosures (Dkt. 39).
• 2018-09-06 — Joint Claim Construction and Prehearing Statement (Dkt. 40).
• 2018-09-17 — Markman hearing CANCELLED (the 2018-11-29 setting was vacated).
• 2018-09-21 — Judge Gilstrap issued a sua sponte order concerning the claim-construction chart filed at Dkt. 40 (Dkt. 41).

Outcome: the case settled before any Markman order issued. As RPX/Mondaq put it, the Texas and California suits "ended in the runup to claim construction." No claim terms were construed by the court, so there is no EDTX claim-construction precedent on the '982 patent.

5. Discovery milestones of strategic significance

• Email-custodian disclosures and a stipulated extension (Dkts. 32–33, 35, 37) — the parties litigated the scope of who would search email, a recurring cost/scope fight.
• E-discovery order (Dkt. 31) and protective order (Dkt. 29) — standard but necessary scaffolding for source-code and sales/royalty discovery.
• P.R. 4-1/4-2 disclosures and the Joint Claim Construction Statement (Dkts. 36, 38, 39, 40) — the last substantive discovery milestone before the stay.
• First Amended Docket Control Order (Dkt. 43, 2018-10-17) — the schedule was pushed (pretrial conference reset to 2019-05-24, noticed 2018-09-04), a common precursor to settlement.

No depositions, expert reports, or damages discovery milestones appear on the docket, consistent with a case that settled roughly a year after filing.

6. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. Jury selection was calendared for 2019-06-03; the case settled and was dismissed six months earlier. No verdict, no JMOL/new-trial motions, and no fee motion — dismissal with prejudice under the parties' joint motion closed the case before any § 285 activity.

7. Settlement, dismissal, and final disposition

• 2018-11-26/27 — Joint Motion to Stay and Notice of Settlement (Dkt. 44), granted the next day (Dkt. 45, 2018-11-27).
• 2019-01-02 — Joint Motion to Dismiss With Prejudice (Dkt. 46).
• 2019-01-03 — Order granting dismissal with prejudice (Dkt. 47).
• 2019-01-11 — AO 120 notice of termination mailed to the USPTO Director (Dkt. 48).

No appeal was taken. The dismissal is with prejudice, so the '982 patent is not subject to a new Samsung action on the same accused smartphones — and indeed the 2024 follow-on campaign against Samsung targets a different product (Galaxy Watch6).

Context for the exit: Local Intelligence transferred its patent assets back to TP Lab in November 2019, winding down the campaign (Mondaq/RPX, 2024-05-31).

8. Parallel proceedings and their effect

• PTAB (IPR/PGR): none found. I searched for IPR/PGR activity on the '982 patent and found no petition, institution, or final written decision, and the EDTX docket shows no IPR-based stay motion. The only stay was the joint settlement stay. I could not complete a full PTAB/assignment-record verification due to a tool limit — treat "no IPR" as a well-supported negative, not a confirmed one.
• N.D. Cal. — Local Intelligence v. HTC America, Inc., No. 5:17-cv-06437-EJD (filed 2017-11-03; closed 2018-09-26). Asserted '067, '982, '084. HTC's § 101 motion to dismiss denied 2018-04-06; case "ended in the runup to claim construction" (i.e., settled/dismissed Sept. 2018). This is the only reasoned judicial ruling on the merits of the '982 family, and it favored the patentee.
• D. Del. — Local Intelligence v. LG Electronics, No. 1:18-cv-00271 (filed 2018-02-20). Asserted '982 and '067. Voluntarily dismissed 2018-09-05, before LG answered — signaling the campaign was being unwound across all three defendants within weeks of each other (Sept. 2018 settlement wave, Texas stay Nov. 2018).
• 2024 follow-on — Lab Technology LLC v. Samsung, No. 2:24-cv-00324 (E.D. Tex.). A New Mexico entity (Rabicoff Law) asserted the '982 patent again, along with 8,498,388, 8,515,032, 8,503,973, and 9,578,570, against the Galaxy Watch6 and other products — i.e., the same patent, different accused products, and a reminder that the 2019 dismissal only resolved the smartphone dispute.

Strategic takeaway

This was a short, settlement-driven NPE case: one year from complaint (2017-10-27) to dismissal with prejudice (2019-01-03), no answer-counterclaims, no dispositive briefing, no Markman ruling, and no PTAB challenge. Its legal significance lies almost entirely in the sibling HTC ruling (N.D. Cal. 2018-04-06), which held the '982/'067/'084 claims § 101-eligible under Core Wireless — a decision the patentee then carried into 2:17-cv-00716 as leverage, and one that has since been revived in the 2024 Lab Technology campaign.

Key citations: Dkt. 1 (complaint, 2017-10-27); Dkt. 12 (answer, 2018-02-21); Dkt. 24 (DCO, 2018-05-09); Dkt. 40 (Joint CC Statement, 2018-09-06); Dkt. 44–45 (settlement stay, 2018-11-26/27); Dkt. 46–47 (joint motion and order of dismissal with prejudice, 2019-01-02/03); PlainSite docket; Local Intelligence, LLC v. HTC Am., Inc., No. 5:17-cv-06437-EJD (N.D. Cal. Apr. 6, 2018).

I'll search across multiple angles for press coverage of this case.

Let me search more specifically for press coverage and for the dismissal/settlement reporting.

Let me run a few more targeted searches to confirm the extent (or absence) of mainstream coverage.

I hit the tool-use limit before running every planned angle, but I ran enough searches (case caption, plaintiff+defendant, patent number, campaign/"NPE" framing, and law-blog/docket sources) to give a reliable answer on the press question.

Press & analyst coverage — Local Intelligence, LLC v. Samsung, No. 2:17-cv-00716 (E.D. Tex.)

Bottom line: this case generated essentially no mainstream press coverage. I searched for reporting from Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, and EFF Deeplinks and found no article specifically about Local Intelligence v. Samsung. The Law360 results that surfaced were about unrelated Samsung patent matters (the Mullen Industries location-services case, the AGIS Software Development dismissal, Staton Techiya, and Avant Location Technologies) and never mention Local Intelligence or the '982 patent. The substantive coverage that does exist is NPE-industry/trade analysis and law-blog commentary, and it is almost entirely downstream of RPX, whose litigation-database reporting is the source for most of what has been written about this campaign.

The single most substantive article discussing the case directly is an RPX analysis republished on Mondaq as "Yet Another New Mexico Plaintiff Launches Patent Litigation" (RPX Corporation, 2024-05-31). Writing in the context of the 2024 Lab Technology LLC v. Samsung follow-on (2:24-cv-00324), Mondaq reported that Local Intelligence — "an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC" — accused Samsung (E.D. Tex.), HTC (N.D. Cal.) and LG Electronics (D. Del.) of infringing the '982 patent, "among others," and that the Samsung suit was "dismissed with prejudice in January 2019" and "focused on Samsung smartphones" (as contrasted with the 2024 case's Galaxy Watch6 target). Critically for the patent-count discrepancy flagged in the earlier sections, Mondaq's "among others" phrasing is consistent with the prior generation's report that more than one patent was pleaded against Samsung, but no outlet states the exact count for the Samsung complaint, so that remains unresolved in the press. The same piece adds campaign-level facts the court record alone wouldn't show: the California and Texas suits "ended in the runup to claim construction"; the Delaware/LG case was "voluntarily dismissed with prejudice before an answer"; and Local Intelligence "transfer[red] its assets back to TP Lab in November 2019." No damages figure, settlement amount, or license term is reported anywhere — not by RPX, not by anyone else.

The family's only reasoned ruling drew law-blog, not news, attention — and it was in the HTC case, not the Samsung case. Patent Docs (2018-04-18) and, in identical text, JD Supra (McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP) published "Claims for Refreshing Phone Display Found Patent Eligible," analyzing Judge Edward J. Davila's 2018-04-06 denial of HTC's § 101 motion on the '067, '982 and '084 patents. Patent Docs explained that the court "rel[ied] almost entirely on the recent Federal Circuit decision in Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v. LG Electronics, Inc.," found both HTC's reading "too broad" and Local Intelligence's "too narrow," and held the claims directed to "refreshing location-relevant communication services on a phone's display." That is the coverage the earlier sections flagged as the campaign's most citable outcome — and it is worth noting that this commentary addresses the HTC suit only and never discusses the Samsung litigation. Docket aggregators (RPX Insight's HTC page, Unified Patents' LG docket, and PlainSite's Samsung docket) confirm filing/closure dates and the Judge-Davila denial but are primary-record trackers, not press.

Where accounts differ or go beyond the record: the only material divergence is the patent count — case metadata lists one patent ('982), while Mondaq/RPX implies multiple ("among others") and the sibling HTC pleading asserted three ('067, '982, '084); no press source resolves this for the Samsung complaint. No outlet reports analyst commentary, executive statements, or market-impact claims about the Samsung case, and I found no reporting on the January 2019 dismissal beyond RPX's retrospective mention six years later. If a citation to contemporaneous 2017 news coverage of the Samsung filing is needed, the RPX news item of 2017-10-30 cited in the earlier sections is the best available source, but I could not re-open it this session to re-verify its contents, so treat that specific citation as carried-forward rather than confirmed here.

Sources

• A
• William H
• M
• Yet Another New Mexico Plaintiff Launches Patent Litigation - ARTICLE
• Mullen IP Should Be Invalidated In Samsung Case, Judge Says - Law360
• Telecommunications : Law360 : Legal News & Analysis - - August 28, 2026
• Technology : Law360 UK : Legal News & Analysis - - August 28, 2026
• Technology : Law360 : Legal News & Analysis - - July 21, 2026
• Samsung Sanctioned Over Google Deal Documents In IP Case - Law360
• Samsung Sanctioned Over Google Deal Documents In IP Case
• Avant Location Technologies v. Samsung — Location Tech Patent Dispute | PatSnap - Your Agentic AI Partner
• AGIS Software Development v. Samsung: Location Technology Patent Dispute Ends in Dismissal | PatSnap Eureka - Your Agentic AI Partner

I'll research plaintiff's counsel across docket aggregators, firm sites, and case reporting.

I'll research defense counsel of record, verifying and expanding on the prior section's identification.

The general searches confirm Melissa Richards Smith's role as Samsung's regular E.D. Tex. local counsel, but I need the specific appearances in this case. Let me target the docket directly.

PlainSite confirms Kennerly and Smith. Now let me verify the Paul Hastings pro hac vice team and the local-counsel structure.

I hit the tool-use limit before I could fully re-verify every appearance, so I've separated what I could confirm in this session from what I'm carrying forward from the earlier docket review.

Defense counsel of record — Local Intelligence, LLC v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., No. 2:17-cv-00716-JRG (E.D. Tex.)

Both defendants — Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (Ridgefield Park, NJ) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Suwon, Korea) — were represented by the same two-firm team: Paul Hastings LLP as lead/substantive counsel and Gillam & Smith, LLP as E.D. Tex. local counsel. No separate or conflicting representation appears, and no in-house Samsung counsel entered an appearance on the docket.

Confirmed this session

Reported in the earlier docket review but NOT re-verified in this session

The prior section listed the following Paul Hastings attorneys as additional defense counsel appearing pro hac vice (Dkts. 11, 15, 16, 18). I could not pull those specific docket entries again before the tool limit, so treat these as carried forward, unconfirmed:

• Jeffrey A. Pade — Paul Hastings (office not confirmed).
• Anand B. Patel — Paul Hastings (office not confirmed).
• Koichiro Kidokoro — Paul Hastings (name suggests Paul Hastings' Tokyo office; not confirmed).

These are plausible for a Samsung defense team of this era, but I do not have a primary-source citation for any of the three in 2:17-cv-00716 from this session. If exact names matter for a filing, the appearances should be re-pulled from the RECAP/PlainSite docket (Dkts. 11–18) or from PACER directly.

Caveats

• Docket-entry numbers for the PHV appearances (11, 15, 16, 18) are from the earlier generation, not re-verified here. The reported PHV count (four) exceeds the three names carried forward, so there may be one additional Paul Hastings attorney whose name I could not confirm — flagging that gap explicitly rather than filling it.
• No in-house counsel for Samsung appear on the docket as filed in this case.
• The docket reflects a single, unified defense team for both the U.S. and Korean Samsung entities; there is no indication of separate counsel for the foreign defendant (consistent with the joint motion/waiver of foreign service at Dkts. 7–8).

Primary source: PlainSite docket, Local Intelligence, LLC v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., No. 2:17-cv-00716.

Note on the Paul Hastings "of record" status: because Kennerly is Texas-barred and Smith is the Marshall local counsel, the filings in this case would ordinarily be signed "/s/ Melissa R. Smith" with Kennerly and any Paul Hastings PHV attorneys listed beneath — matching the pattern seen in the contemporaneous Samsung matters. That signing convention is inferred from the CyWee filings, not verified against the Local Intelligence PDFs themselves.