Meta Platforms, Inc. v. SITNETLLC

Meta Platforms, Inc. is a major American multinational technology company known for its social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The company is a prominent operating entity that has increasingly focused on artificial intelligence and the metaverse. On the other side, SITNETLLC is identified as a Patent Assertion Entity (PAE), also known as a Non-Practicing Entity (NPE). This classification indicates that SITNETLLC primarily acquires patents to assert them against alleged infringers, generating revenue through licensing or litigation rather than producing its own products or services. RPX data suggests SITNETLLC was formed by the principal of CAsE Analysis and launched its first campaign over social networking technologies with litigation funding.

The patent at issue in this Inter Partes Review (IPR) is U.S. Patent No. 12,336,052, titled "Method And System For Using A Situational Network." This patent broadly relates to the field of situational awareness networks, specifically concerning the creation and management of such networks within a larger, multi-dimensional information network. It describes a system and method for dynamically creating a targeted communication channel in response to an event, such as emergencies or disasters, by leveraging existing network infrastructure and user data to facilitate efficient information sharing and coordination among affected individuals. While an IPR challenges patentability rather than directly accusing a product, related district court litigation between these parties has targeted Meta's "Crisis Response feature" on Facebook, suggesting this is the type of technology SITNETLLC alleges infringes its patents.

This case, IPR2026-00113, was filed by Meta Platforms, Inc. at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), an administrative body within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The procedural posture is particularly notable as the PTAB did not institute the review, citing "procedural" reasons. This means the Board did not reach the merits of whether the patent claims were unpatentable, likely due to a defect in Meta's petition itself, rather than an assessment of the patent's validity. The PTAB is a significant venue for patent challenges, offering a potentially faster and less costly alternative to district court litigation for operating companies like Meta to defend against patent assertions, especially from NPEs. The "Not Instituted - Procedural" outcome highlights the strict procedural requirements of IPR proceedings. This case is part of a broader pattern of disputes, as Meta and SITNETLLC have been involved in other IPRs (e.g., IPR2026-00100 concerning patent 10,117,290) and a district court patent infringement lawsuit, indicating ongoing contention over SITNETLLC's "situational network" patent portfolio.

Patent Infringement Litigation: SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. 23-cv-6389) and Related PTAB Proceedings

This summary addresses legal developments for the patent infringement litigation identified as SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 23-cv-6389, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. It also covers the Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceeding IPR2026-00113, as specified in the prompt, and another related IPR, IPR2024-00530. It is important to note that the district court case (23-cv-6389) involves U.S. Patent Nos. 9,877,345, 8,332,454, 8,249,932, and 11,470,682, and not patent 12336052, which is the subject of IPR2026-00113. No district court patent infringement litigation specifically asserting patent 12336052 has been identified in the available search results.

District Court Litigation: SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 23-cv-6389 (S.D.N.Y.)

• Filing & Initial Pleadings: SitNet LLC filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc. in the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit alleges that Meta's "Crisis Response feature" on Facebook infringes on SitNet's patented methods and systems for situational networking. The asserted patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 9,877,345, 8,332,454, 8,249,932, and 11,470,682. The complaint, identified as Dkt. 1, was filed by SitNet.

• Pre-trial Motions of Substance – Motion to Dismiss: Meta Platforms, Inc. filed a motion to dismiss the patent infringement lawsuit, challenging the eligibility of SitNet's asserted patents under 35 U.S.C. § 101. On March 21, 2024 (with an opinion issued March 19, 2024), the court issued a mixed verdict on Meta's motion. The court granted the motion to dismiss regarding claims based on Patent No. 11,470,682, finding it directed to abstract ideas without an inventive concept. However, the court denied Meta's motion to dismiss for Patent Nos. 9,877,345, 8,332,454, and 8,249,932, concluding that dismissing these patents at the pleading stage was inappropriate given their plausible inventiveness.

• Claim Construction (Markman) Outcomes: A Markman hearing was held on July 1, 2024, to resolve disputes regarding the scope of claim terms for the remaining patents (9,877,345, 8,332,454, and 8,249,932). The court issued an opinion and order construing the disputed claim terms on July 16, 2024.

Parallel PTAB IPR Proceedings

• IPR2026-00113 (Regarding Patent 12336052): Meta Platforms, Inc. filed an Inter Partes Review petition against SITNETLLC concerning patent 12336052. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not institute this IPR due to procedural reasons. No specific district court litigation asserting patent 12336052 has been identified in the available information.

• IPR2024-00530 (Related to SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc. litigation): A separate IPR proceeding, IPR2024-00530, involving SITNET LLC and Meta Platforms, Inc., reached the Federal Circuit. This appeal (Federal Circuit Case No. 26-1158) was dismissed on April 27, 2026, by agreement of the parties, with each side bearing their own costs. The specific patent(s) at issue in IPR2024-00530 were not detailed in the available search snippets beyond being related to the broader SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc. dispute. This IPR is distinct from IPR2026-00113 and does not directly concern patent 12336052.

I'll research the counsel of record on both sides of this PTAB proceeding, treating Meta as the petitioner (the "plaintiff-side" party in an IPR) and checking SITNETLLC's patent-owner counsel as well.

Good leads. Now let me pull the IPR2026-00113 docket and petition papers directly to confirm the counsel of record for this specific proceeding.

Let me try to open the actual IPR2026-00113 docket sheet and related second-wave petitions to confirm appearances.

Counsel of Record — Note on Party Alignment

Threshold clarification: IPR2026-00113 is a PTAB proceeding, not a district court action — there is no "plaintiff." The plaintiff-side party is the petitioner, Meta Platforms, Inc. (the party that "filed" the case), and the defending party is the patent owner, SitNet, LLC. I therefore list counsel for both sides, with Meta's team as the direct answer to the question.

Important sourcing caveat: I could not retrieve the four corners of the IPR2026-00113 papers themselves (Paper 1 petition, Paper 2 Petitioner's Power of Attorney, Paper 3 Patent Owner Mandatory Notice). Docket aggregator pages for this specific proceeding returned only header-level data (filed Nov. 12, 2025; terminated Mar. 17, 2026; status "Discretionary Denial"; Tech Center 2400 / Art Unit 2446). The identifications below are drawn from (a) the confirmed Power of Attorney and oral-hearing transcript in the companion Meta v. SitNet IPRs, (b) the Patent Owner's Preliminary Response and exhibits filed in sister second-wave proceeding IPR2026-00101 (which cites IPR2026-00113 Ex. 1002), and (c) Meta's Federal Circuit appearances in the SitNet appeals. Each entry is labeled by confidence; none is invented.

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Petitioner Meta Platforms, Inc. — Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC

Address of record: 1101 K Street NW, 10th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005.

Relevant experience (Sterne Kessler team): The same team obtained final written decisions on September 8, 2025, invalidating all 56 challenged claims across IPR2024-00529, -00530, -00531, and -00612 (Meta Platforms, Inc. v. SitNet, LLC), addressing U.S. Patent Nos. 8,249,932, 8,332,454, 9,877,345, and 11,470,682 — the same "situational network" family at issue here. See Sterne Kessler news release, "Sterne Kessler Goes Four-for-Four in Final Written Decisions…"; SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 23-cv-6389-AS, Dkt. 142 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 14, 2026) (joint status report recounting those FWDs).

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Patent Owner SitNet, LLC — Hecht Partners LLP

Address of record: 125 Park Avenue, 25th Floor, New York, NY 10017. Service address of record in the companion IPRs: hp-sitnet@hechtpartners.com.

Note on "local counsel": PTAB practice does not require local counsel, and none appears of record. Hecht Partners is itself New York-based, which is why the same firm also serves as SitNet's S.D.N.Y. litigation counsel (see below). I found no separate local-counsel or co-counsel firm for SitNet in any Meta–SitNet proceeding.

Prosecution counsel of record (not litigation counsel): The patents' USPTO correspondence address of record in the earlier wave was Haley Guiliano LLP, 75 Broad Street, Suite 1000, New York, NY 10004. This is a prosecution address only and should not be reported as litigation counsel.

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Related district court counsel (for cross-reference)

If by "this patent infringement case" the intended reference is the underlying infringement action, SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-6389-JAV (S.D.N.Y.):

• Meta (defendant): Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP — Ashok Ramani, Menlo Park, CA (author of the Sept. 12, 2024 unopposed stay letter, Dkt. 118).
• SitNet (plaintiff): Hecht Partners LLP — David L. Hecht.
• That case remains stayed (Dkt. 119, Judge Arun Subramanian, Sept. 13, 2024) pending the Federal Circuit appeals in Nos. 26-1157 and 26-1159; No. 26-1158 was dismissed by agreed order on April 27, 2026.

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Discrepancies with the existing case summary — flagged

1. "Not Instituted – Procedural" vs. "Discretionary Denial." Docket aggregator data for IPR2026-00113 shows a termination date of March 17, 2026 with status "Discretionary Denial," and sister petitions in the same wave (IPR2026-00101, -00112) show a March 10, 2026 Director discretionary referral followed by April 14, 2026 institution denials, with the patent owner having filed a discretionary-denial brief and the petitioner a Sotera stipulation. That pattern is a § 314(a) / § 325(d) discretionary denial, which is analytically distinct from a petition defect (e.g., § 315(b) time-bar or failure to serve). The characterization "procedural reasons" in the prior section may be an artifact of the metadata label; I could not verify a merits or procedural defect ruling. This should be re-verified against the actual IPR2026-00113 institution decision before being relied on.

2. Filing date. Case metadata says "Filed: 2026"; the docket shows the petition filed November 12, 2025 (consistent with the IPR2026 numbering series, which began with late-2025 filings). The metadata year likely reflects the termination year.

3. Judge panel. The aggregator's panel field for IPR2026-00113 lists Powell, Szpondowski, Belisle, and Dang — consistent with the panels in the earlier SitNet IPRs — but also lists Arun Subramanian, who is the S.D.N.Y. district judge. That entry is almost certainly a data-merge error and should not be cited as a PTAB panel composition.

4. Case-number discrepancy inherited from the prior section. The earlier draft referenced "Case 1:25-cv-06185-JAV." The docket and exhibits support 1:23-cv-06389-JAV as the operative S.D.N.Y. case; the string "1:25-cv-06389-6185-JAV" appearing in an exhibit list in IPR2026-00101 appears to be a garbled citation. Separately, an exhibit in IPR2026-00112 references a "SitNet II Scheduling Order," suggesting a second, later-filed Meta–SitNet district court suit (plausibly asserting the newer patents such as 12,245,325 and 12,336,052, including a July 28, 2025 complaint and a Nov. 7, 2025 amended complaint). **I could not confirm the number or

I'll research counsel for the respondent/defendant side — SITNETLLC as patent owner in IPR2026-00113, plus its litigation counsel in related matters.

Key lead found: Hecht Partners LLP represents SitNet as patent owner. Now let me pin down the specific IPR2026-00113 record and any co-counsel.

The docket shows IPR2026-00113 was terminated on discretionary denial (not merely "procedural") — I need the actual signature blocks. Let me pull the docket and SitNet's papers.

Counsel of Record — Respondent/Patent-Owner Side (SITNETLLC) in IPR2026-00113

Framing note (important). In IPR2026-00113 the caption runs Meta Platforms, Inc. v. SitNet, LLC, so Meta is the petitioner (the "plaintiff" side, covered in the prior section) and SITNETLLC is the respondent/patent owner — the functional "defendant" for this task. There is no separate "defendant" in the IPR; the party adverse to Meta is SitNet. Below I separate (a) counsel confirmed on the PTAB/Federal Circuit record for SitNet in the Meta–SitNet IPR series, from (b) counsel who appear only on the district-court docket, which I could not confirm as PTAB counsel.

A. Confirmed SitNet-side PTAB / appellate counsel

Confidence: High that Hecht Partners (Hecht) is SitNet's PTAB-side counsel of record in the Meta–SitNet IPR series, including the FY2026 filings against the newer patents (the '325 and '052 patents). Moderate that Finnegan/Holt's engagement extended back into the IPR2026-00113 pre-institution papers rather than being appeal-only — the retrieved sources place Finnegan on the Federal Circuit appeal, not expressly in IPR2026-00113.

B. SitNet counsel appearing on the district-court docket (S.D.N.Y. 1:23-cv-06389) — not confirmed at the PTAB

Source: CourtListener docket, Parties/Attorneys listing for SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 1:23-cv-06389 (S.D.N.Y.).

No in-house counsel identified. SitNet is a small PAE/NPE (per RPX, formed by the principal of CAsE Analysis and funded for its first social-networking campaign); I found no evidence of in-house IP counsel appearing in any Meta–SitNet matter, and I will not speculate as to names.

C. What I could not verify, and contradictions to flag

1. No direct retrieval of an IPR2026-00113 signature block. I was unable to pull the Patent Owner Preliminary Response, Power of Attorney, or mandatory notices filed in IPR2026-00113 itself. The identification of Hecht (and possibly Finnegan) rests on their confirmed roles in the companion Meta–SitNet IPRs (IPR2024-00529/530/531/612, IPR2026-00100/00101) and the Federal Circuit appeal. To confirm, check the P-TACTS docket for IPR2026-00113 — specifically the Patent Owner's Power of Attorney (typically Ex. 3001) and the POPR signature block.
2. Status contradiction with case metadata. The prompt's metadata states "Not Instituted – Procedural." The PTAB docket aggregator instead lists IPR2026-00113 as filed November 12, 2025, terminated March 17, 2026, status "Discretionary Denial" — i.e., a § 314(a)/§ 325(d) discretionary denial on the merits of institution, not a mere procedural defect. Flagging per operating rules; the metadata controls for caption/parties, but the "procedural" characterization appears inaccurate.
3. Panel oddity. The same docket listing shows a panel of Neil T. Powell, Kara L. Szpondowski, Stephen E. Belisle, and Thu A. Dang — plus "Arun Subramanian," who is a sitting S.D.N.Y. district judge. That entry is almost certainly a docket-data artifact; I would not rely on it without seeing the actual institution/denial decision.
4. Possible § 315(b) timing story — and a correction to the prior section. The prior section stated that no district-court case asserts the '052 patent. However, SitNet's exhibit list in IPR2026-00101 (POPR and Discretionary Denial Brief) cites Complaint (July 28, 2025) and Amended Complaint (Nov. 7, 2025) in "SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-06389-6185-JAV," and separately lists Ex. 2008, U.S. Patent No. 12,336,052 ("Cona") — indicating the '052 patent is part of that newer SitNet suit. Since Meta's '052 petition was filed November 12, 2025, the service date of that complaint is a live § 315(b) bar question worth checking; it may well explain the March 17, 2026 denial. The case-number suffix ("-6185-JAV") is internally inconsistent with an S.D.N.Y. number and may denote a different district or a consolidated lead case; I could not confirm the venue.
5. Case-number drift in S.D.N.Y. The original action is No. 1:23-cv-6389-AS (Judge Arun Subramanian) in early filings, but the August 14, 2026 Joint Status Report (Dkt. 142) uses 1:23-cv-06389-JAV, suggesting reassignment. Also note that case has been stayed since September 13, 2024 (Dkt. 119), with four IPRs resulting in final written decisions on September 8, 2025 finding all challenged claims unpatentable, and appeals Nos. 26-1157/26-1159 pending (26-1158 dismissed April 27, 2026).

D. Bottom line

For IPR2026-00113, the respondent SitNet, LLC's counsel of record is David Hecht of Hecht Partners LLP (New York) — the same lead PTAB counsel who argued SitNet's consolidated Meta IPR hearing — with Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP (Cora Renae Holt) appearing for SitNet on the related Federal Circuit appeal. The Barclay Damon, DiCello Levitt, Kannan, and Norris appearances are confined to the S.D.N.Y. docket as retrieved. A P-TACTS pull of the IPR2026-00113 Power of Attorney and POPR is the one step needed to convert this from high-confidence inference to confirmed record.