Netflix, Inc. et al. v. Broadcom Corporation

I'll research this. Note upfront: the case number given (IPR2021-00468) is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district court case, so I'll frame the overview around the underlying litigation campaign and this IPR's role in it.

Case overview: Netflix, Inc. et al. v. Broadcom Corp., IPR2021-00468 (PTAB)

Framing note: IPR2021-00468 is not an infringement suit. It is an administrative validity challenge that Netflix filed as a defensive move inside a much larger, multi-patent district court campaign brought by Broadcom against Netflix. The IPR itself was filed Feb. 3, 2021, targeted claims 12–16, 18 and 19 of U.S. Patent No. 6,982,663, and was denied institution on Aug. 9, 2021 (Tech Center 2800; docket metadata via GreyB/IPVerse). The parties are both operating companies, not NPEs: Netflix, Inc. and Netflix Streaming Services, Inc. are the petitioners (a streaming service and the entity that runs its encoding/CDN operations), while the patent owner side is the Broadcom family — Broadcom Corporation (the San Jose/Irvine semiconductor and connectivity company, now an indirect subsidiary of Broadcom Inc.) and, in the courts, Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Ltd., the Singapore entity through which the former LSI Logic/Agere patent portfolio is held. The '663 patent is a legacy LSI Logic asset (inventor Lowell Winger of Waterloo, Ontario; assigned to LSI Logic Corporation at issuance on Jan. 3, 2006), which matters because it is a chipmaker's patent being asserted against a content distributor rather than against a rival chip vendor.

Accused technology and the patent. Broadcom's operative complaint (Broadcom Corp. v. Netflix, Inc., C.D. Cal. No. 8:20-cv-00529, filed Mar. 13, 2020, complaint) alleged that Netflix's internet video streaming service — specifically its video encoding pipeline and the Netflix application on consumer devices — infringed nine patents said to cover "foundational technologies that are essential to various aspects of Netflix's video streaming service." The '663 patent, Method and System for Symbol Binarization, is a one-line sketch: in an MPEG/H.264-style encoder, use unary binarization for symbol index values below a threshold and a unary prefix plus exp-Golomb suffix above it, to keep codewords short and distinguishable before binary arithmetic coding (see the petition excerpt and patent text at PTActs). It claims priority to July 10, 2002 (continuation of the application that issued as the '387 patent, filed Feb. 2, 2004 as App. No. 10/770,213). Netflix's accused conduct was encoding content files using H.264/HEVC-conformant binarization (the complaint walks through the H.264.2 and H.265.2 reference software), not selling encoder chips; the companion '283 patent was tied specifically to Netflix's use of the Beamr encoder, and the '121 patent to Netflix's OpenConnect CDN.

Procedural posture and why the forum mattered. The real fight was in the Northern District of California, before Judge James Donato (No. 3:20-cv-04677-JD), where Broadcom/Avago's case was litigated through claim construction (Dkt. 218, May 23, 2022), summary judgment briefing and trial preparation into 2023–24. Judge Donato's construction is significant on its own: he rejected Netflix's indefiniteness attack on claim 13 and adopted plain meaning, but held claims 18 and 19 indefinite because claim 12's steps are sequential — two of the very claims Netflix was challenging in this IPR. The '663 patent also had a prior life: Broadcom asserted it at the ITC in Certain Audiovisual Components and Products (Inv. No. 337-TA-837, Initial Determination July 18, 2013), and Judge James V. Selna (C.D. Cal.) had already held the '663 claims patent-eligible under § 101 in Broadcom Corp. v. Amazon.com, No. SACV 16-1774-JVS (2017). Netflix's earlier effort to invalidate it via Amazon's IPR2017-00964 was denied

I'll research this carefully. One important note up front: the docket number given (IPR2021-00468) is a PTAB proceeding, not a district court case — so I'll need to map both the IPR and the parallel district court litigation involving the '663 patent. Let me search.

The docket number is a PTAB IPR, so I'll cover the IPR itself and the underlying district court case (which reached claim construction, summary judgment, and trial). More searches:

Threshold point on posture

The docket you supplied — IPR2021‑00468, Netflix, Inc. et al. v. Broadcom Corporation, Patent 6,982,663 — is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district‑court infringement suit. It was filed 2021‑02‑03 and terminated 2021‑08‑09 with institution denied. An institution denial is not appealable and produced no written decision on patentability.

The actual infringement litigation over the ’663 patent is Broadcom Corp. et al. v. Netflix, Inc., originally C.D. Cal. No. 8:20‑cv‑00529‑JVS (filed 2020‑03‑13), transferred to N.D. Cal. No. 3:20‑cv‑04677‑JD before Judge James Donato. That case ran five years, reached claim construction and summary judgment, and settled/dismissed on the eve of trial in April 2025 — no verdict. Below I cover the IPR and then the litigation, because the IPR's significance can only be assessed against the district court case.

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Part I — The PTAB proceeding (the docket supplied)

Sources: petition text (PTACTS, https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1546464](/patent/1546464)/...); proceeding metadata, https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2021-00468.

What I could not verify: the actual institution‑denial paper (Paper 10) and its reasoning. Given the timing (August 2021, when Fintiv-based § 314(a) denials were routine and the N.D. Cal. case had a set trial track), a discretionary denial in view of the parallel litigation is the most plausible basis, but I have no source confirming whether the denial rested on § 314(a)/Fintiv, § 325(d), or the merits. Netflix filed ten petitions against eight of the twelve asserted patents in this campaign (per Netflix's stay motion, Dkt. 109) and secured institution on some (Netflix represented that "the PTAB has already instituted review on three out of Netflix's first four petitions"). The ’663 petition was one that did not clear the threshold.

Effect on the litigation — limited. Because institution was denied, the ’663 patent was not covered by the district court's partial stay (see Part II), and Broadcom's ’663 case proceeded to claim construction and to the eve of trial. Ironically, the district court then held **

I'll research this PTAB proceeding and identify the counsel of record for the petitioner.

Important framing caveat

This is not a district‑court infringement case. IPR2021‑00468 is a Patent Trial and Appeal Board proceeding in which Netflix was the petitioner (the metadata's "plaintiff") and Broadcom the patent owner. Institution was denied on August 9, 2021 (Paper 10‑type decision), so there was no trial, no oral argument, and no "local counsel" in the district‑court sense — the Board does not require local counsel, and none appears on PTAB dockets as a rule.

Sourcing limitation I want to flag up front: in this session I was able to confirm the proceeding's existence, parties, patent (U.S. 6,982,663, "Method and system for symbol binarization," app. 10/770,213) and the August 9, 2021 denial of institution, but I could not retrieve the caption/notice of counsel page of Netflix's petition or the institution decision itself. The attorney list below is therefore drawn from (a) the docket for the co‑pending district‑court case Broadcom Corp. v. Netflix, Inc., No. 3:20‑cv‑04677‑JD (N.D. Cal.), where the same Netflix team appeared, and (b) Keker, Van Nest & Peters' own published descriptions of its work invalidating the Broadcom patents "in court or on inter partes review." Individual‑level attribution to this specific IPR number should be treated as high confidence but not docket‑verified.

Counsel for Netflix, Inc. / Netflix Streaming Services, Inc.

Firm: Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP — sole office at 633 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111. (Netflix's Northern California patent litigation has been handled out of this one office; it is not a multi‑office firm.)

In‑house counsel: Netflix's legal department (IP litigation group) would have held settlement/strategy authority, but I found no in‑house attorney named of record on this IPR, and I will not guess at a name. Similarly, the record does not show separate "of counsel" or local counsel appearing in the PTAB proceeding.

What I would verify before filing anything citing this

1. Paper 1 (Petition) caption and mandatory notices under 37 C.F.R. § 42.8(b)(3) — this is the authoritative list of lead and back‑up counsel for petitioner, including any attorney I have not named.
2. Paper 10 (Decision Denying Institution, Aug. 9, 2021) — the Board's decisions reproduce the parties' counsel blocks; that would confirm or correct the table above.
3. Whether Netflix sought rehearing under § 42.71(d) or appealed; I did not confirm either way.
4. Whether a power of attorney / substitute counsel was filed (Keker sometimes used local PTAB‑admitted attorneys as back‑up to satisfy the Board's registration requirement).

Bottom line

Netflix was represented by Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP (San Francisco) — the same team that ran the parallel Broadcom Corp. v. Netflix litigation — with Robert A. Van Nest as senior/lead trial counsel and Sharif E. Jacob as the day‑to‑day lead on the Broadcom patent campaign. The specific IPR caption listing for IPR2021‑00468 is not something I could pull in this session; treat the individual names as firm‑verified but docket‑unverified for this proceeding. No local counsel or in‑house attorney of record was identified, and nothing in the available record suggests sealed filings affecting counsel disclosure.

I'll research the patent owner's (Broadcom's) counsel, since in this PTAB proceeding the "defendant" side — the party defending the ’663 patent — is Broadcom as patent owner.

Important finding: the actual Power of Attorney in IPR2021‑00468 lists Sheppard Mullin as Netflix's PTAB counsel, not Keker — I'll flag that contradiction. Now let me pin down Broadcom's (patent owner / "defendant") counsel.

Framing: who is the "defendant" here — and a correction to the earlier section

Two threshold points before the counsel tables.

1. In IPR2021‑00468, the "defendant" side is the patent owner, Broadcom. The metadata labels Netflix as "plaintiff" because it filed the petition; Broadcom is the respondent/patent owner defending the '663 patent. So the answer to "counsel for the defendant" is Broadcom's PTAB counsel of record, which was a small Colorado IP boutique — Adsero IP LLC d/b/a Swanson & Bratschun LLC — not the Dallas trial team that handled the district court case. I cover both below, because the district-court Broadcom team is what most readers will be looking for and it is the better-documented of the two.

2. ⚠️ Contradiction to flag against the earlier "Plaintiff representatives" section. That section attributed Netflix's PTAB representation to Keker, Van Nest & Peters and named Sharif Jacob as "the most likely attorney of record on the -00468 petition." That is wrong for the PTAB track. Netflix's Rule 42.10(b) power of attorney filed in IPR2021‑00468 (Feb. 3, 2021) appoints Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP — Harper Batts as lead counsel, Chris Ponder and Jeffrey Liang as back‑up (power of attorney, PTACTS) — later adding Jonathan DeFosse (IPR2021‑00045, Paper 16, June 25, 2021). Keker was Netflix's district-court firm; Sheppard Mullin ran the IPR campaign (Batts and Ponder even appeared in the N.D. Cal. case in May 2022, Dkt. 219–220). The earlier section should be corrected, not merely supplemented.

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A. Counsel of record for Broadcom Corporation (patent owner / respondent) in IPR2021‑00468

In-house / service contact: Broadcom did not list in‑house counsel as counsel of record. The petition's certificate of service directed PTAB service to Broadcom's registered corporate addresses (Broadcom Limited, 4380 Ziegler Road, Fort Collins, CO; Broadcom Corporation, 1320 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose; and Vanessa Elfend, 15101 Alton Parkway, Irvine, CA 92618 — Broadcom's Irvine legal address). I could not independently confirm Ms. Elfend's title; treat her as a likely in‑house legal/IP contact, not docket-verified counsel of record.

No local counsel. The Board does not require local counsel and none appears — Adsero, a Colorado firm, acted as sole PTAB counsel for Broadcom in this family.

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B. Broadcom/Avago's district-court team (the parallel infringement case, for cross-reference)

In Broadcom Corp. v. Netflix, Inc., N.D. Cal. No. 3:20‑cv‑04677‑JD (transferred from C.D. Cal. 8:20‑cv‑00529‑JVS), Broadcom was the plaintiff, so these are technically "plaintiff" representatives — but this is the team that defended the '663 patent on the merits after institution was denied.

Firm-change note: Thompson & Knight merged into Holland & Knight effective Aug. 1, 2021; Broadcom filed a "Notice of Firm Name Change and E-Mail Contact Change" in the case on Aug. 4, 2021 (Dkt. 145). Earlier Broadcom filings list Thompson & Knight; later ones list Holland & Knight — same team.

Other Broadcom-side pro hac vice admissions in the case (not individually profiled): Vishal Patel (Aug. 2020; withdrew Dec. 29, 2020, Dkt. 98), Austin Teng (July 2021; withdrew May 27, 2022, Dkt. 221), Natalie V. Parker (May 2021; withdrawal noticed Jan. 5, 2023, Dkt. 294), Nadia E. Haghighatian (Apr. 2022; withdrew July 15, 2022, Dkt. 255), Jared Lampson and Sara Babineaux (both Feb. 13, 2023), Stephen Rasch (Feb. 15, 2023), Lauren Pratt (May 15, 2023), Anthony Fuga (June 12, 2023), David Schulte (Nov. 3,