Peter Henrik Pedersen v. Yahoo Inc. et al.

Case Overview and Background

Parties. Plaintiff Peter Henrik Pedersen is an individual inventor (based in Søborg, Denmark, per the '920 patent's front page) and the sole named inventor of U.S. Patent No. 6,965,920. He is a classic pro se-style patent-assertion entity (PAE) figure: he launched a solo litigation campaign in November 2021 suing Alphabet/Google (6:21-cv-01152), Microsoft (6:21-cv-01154), J2 Global/Ziff Davis (6:21-cv-01155), and Mailgun (6:21-cv-01153) over the same patent, then added Yahoo/Verizon in this case on December 16, 2021 (RPX Insight, Nov. 13, 2021 and Dec. 27, 2021; Unified Patents has stated Pedersen is "believed to be associated with AiPi Solutions," though that affiliation is not independently confirmed). He was represented by William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP, a prominent Waco-based patent plaintiffs' firm. Defendants are Yahoo Inc. and its then-parent, Verizon Communications, Inc. (Yahoo operated under Verizon Media at the time); they were represented by Holly Elin Engelmann, with Glenn D. Richeson and Daniel Mitchell appearing pro hac vice (Dkts. 12, 17–20). Both sides demanded a jury.

Accused technology and patent. Pedersen alleged infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,965,920, titled "Profile Responsive Electronic Message Management System," issued November 15, 2005 with a July 12, 2000 priority date. The patent claims a centralized electronic message management system in which (a) recipients enter profile data specifying delivery parameters for "where, when and how" messages from specific messengers are delivered to them, (b) messengers maintain identity/profile data, (c) a message input application receives message files, and (d) an "individual message generator" composes individualized messages to recipients according to those profiles (Claim 1; see also Fed. Cir. opinion in Pedersen v. Unified Patents, No. 24-2090, Mar. 26, 2026). Per RPX's contemporaneous coverage, the accused instrumentalities were "certain email filtering features within the AOL and Yahoo Mail webmail platforms" (RPX Insight, Dec. 27, 2021) — i.e., recipient preference/filtering and message-routing functionality in Yahoo's and AOL's consumer email services, with Verizon named as Yahoo's corporate parent.

Procedural posture and venue. The case was filed in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas (6:21-cv-01308) and assigned to Judge Alan D. Albright — at the time the single most patent-plaintiff-friendly venue in the country and the epicenter of the post-TC Heartland NPE surge. Verizon was served January 10, 2022 and answered with a jury demand on April 4, 2022 (Dkt. 12); Yahoo waived service (answer due April 4) and moved to dismiss claims for willful infringement, indirect infringement, and injunctive relief (Dkt. 14). Pedersen filed a First Amended Complaint on April 18, 2022 (Dkt. 22), and Yahoo responded with a motion to dismiss the amended complaint for improper venue on May 9, 2022 (Dkt. 24). The case never reached a venue ruling: Pedersen filed a stipulation of dismissal without prejudice on or about May 23, 2022, and the docket closed May 24, 2022 (Unified Patents final civil docket; RPX Empower; Justia docket). The stipulated dismissal mooted Yahoo's venue challenge — a common campaign pattern in Judge Albright's court in early 2022 as defendants increasingly pressed venue/12(b)(6) attacks post-Cellect and the Federal Circuit's venue-transfer rulings.

Why it matters. This case is notable as one salvo in Pedersen's broad single-patent NPE campaign, which ultimately swept up Google, Microsoft, Yahoo/Verizon, Oracle, Salesforce, Zoho, Adobe, Intuit, Wix, Zendesk, Constant Contact, Blackbaud, Monday.com, and others. The campaign's center of gravity shifted to the PTAB: Unified Patents filed IPR2023-00029 challenging claims 1 and 14–17 of the '920 patent; the Board instituted on all challenged claims in May 2023 and issued a final written decision holding them unpatentable as obvious over Funk in view of Law or Kamakura. The Federal Circuit affirmed on March 26, 2026 in Pedersen v. Unified Patents, LLC (No. 24-2090, nonprecedential), effectively validating the defendant-side IPR strategy and extinguishing the value of the asserted patent across the entire campaign. RPX lists the patent as expired due to term. In short, the Yahoo/Verizon case is a textbook example of the 2021–2022 Albright-era NPE wave — an individual-inventor, one-patent campaign against major tech platforms — that was resolved by dismissal and later neutralized at the PTAB rather than through merits litigation.

Case Chronology & Key Legal Developments

Peter Henrik Pedersen v. Yahoo Inc. et al., No. 6:21-cv-01308 (W.D. Tex.)

Court / Judge: [U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division](/courts/western-district-of-texas-waco) — Judge Alan D. Albright. Both sides demanded a jury. Status: Terminated (voluntary dismissal without prejudice, May 2022).

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1. Filing & Initial Pleadings

• 2021-12-16 — Complaint filed by Peter Henrik Pedersen against Yahoo Inc. and Verizon Communications, Inc., alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,965,920 (filing fee receipt; case assigned to Judge Albright). The '920 patent claims a system/method for managing electronic messages based on recipient-defined messenger-specific delivery profiles; Pedersen accused the AOL and Yahoo Mail webmail platforms' email-filtering features. (Docket entry per Justia docket 6:2021cv01308; RPX, Dec. 27, 2021.)
• 2022-01-10 — Verizon served; answer due 2022-01-31. (Justia docket.)
• 2022-02-02 — Yahoo waived service; answer due 2022-04-04. (Justia docket.)
• 2022-03-10 — Court directed compliance with Judge Albright's updated standing orders (Notice of Readiness for Patent Cases; Pretrial Procedures; Patent Case Governing Proceedings 4.0; COVID-19 orders). (Justia docket.)
• 2022-04-04 — Verizon filed its Answer with jury demand (Dkt. 12); both defendants filed Rule 7.1 disclosure statements (Dkts. 13, 15). (Justia docket.)
• 2022-04-04 — Yahoo filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim as to willful infringement, indirect infringement, and injunctive relief (Dkt. 14) — the first substantive 12(b)(6) challenge. (Justia docket.)
• 2022-04-05 through 2022-04-12 — Defense pro hac vice admissions for Daniel Mitchell and Glenn D. Richeson (Dkts. 16–20). (Justia docket.)
• 2022-04-14 — Judge Albright's Standing Order Governing Proceedings in Patent Cases entered (Dkt. 21). (Justia docket.)
• 2022-04-18 — First Amended Complaint filed against Yahoo (Dkt. 22, by William Ramey), attaching the '920 patent and additional exhibits; apparently aimed at curing the pleading deficiencies Yahoo raised. (Justia docket; RPX.)
• 2022-05-02 — Unopposed request to extend Yahoo's answer deadline to the FAC; answer due 2022-05-09 (Dkt. 23). (Justia docket.)

2. Pre-Trial Motions of Substance

• 2022-05-09 — Yahoo moved to dismiss the First Amended Complaint for improper venue (Dkt. 24) — the second substantive motion, targeting W.D. Tex. venue under the TC Heartland framework. (Justia docket.)
• No order on the venue motion or the 12(b)(6) motion was ever entered — both were effectively mooted by the plaintiff's voluntary dismissal roughly two weeks after the venue motion was filed.

3. Claim Construction (Markman)

• None. The case never reached the Markman stage. It was dismissed without prejudice approximately five months after filing (and roughly five weeks after the FAC), before any scheduling order / claim-construction briefing.

4. Discovery Milestones

• None of strategic significance. No substantive discovery occurred; the case ended during pleading-stage motion practice.

5. Trial, Verdict, Post-Trial Motions

• None. No trial, verdict, JMOL, new-trial motion, or fee motion. The case terminated pre-trial.

6. Final Disposition

• 2022-05-23 — Pedersen filed a Stipulation of Dismissal Without Prejudice (Dkt. 25). (Unified Patents final civil docket, 05-24-2022; Justia.)
• ~2022-05-24 — Case closed/terminated (Unified Patents' "Final Civil Docket 05-24-2022"). The dismissal without prejudice left the door open for refiling, but the case was never refiled against Yahoo/Verizon.

7. Parallel PTAB Proceeding (and its effect)

The dismissed patent did not stay quiet — it was challenged at the PTAB shortly after the district case ended:

• 2022-10-14 — Unified Patents, LLC filed IPR2023-00029 challenging claims 1 and 14–17 of the '920 patent as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Funk in view of Law, and Funk in view of Kamakura. (Petition; Patent Owner Preliminary Response, 2023-02-17.)
• 2023-02-17 — Pedersen filed a Patent Owner Preliminary Response opposing institution. (DocketAlarm/PTACTS.)
• 2024-05-10 — PTAB Final Written Decision (Paper 29): all challenged claims (1, 14–17) unpatentable as obvious. (Notice of Appeal; Unified Patents.)
• 2024-07-12 — Pedersen appealed to the Federal Circuit (No. 2024-2090), challenging the obviousness findings and underlying claim constructions. (PTACTS Notice of Appeal.)
• 2026-03-26 — Federal Circuit affirmed (nonprecedential) in Pedersen v. Unified Patents, LLC, No. 2024-2090 (Lourie & Hughes, C.JJ., and Kleeh, Chief D.J.), holding the Board's decision supported by substantial evidence. (CAFC opinion PDF; Fed Circuit Blog; Patterson Sheridan weekly summary.)

Effect on the Yahoo litigation: Because the district case was voluntarily dismissed in May 2022 — five months before the IPR petition was even filed — the IPR had no direct stay or estoppel effect on the Yahoo case. Its practical significance is that the asserted patent's only independent claim and its dependent claims were subsequently invalidated by the PTAB and the Federal Circuit, confirming that Pedersen's email-management campaign (which included this Yahoo/Verizon suit, plus cases against Google, Microsoft, J2 Global/Ziff Davis, Mailgun, Oracle, Salesforce, Zoho, and others) had no viable patent footing.

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Sourcing Notes

• Docket entries (filings 12–25) are drawn from the Justia docket for 6:2021cv01308 (last retrieved 2022-05-09) and Unified Patents' "Final Civil Docket 05-24-2022" (portal.unifiedpatents.com). I did not independently verify the exact dismissal-order docket text on PACER; the stipulation date (2023-05-23) and the "Final Civil Docket 05-24-2022" caption are the best available evidence of closure.
• IPR and Federal Circuit details are well-sourced from the CAFC opinion (cafc.uscourts.gov), PTACTS filings, Unified Patents' PTAB portal and news posts, and Fed Circuit Blog (2026-03-26).
• Plaintiff's district-court counsel of record: William Ramey (per Dkt. 22). Yahoo/Verizon defense counsel: Holly Elin Engelmann, with pro hac vice counsel Daniel Mitchell and Glenn D. Richeson. No order resolving Dkts. 14 or 24 has been located; both appear to have been mooted by the voluntary dismissal.

I'll search multiple angles to find press coverage of this specific case.

Let me search more targeted press angles.

Found a Law360 piece on the Federal Circuit ruling. Let me look for coverage of the original suits and other outlets.

Press & Trade Coverage of Pedersen v. Yahoo (6:21-cv-01308)

Bottom line: there is no mainstream news coverage of this specific district-court case. I searched the case caption, the party names, the patent number (6,965,920), the campaign framing ("email management," "AOL and Yahoo Mail," "email filtering"), and the eventual appellate outcome across Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, and EFF's Deeplinks, and found no article from any of those outlets that discusses the Yahoo/Verizon suit itself. The record-adjacent trade coverage that does exist falls into two buckets: (1) subscription patent-analytics write-ups of the campaign that mention this case as one filing among many, and (2) coverage of the later Federal Circuit decision invalidating the patent, which discusses the '920 patent and the IPR but not this litigation.

Campaign-level trade coverage. The only contemporaneous published item I found that specifically identifies this case is RPX, which reported on 2021-12-27 ("Email Management Campaign Snags Verizon, Yahoo") that Pedersen had "added a case against Verizon (Yahoo) (6:21-cv-01308)" to the campaign he launched in November 2021 against Alphabet (Google), Ziff Davis, Mailgun, and Microsoft in the Western District of Texas, and — the substantive nugget — that "Pedersen targets certain email filtering features within the AOL and Yahoo Mail webmail platforms." RPX followed up on 2022-04-29 with a campaign roundup adding Oracle, Salesforce, and Zoho, describing the asserted patent as covering managing "electronic messages" based on a recipient profile determining "where, when and how specific types of messages from specific messengers are delivered to the recipient." Notably, neither item reports any damages demand, settlement figure, or market impact, and neither reports the May 2022 dismissal — consistent with the case being a low-attention campaign filing rather than a headline matter.

Coverage of the patent's post-dismissal demise. The press interest arrived only after the PTAB and Federal Circuit killed the patent. Law360 (Adam Lidgett, 2026-03-26) reported that "The Federal Circuit on Thursday said it won't restore claims in an email filtering patent challenged by Unified Patents, backing a Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision that earlier inventions rendered the claims invalid." IP Law Daily (Kevin M. Finson, 2026-03-26) similarly summarized Pedersen v. Unified Patents, LLC, No. 24-2090, framing the decision as one where "a patentee failed to show any error in a PTAB determination that his email sorting system was unpatentable as obvious." Patterson Sheridan included it in its weekly Federal Circuit client alert for the week ending 2026-03-27, characterizing the key holding as substantial-evidence review of a factual finding — that the prior art, combined with expert testimony, disclosed recipient-specified "messenger-specific" delivery parameters. Unified Patents, the IPR petitioner, published its own account on 2026-03-26 identifying Pedersen as "believed to be associated with AiPi Solutions" and listing Yahoo among roughly a dozen-plus defendants (Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Salesforce, Wix.com, Intuit, Zendesk, Blackbaud, Constant Contact, Monday.com, Ziff Davis, Aurea Software), along with counsel details (Haynes and Boone in the IPR; in-house Kelly Hughes and Alyssa Holtslander on appeal). Unified had earlier announced the filing itself in Unified Patents (2022-10-17), noting the '920 patent "has been asserted against several companies including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Zoho Corp., Salesforce, Oracle, Adobe, Intuit, Wix.com, Zendesk, and others."

Where accounts differ, and where they go beyond the record. The most important distinction is sourcing posture: all the substantive "significance" framing comes from defendant-side/aggregator sources. Unified Patents is the petitioner and PatSnap — an AI-generated litigation-intelligence write-up — openly editorializes that the affirmance "validates [Unified's] challenge strategy," "neutralise[s]" the patent threat, and "strengthens the precedent that Unified Patents' challenge model is viable," a take that far outruns anything in the Federal Circuit's short nonprecedential opinion. RPX, a subscription defensive-aggregator service, similarly frames the campaign through a defendant-side lens. There is no plaintiff-side comment, executive statement, or industry reaction on the record in any source I found, and no reported damages sought, awarded, or paid in the Yahoo/Verizon matter — the case never produced a merits ruling. One accuracy point worth flagging: the Fed Circuit appeal and the IPR involved the patent's claims generally, and Unified's own '920 victory post-dates this case's voluntary dismissal by roughly two years, so any implication (seen in aggregator write-ups) that the appellate loss caused or resolved the Yahoo suit would be wrong — the district case closed in May 2022, before the IPR petition was even filed. Finally, the PatSnap entry's counsel list (Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig for Pedersen on appeal) is the only one of these sources that independently corroborates appellate counsel, but PatSnap's content is machine-generated analysis of PACER data rather than reporting, and I would not treat it as authoritative on its own.

Sourcing caveat: my search budget expired before I could exhaustively check Patently-O, IPWatchdog archives, or EFF directly, and Law360's article is paywalled (only the headline, byline, date, and lede snippet were retrievable). It is possible that additional paywalled Law360 docket items exist that my searches did not surface. On the evidence retrieved, however, the reporting is thin: one contemporaneous trade note naming this case, and no mainstream press coverage of it at all.

Sources

• Peter Pedersen v. Yahoo Inc. et al
• 6:21-cv-01308 - Peter Pedersen v. Yahoo Inc et al. - Final Civil Docket 05-24-2022
• 6:21-cv-01308 | Peter Pedersen v. Yahoo Inc. et al | RPX Empower
• 16. Whether nXn has been injured and is entitled to damages, costs, expenses, and prejudgment and post-judgment interest under 3...
• Federal Circuit — News & Views — Unified Patents
• Cases
• Federal Circuit — News & Views
• Pedersen v. Unified Patents — US6965920B2 Patentability Appeal | PatSnap - Your Agentic AI Partner
• Unified Patents, LLC v. Pedersen, Peter - IPR2023-00029
• 6965920 | NPE Litigation Database
• Oracle Corporation v. Pedersen, Peter et al. - IPR2023-00867
• FEDERAL CIRCUIT SUMMARY FOR WEEK ENDING MARCH 27, 2026

I'll research the counsel of record for plaintiff Peter Henrik Pedersen in this case. Let me search multiple sources.

The docket shows William P. Ramey III appearing for the plaintiff. Let me verify this and identify any other plaintiff-side attorneys.

I've confirmed William P. Ramey III as plaintiff's counsel. Let me verify whether any other attorneys appeared for the plaintiff and check the complaint's signature block.

Plaintiff's Counsel of Record — Peter Henrik Pedersen v. Yahoo Inc. et al. (6:21-cv-01308, W.D. Tex.)

Based on the public docket (via Justia, Unified Patents, and RPX) and related filings in Pedersen's parallel '920-patent campaign, only one attorney appears of record for plaintiff Peter Henrik Pedersen in this case:

William P. Ramey III

• Role: Lead counsel / sole counsel of record for the plaintiff. He signed and electronically filed the original complaint (Dkt. 1, entered 12/16/2021, "filed by Peter Pedersen … (Ramey, William)"), the First Amended Complaint (Dkt. 8), summons requests, and the stipulation of dismissal. The Justia docket lists the plaintiff as "Represented By: William P. Ramey, III." No pro hac vice motion was needed for him, and no other plaintiff-side attorney appears on the docket (the only PHV motions — Dkts. 17, 19 — were filed by defense counsel Holly Elin Engelmann for Yahoo/Verizon's Daniel Mitchell and Glenn D. Richeson).
• Firm & office: Ramey LLP, 5020 Montrose Blvd., Suite 800, Houston, TX 77006 (713-426-3923). (Note: in some parallel filings the firm is referred to as "Ramey & Schwaller, LLP," the firm's prior iteration/affiliate name; the PTAB powers of attorney for the same patent list "Ramey LLP" at the same Houston address.)
• Relevant experience: Managing partner of Ramey LLP and a prolific patent-plaintiff litigator before Judge Alan D. Albright in W.D. Tex. He ran Pedersen's entire enforcement campaign over U.S. Patent No. 6,965,920 ("Profile Responsive Electronic Message Management System"), filing the November 2021 suits against Google (6:21-cv-01152), Microsoft (6:21-cv-01154), J2 Global (6:21-cv-01155), and Mailgun (6:21-cv-01153), the December 2021 Yahoo/Verizon suit at issue here, and later suits against Oracle (6:22-cv-00410), Salesforce (6:22-cv-00409), Zoho (6:22-cv-00408), SAP, Blackbaud, Constant Contact, Monday.com, Wix, and Zendesk. He also served as back-up counsel for Pedersen in the PTAB IPRs on the same patent (IPR2023-00029, IPR2023-00867, IPR2023-00986). For context, Ramey's practice later drew scrutiny in 2023–24 when a Colorado magistrate judge ordered him to show cause in a separate case regarding alleged neglect (an RPX "Patent Market" report from Jan. 2024 documents that episode).

Not found on the docket

• No local counsel, of counsel, or in-house counsel for Pedersen appears separately; Ramey is the only plaintiff-side attorney reflected in the docket entries for this case.
• No other Ramey LLP associates (e.g., Jacob B. Henry or Donald Trey Mahoney, who appeared in the later PTAB/IPR matters) are shown as attorneys of record in the district-court docket for 6:21-cv-01308, though I could not pull the sealed/paid PACER complaint PDF to inspect the signature block beyond the docket text.

Procedural note

The case terminated on May 24, 2022, when Pedersen filed a stipulation of dismissal without prejudice after Yahoo's motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint for improper venue (and Yahoo's motion to strike willfulness/indirect-infringement/injunctive-relief claims) — so no merits ruling was reached, and counsel never litigated the case to judgment.

Source basis: Justia docket for 6:2021cv01308; Unified Patents portal "Final Civil Docket 05-24-2022"; RPX litigation docket; Ramey LLP firm announcements; PTAB powers of attorney (IPR2023-00029, -00867) showing Ramey LLP as Pedersen's counsel. I did not access PACER directly (paywalled), and I found no public filing listing any additional plaintiff counsel for this specific case.

Based on the docket record (Justia/CourtListener mirror of W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-01308) and firm/bio sources, the defendants' counsel of record were as follows. Note that the case never progressed past May 2022, so the appearance list is short and there is no evidence of any in-house Verizon/Yahoo attorney entering an appearance in the case.

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Counsel of Record for Defendants Yahoo Inc. and Verizon Communications, Inc.

1. Holly Elin Engelmann — Lead / local counsel of record

• Role: Lead counsel of record and the only Texas-admitted attorney signing the defendants' filings; local counsel for the out-of-state pro hac vice attorneys. She was the filing attorney on essentially every defense filing: the Answer with jury demand (Dkt. 12, 4/4/2022), Rule 7.1 disclosures for both defendants (Dkts. 13, 15), Yahoo's motion to dismiss willful/indirect infringement and injunctive relief claims (Dkt. 14), the PHV motions for Richeson and Mitchell (Dkts. 17, 19), the stipulation to extend the answer deadline (Dkt. 23), and Yahoo's motion to dismiss the FAC for improper venue (Dkt. 24).
• Firm/office: Duane Morris LLP, Dallas, TX. She joined Duane Morris as an IP partner on August 2, 2021, immediately before this case was filed, after 18 years at McKool Smith, P.C. (Dallas) — so her firm affiliation during the case was Duane Morris, not McKool Smith (Texas Bar No. 24040865; licensed TX 2003; also admitted in NY and FL). The Duane Morris Dallas office address at the time was 100/200 Crescent Court (her current profile lists the Austin office at Las Cimas IV, 900 S. Capital of Texas Hwy, Suite 300).
• Experience note: ~20-year patent litigator focused on the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas and the ITC; former McKool Smith principal, on-secondment in-house with Ericsson's patent assertion group, a member of Judge Albright's Working Group; notable matters include Aspen Networks v. Verizon (IP mobility), Eolas v. Adobe/YouTube (E.D. Tex., plaintiff side), Cobblestone Wireless v. Cisco (E.D. Tex. 2023), and Barrette Outdoor Living v. Fortress Iron (Fed. Cir. 2024).
• Sources: Justia docket entries 12–24 (dockets.justia.com, case 6:2021cv01308); Duane Morris press release and attorney profile (duanemorris.com, Aug. 2, 2021); Texas State Bar/opengovus profile (Bar No. 24040865); CourtListener appearances in Cobblestone Wireless v. Cisco, 2:23-cv-00454 (E.D. Tex.), and Valtrus v. NTT Data, 2:24-cv-00361.

2. Glenn D. Richeson — Pro hac vice counsel

• Role: Out-of-state counsel admitted pro hac vice for both Yahoo and Verizon. Engelmann moved for his admission on April 11, 2022 (Dkt. 19); the court granted it April 12, 2022 (Dkt. 20).
• Firm/office: Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta, GA (senior associate; recognized in Best Lawyers "Ones to Watch" in IP Law since 2025).
• Experience note: Registered patent attorney with district-court, ITC, and PTAB experience; previously defended Verizon in Sisvel v. Verizon Communications (D. Del., DSL/DSLAM patents), Acuity Brands in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1163, Citrix in Data Scape v. Citrix (C.D. Cal.), and Ericsson in Packet Intelligence v. Ericsson (E.D. Tex.); former U.S. Navy nuclear engineer and former Duane Morris patent agent (Georgia State Law, J.D. cum laude; USNA B.S.).
• Sources: Justia docket entries 19–20; Duane Morris attorney bio (dnmrs.com); bestlawyers.com.

3. Daniel Mitchell — Pro hac vice counsel

• Role: Out-of-state counsel admitted pro hac vice for both Yahoo and Verizon. Engelmann moved for his admission on April 5, 2022 (Dkt. 17); the court granted it April 7, 2022 (Dkt. 18).
• Firm/office: Not independently verified. I was unable to complete a dedicated search for his background before hitting search limits, and the case terminated too quickly (stipulated dismissal, docket closed May 24, 2022) for him to have signed any substantive filing that would identify his firm. Given the engagement pattern (Engelmann at Duane Morris Dallas, Richeson at Duane Morris Atlanta), he was most likely a Duane Morris colleague, but I cannot confirm that from sources obtained — treat the firm as unverified.
• Experience note: Unknown; no public bio or notable-case data retrieved. Flagged as unverified rather than invented.

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Caveats and observations

• No in-house counsel appeared: The visible docket shows no Verizon or Yahoo in-house attorneys entering appearances; the defense was handled entirely by outside counsel (Engelmann as the Texas-admitted attorney, with Richeson and Mitchell via PHV).
• Venue-motion authorship: The May 9, 2022 motion to dismiss for improper venue (Dkt. 24) was signed by Engelmann alone on the docket entry, consistent with her being the lead Texas attorney of record.
• Subsequent firm moves: Engelmann's Texas bar profile now lists her under "Holly Engelmann PC" (2026 registration), after her Duane Morris tenure — a post-case development that does not affect her role here.
• The docket's last retrieval date (May 9, 2022) predates the final stipulation of dismissal (filed ~May 23, 2022; closed May 24, 2022), so no later appearances would be expected.