Piney Woods Mobility LLC v. AT&T Inc. et al.

Piney Woods Mobility LLC, identified as a Texas-based Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) or Patent Assertion Entity (PAE), has initiated a patent infringement lawsuit against telecommunications giants AT&T Inc. and AT&T Services, Inc. The plaintiff's business model appears to involve asserting patents against major players in the mobile industry, as evidenced by simultaneous filings against T-Mobile, Verizon, Samsung, and Apple concerning similar location-sharing technologies. The core of the dispute centers on AT&T's location-sharing programs and services, specifically accusing the "AT&T Secure Family" app of infringement. AT&T Secure Family is a comprehensive family safety application that provides real-time location tracking, location history, arrival/departure alerts for saved places, content filtering, screen time management, and emergency alerts, enabling parents to monitor and manage their children's device usage and physical location.

The sole patent asserted in this case is U.S. Patent No. 9,615,204, titled "Techniques for communication within closed groups of mobile devices." This patent generally describes a system and methods for enabling communication and the exchange of GPS or other position data among wireless devices within defined groups, facilitating activities such as child location monitoring, work group coordination, and dispatching employees. The litigation is currently active in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, presided over by Judge Rodney Gilstrap. The Eastern District of Texas is a historically significant venue for patent litigation, known for its judicial experience in patent cases and procedural efficiencies that often favor patent plaintiffs, contributing to its resurgence as a top patent litigation forum for NPEs.

This case is notable as part of a broader patent assertion campaign by Piney Woods Mobility LLC against prominent mobile carriers and device manufacturers, highlighting ongoing litigation risks associated with widely adopted location-based services. The plaintiff's pattern of asserting the patent across multiple defendants suggests a strategy to target core functionalities within the mobile ecosystem. While defendants in such cases often challenge asserted patents through inter partes reviews (IPRs) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), no publicly available records of IPRs specifically targeting U.S. Patent No. 9,615,204 were identified in the conducted searches.

The patent infringement litigation Piney Woods Mobility LLC v. AT&T Inc. et al. (Case No. 2:26-cv-00121, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas) was filed on February 13, 2026. The lawsuit centers on allegations of infringement related to location-sharing programs and services, specifically naming AT&T Secure Family. As of June 4, 2026, the case is in its early stages of active litigation, and detailed legal developments beyond the initial filing are not yet publicly available through the conducted searches.

Here's a chronological summary of the key developments to date:

• Filing of Complaint (2026-02-13): Piney Woods Mobility LLC filed a complaint against AT&T Inc. and AT&T Services, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, initiating the patent infringement lawsuit. The complaint alleges infringement of patent 9615204, related to location-sharing services.

As the case is still active and recently filed in February 2026, information regarding answers, counterclaims, substantive pre-trial motions (such as motions to dismiss, transfer, or stay), claim construction, discovery milestones, trial events, or a final disposition is not yet available in the public records accessed.

Parallel PTAB IPR/PGR Proceedings:
A search for parallel proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for patent 9615204 did not yield any immediate results. The USPTO's P-TACTS system is the official means for tracking IPR, PGR, CBM, and DER proceedings. As of the current date, no such challenges for patent 9615204 have been identified.

Piney Woods Mobility LLC's patent infringement lawsuit against AT&T Inc. and AT&T Services, Inc. (2:26-cv-00121) is part of a broader "foundational" patent assertion campaign targeting major wireless carriers and device manufacturers over "two-way position information sharing technology." The case, filed on February 13, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, names U.S. Patent No. 9,615,204, among others in related lawsuits, which generally describes methods and apparatuses for communication and location sharing within closed groups of mobile devices.

Legal intelligence platform RPX Empower reported in February 2026 that Piney Woods Mobility LLC simultaneously filed separate lawsuits in the Eastern District of Texas against AT&T (AT&T Mobility), T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom), Verizon (Verizon Wireless), and Samsung. An additional suit was filed against Apple in the Western District of Texas. These complaints target the provision of location-sharing services within the carriers' mobile networks, as well as various mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and earbuds from companies like Alphabet (Google), Apple, or Samsung. The plaintiff alleges that T-Mobile, in a parallel case, had notice of the patent family for over 10 years, forming the basis for a claim of willful infringement.

While specific details on damages sought or industry reaction directly related to the AT&T case are not yet publicly reported due to its early stage, the extensive nature of Piney Woods Mobility's campaign suggests a significant strategic effort. RPX also noted a separate instance where a motion by Piney Woods Mobility to extend a service deadline in a case against Apple was denied, with the court citing the "prompt service of 17 other complaints by the same counsel" as a factor preventing a finding of good cause, indicating the high volume of litigation activity undertaken by the plaintiff's legal team.

Sources

• rpxcorp.com
• exparte.com
• rpxcorp.com

The plaintiff, Piney Woods Mobility LLC, is represented by attorneys from the firm Garteiser Honea, PLLC, which has an office in Tyler, Texas, within the Eastern District of Texas.

The counsel of record identified for the plaintiff includes:

• Christopher A. Honea
  • Role: Partner, likely serving as lead counsel.
  • Firm: Garteiser Honea, PLLC, Tyler, Texas.
  • Experience: Christopher Honea is a Partner and co-chairs the firm's Intellectual Property Litigation Group. He has extensive experience in patent, trademark, trade secret, and copyright litigation. Notably, he spent three years in the Eastern District of Texas while at McKool Smith, representing i4i, Inc. in a patent infringement action against Microsoft, which resulted in a jury award of over $290 million and was affirmed by the Supreme Court. He is listed as representing Piney Woods Mobility LLC in the docket for this case.

While not explicitly listed as appearing in this specific case's docket, other partners at Garteiser Honea, PLLC, such as Randall Garteiser and M. Scott Fuller, are also experienced patent litigators and likely involved in the firm's intellectual property cases. The firm emphasizes handling complex intellectual property disputes as lead counsel and frequently serving as local counsel in East Texas.

Randall Garteiser

• Role: Partner.
• Firm: Garteiser Honea, PLLC, Tyler, Texas.
• Experience: Randall Garteiser is a trial attorney with experience from Quinn Emanuel. He has handled disputes for clients involving various technologies, including smartphones, tablets, and software, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

M. Scott Fuller

• Role: Partner.
• Firm: Garteiser Honea, PLLC, Tyler, Texas.
• Experience: M. Scott Fuller is a patent litigator who has represented both Fortune 500 defendants (such as Microsoft and Huawei) and individual inventors as plaintiff's counsel. He previously co-chaired the Texas IP Litigation Practice Group at Locke Lord LLP. His experience spans various technologies and he has argued before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

I'll research counsel of record for AT&T in this matter using targeted searches against dockets and firm/legal news sources.

Let me dig into the docket itself and AT&T's typical East Texas defense lineup.

Defendant Counsel of Record — Piney Woods Mobility LLC v. AT&T Inc. et al., No. 2:26-cv-00121 (E.D. Tex.)

Bottom line up front

As of the sources I could access today, no attorney appearance for AT&T Inc. or AT&T Services, Inc. is reflected in the public docket record for this case. The third-party docket aggregators I searched show the defendant-side attorney field as empty:

• The Ex Parte case page for 2:26-cv-00121 lists the case as "Pending Judge Assignment," with "No Parties" and "No Defendant Attorneys" in the attorney fields (ai-lab.exparte.com, 2:26-cv-00121).
• The parallel Verizon case (2:26-cv-00124) shows the same empty attorney fields.

Per the operating rules, I will not invent names to fill that gap. What follows is (a) what the record actually shows, (b) a properly-caveated picture of the counsel who conventionally appear for AT&T entities in E.D. Tex. patent cases, drawn from other dockets, and (c) the verification steps needed to close the gap.

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1. What the docket actually shows (defendant side)

Two important caveats on that empty field:

1. Aggregator lag is common in the first months of an E.D. Tex. NPE case. Appearances and Rule 12 motions often lag service, and the "No Parties" notation on the Ex Parte page suggests the page was populated from the complaint header before any defendant-side activity was captured.
2. Airtight confirmation requires PACER directly (the "Attorney" filter on the docket report, or the Dkt. 1-1 attachment list plus any Dkt. entries after the complaint). I could not reach PACER's live docket in this research pass, and I am not aware of any Law360 or Bloomberg Law piece naming AT&T's counsel in this specific case.

If an appearance has in fact been filed and simply isn't indexed by the sources above, it is most likely a notice of appearance and/or unopposed extension of time, not a substantive filing.

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2. Counsel who conventionally represent AT&T entities in E.D. Tex. patent litigation

I want to be explicit: none of the following is confirmed as counsel of record in 2:26-cv-00121. These names come from other AT&T-related dockets and illustrate the likely national-counsel + Tyler-local-counsel structure. Treat this as a lead list to verify, not a finding.

National/lead counsel — Mayer Brown LLP (historically AT&T Mobility's patent defense team):

• Jamie B. Beaber (Partner, Washington, D.C.) — Washington, D.C. office; longtime AT&T Mobility patent litigation lead
• Kfir B. Levy (Washington, D.C.)
• Michael W. Maas (Washington, D.C.)
• Robert G. Pluta (Chicago) — appellate/patent experience
• Source: signature block styled "ATTORNEYS FOR DEFENDANT AT&T MOBILITY LLC," filings in E.D. Tex. cause no. 145573 (archive.org copy of the filing)

Local counsel — Potter Minton, P.C. (Tyler, Texas):

• Michael E. Jones (Partner; State Bar No. 10929400)
• Allen F. Gardner (State Bar No. 24043679)
• Same source as above.

*Attorneys appearing for AT&T Mobility in the more recent E.D. Tex. patent case Aspen Networks, Inc. v. AT&T Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00476-RWS-RSP (Judge Schroeder):*

• Kyra Mae Cooper, Deron R. Dacus, Kevin Hess, Christian J. Hurt, Nicholas M. Mathews, Jonathan Nathanial Powers, Kenneth Scott (each listed "representing AT&T Mobility, LLC") — from the court's live calendar/attorney list (PTAB/PACER calendar PDF). Note: that list mixes counsel from multiple parties in a consolidated case (Aspen Networks, T-Mobile, Verizon, Cellco), so firm attributions and "for AT&T" status should be confirmed against that docket rather than assumed. Deron Dacus (The Dacus Firm, Tyler) is a well-known E.D. Tex. local-counsel staple for defendants; I did not independently confirm the firms of the other names in this pass.

Practical note on the entity mismatch: the Aspen Networks and 145573 matters involved AT&T Mobility LLC, whereas this suit names AT&T Inc. and AT&T Services, Inc. Different AT&T corporate defendants can carry different outside counsel, so even a confirmed Mayer Brown/Potter Minton pattern would not automatically carry over.

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3. Related dockets that may cross-reference counsel (useful context)

• Apple, Inc. v. Piney Woods Mobility LLC, No. 3:26-cv-05219 (N.D. Cal.) — Apple's declaratory judgment action, filed June 2026, naming the '441, '581, '522, '616, and '618 patents as exhibits. Apple's counsel is Mark Daniel Selwyn, WilmerHale (PACER Monitor case 65003113). ⚠️ Contradiction with the prior "In the news" section: that section placed the Apple suit in the Western District of Texas. The docket shows the Apple DJ action in the Northern District of California and specifically not in W.D. Tex. This should be corrected upstream. (The D. Del./W.D. Tex. reference may be conflating a different campaign filing or an earlier-reported filing location.)
• Piney Woods Mobility LLC v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-00123 (E.D. Tex., Judge Gilstrap) — Law360's attorney page indicates Christopher Ricciuti, Duane Morris is listed in connection with the Feb. 13, 2026 Piney Woods/T-Mobile matter (law360.com firm page). This is a data point on how the campaign's defendants are staffing up (a national firm plus local counsel), not evidence about AT&T's team.

⚠️ Second contradiction — patents at issue: the complaint-analysis page for 2:26-cv-00121 discusses U.S. Patent No. 8,712,441 and U.S. Patent No. 9,736,618 alongside the '204 patent (ai-lab analysis, 2:26-cv-00121). Case metadata (and this report's framing) treats only U.S. Pat. No. 9,615,204 as asserted. Either (i) the AI-generated analysis page is bleeding content across parallel Piney Woods cases (the Verizon docket listing shows '441, '204, '618 for 2:26-cv-00124), or (ii) the AT&T complaint asserts more than the '204 patent. This must be resolved against the complaint itself before the sections are finalized.

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4. What I could not confirm (explicit gaps)

• No confirmed defense counsel of record for AT&T Inc. / AT&T Services, Inc. in 2:26-cv-00121 from any indexed public source.
• No confirmed lead/local-counsel pairing specific to this case.
• No in-house AT&T counsel identified; AT&T's legal department (Dallas/Bedminster) would typically supervise but rarely enter an appearance in E.D. Tex. patent litigation.
• No PTAB representation identified, consistent with the earlier finding of no IPR/PGR on the '204 patent.

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5. Recommended verification steps (to close the gap)

1. PACER docket report for 2:26-cv-00121, filtered to the "Attorney" view, to capture any Notice of Appearance (LR CV-5) filed after 02/13/2026 — these are the operative record for "counsel of record."
2. Check for an Answer, Motion to Dismiss, or Motion to Transfer Venue — the signature block on the first substantive defense filing (often by the national firm) plus the mandatory local-counsel signature will identify the full team.
3. Cross-check the T-Mobile (2:26-cv-00123) and Verizon (2:26-cv-00124) dockets for whether AT&T's co-defendants in the campaign share the same defense firms — a reliable predictor of AT&T's staffing.
4. Confirm the patents actually asserted against AT&T (the '204-only framing vs. the '441/'618 references in the analysis page).

If you can pull the PACER docket (or forward the Dkt. 1-1 attachment list and any post-complaint entries), I can convert this from a "lead list + caveats" memo into a firm, citation-backed counsel table.