Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC v. Hulu, LLC

I'll research this case across dockets, opinions, and PTAB records before drafting.

Good foundation. Now let me pin down the docket disposition, the judge, and the parallel PTAB proceedings on the '535 patent.

Now let me verify the Federal Circuit outcome on the '535 IPR and the plaintiff's corporate background.

Case Overview: Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2:17-cv-07611 (C.D. Cal.)

Parties. Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC is a patent monetization entity — an affiliate of Realtime Data LLC (d/b/a IXO), the well-known NPE founded by inventor James J. Fallon, whose portfolio is built largely on Fallon/McErlain data-compression patents. Unified Patents describes Realtime Adaptive as "a Realtime Data affiliate and well-known NPE," and the record confirms it practices no technology of its own: the patents-in-suit were assigned to it out of the Realtime Data family (the '610 patent, for instance, was recorded to Realtime Adaptive on March 7, 2017, before Realtime Data's own complaint was voluntarily dismissed and re-filed by Re

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and any reported rulings.

Let me pull the docket and look for the Hulu-specific proceedings.

Let me pin down the docket chronology and the Hulu side of the IPRs.

I'll search for press coverage of this case from several angles.

I have the docket basics. Now let me hunt for actual press coverage from several angles.

Let me look for Law360/other trade coverage specific to the Hulu action and the dismissal.

Press coverage of Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC v. Hulu, LLC (C.D. Cal. 2:17-cv-07611)

Bottom line: there is very little coverage of this particular suit. I searched the caption, case number, party names, and the asserted patent numbers (including '535), and found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, EFF, or JD Supra article devoted to this Hulu action. The Hulu case appears in the press only as one docket among the broader Realtime Data/Realtime Adaptive Streaming campaign, and — indirectly — in commentary on sibling cases that resolved the same patent family.

What was actually reported. The only dedicated news item I located is a Law360 report of 2018-08-02, headlined "JPML Won't Centralize IP Rows Against Hulu, Netflix, Others," which appears on Law360's case page for In re: Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC Patent Litigation, MDL No. 2845. Law360's summary states that the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation declined to centralize in Colorado or Texas nine infringement suits involving digital data compression patents filed against Hulu, Netflix and others, "determining that the allegations against the companies are too disparate." That matches the Panel's written order denying transfer, which lists Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC v. Hulu, LLC, C.A. No. 2:17-07611 among the actions on Schedule A and reasons that the defendants' accused products ranged from streaming services to cameras, TVs and projectors, defeating commonality (see the JPML order, 326 F. Supp. 3d 1374 (J.P.M.L. Aug. 1, 2018)). Unified Patents noted on 2018-04-09 that it had filed an IPR against the '535 patent, describing Realtime as "a Realtime Data affiliate and well-known NPE" and listing Hulu among the companies against which the '535 patent had been asserted. Notably, no outlet reported the ending of the Hulu case: the docket shows a joint motion to dismiss filed 2018-09-20 and an order of dismissal with prejudice entered 2018-09-26 by Judge S. James Otero, with each party bearing its own fees and costs (Unified Patents litigation portal; Justia docket). No damages figure, settlement sum, or license was ever reported, and nothing in the public record I could access explains the dismissal, so any claim that Hulu "settled" would be unsourced.

Where reporting goes beyond the record. RPX Insight went furthest, reporting on 2018-08-10 that the JPML denial was a setback for Realtime Adaptive Streaming in the wake of TC Heartland, that the parent campaign's defendant count "now tops 110," and — drawing on court disclosures rather than the pleadings — that the NPE had received litigation funding from Juridica Investment Limited and Brickell Key Investments LP. That funding characterization and the 110-defendant tally are analyst/filing-derived context, not findings in this case. Similarly, Unified Patents' "well-known NPE" framing is advocacy-adjacent commentary from a defensive aggregator that was itself petitioning against the '535 patent, not neutral reporting.

The '535 patent's fate was reported through sibling cases, not this one. The substantive coverage that exists concerns the same patent family in other Realtime suits. Alston & Bird summarized the Federal Circuit's 2024-08-23 decision in Realtime Adaptive Streaming L.L.C. v. Sling TV, L.L.C., No. 2023-1035, which vacated a District of Colorado attorneys'-fee award after finding the court abused its discretion in treating six "red flags" as establishing an exceptional case; The National Law Review ran a practitioner analysis of the same ruling, recounting that the PTAB had invalidated claims 1–14 of the '535 patent on obviousness (with Realtime then withdrawing its '535 claims) and that the C.D. Cal. and D. Del. § 101 rulings against related claims featured in the fee analysis. EchoStar's later SEC filings confirm that, on remand, the Colorado court denied the exceptional-case motion on 2025-02-05 and that DISH/Sling dropped its appeal in July 2025 — a detail that trade outlets such as Law360 headlined as DISH recovering nothing after its $3.9 million award was vacated, though I was unable to retrieve and verify that article body directly. Readers should treat the Hulu docket itself as thinly covered: the press record for this case is essentially one MDL story plus campaign-level roundups, and the most consequential developments for the '535 patent are documented in PTAB and Federal Circuit materials rather than in news reporting.

Sources

• DOCKET NO

• IN THE UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

• Hulu I	Hulu II
  “Hulu induces infringement by providing software (the Hulu application) t...

• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• Hulu, LLC v. Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC
• RUSS, AUGUST & KABAT Marc A
• Federal Circuit Affirms Hulu Noninfringement Win in Streaming Patent Dispute - Register now for your free, tailored, daily legal newsfeed service.
• HULU, LLC, AMAZON
• 2:17-cv-07611 - Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC v. Hulu LLC - 2:17-cv-07611 - Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC v. Hulu LLCReport Error
• Third, the stated purpose for these broader local rules is to assist judges with assessing possible recusal or disqualification
• IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Panel will consider without oral argument the matters listed on Section B of the attached Schedul...

I'll research the docket and counsel appearances for this case.

Good initial data. Let me pull the docket itself and check for additional appearances and the dismissal.

Bottom line

Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC was represented in this C.D. Cal. action by its long-time outside patent litigation firm, Russ, August & Kabat LLP (RAK) of Los Angeles. Six RAK attorneys are named on the pleadings and/or filed notices of appearance: Marc A. Fenster, Reza Mirzaie, Brian D. Ledahl, C. Jay Chung, Philip X. Wang, and Timothy T. Hsieh. RAK was both the substantive and the local counsel — the firm is L.A.-based, so no separate local-counsel firm was retained.

A caveat on "lead counsel": C.D. Cal. does not formally designate lead trial counsel in a notice of appearance the way some districts do, so there is no docket entry styled "Lead Counsel." The de facto lead was Fenster (first-named on the complaint/FAC signature block and the attorney who filed plaintiff's Rule 7.1 Notice of Interested Parties); Ledahl, Mirzaie, Wang and Chung appeared by notice. I could not retrieve the full PACER docket sheet itself — the entries below are drawn from a third-party docket mirror (Unified Patents portal) and the filed pleadings, so docket numbers for the individual notices of appearance other than Dkt. 21 are not verified.

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Plaintiff's counsel of record

Pleadings source: the First Amended Complaint (filed Dec. 29, 2017) carries the signature block "Marc A. Fenster … Reza Mirzaie … Brian D. Ledahl … C. Jay Chung … Philip X. Wang … Timothy T. Hsieh, RUSS, AUGUST & KABAT, 12424 Wilshire Boulevard, 12th Floor, Los Angeles, California 90025 … Attorneys for Plaintiff REALTIME ADAPTIVE STREAMING LLC."

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Counsel who worked the Realtime side but were not of record in this case

These names appear in the parallel PTAB proceedings and should not be listed as counsel in 2:17-cv-07611:

• Neil A. Rubin and Kent Shum (Russ, August & Kabat) — back-up PTAB counsel for Realtime in IPR2018-01187, IPR2019-00712, IPR2019-01033, etc.
• Joel P.N. Stonedale (Noroozi PC, Austin) and Kayvan B. Noroozi (Noroozi PC, Los Angeles) — replaced RAK as lead/back-up PTAB counsel in Realtime's Updated Mandatory Notices dated Aug. 23, 2019 (IPR2018-01187).
• Michael Messinger, Khaled Shami, Edward Yee (Shami Messinger PLLC, Washington, D.C.) — PTAB counsel of record in 2019.
• James S. Tsuei (RAK) — probed in pro hac vice to RAK's IPR team in Dec. 2019; not on this docket.

I found no in-house counsel appearance for Realtime (it is a licensing entity with no litigation department reflected on the docket), and no sealed or withdrawn appearances by plaintiff's counsel.

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What happened to the case (context for the appearances)

• Complaint filed 10/17/2017 (Dkt. 1), 43 pages, asserting seven Fallon patents: the '535 (the patent flagged in your metadata), '477, '907, '046, '610, '462 and '298. First Amended Complaint filed 12/29/2017.
• Assigned initially to Judge Dolly M. Gee; transferred to the Patent Pilot Program before Judge S. James Otero (Magistrate Judge Frederick F. Mumm) on 10/19/2017.
• Hulu moved to dismiss on § 101 grounds (motion filed 1/12/2018 per Sony's brief in the parallel Delaware action), and Realtime filed an opposition; the hearing was continued by stipulation.
• Realtime's JPML motion to centralize the campaign in D. Colo. was denied — In re Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC Patent Litig., MDL No. 2845, 326 F. Supp. 3d 1374 (J.P.M.L. Aug. 1, 2018).
• The docket mirror shows a joint motion to dismiss filed by plaintiff Realtime, after which the case terminated. I could not verify from a primary source the exact date or whether dismissal was with or without prejudice — treat that detail as unconfirmed.

Confidence: High on identity of the six RAK attorneys and the firm/address (pleading signature block + notice-of-appearance entries). Medium on which attorney was formally "lead" (no such designation exists on this docket). Low/unverified on the precise dismissal mechanics.

I'll start by pulling the docket-level counsel information from multiple sources.

Docket data gives me the names. Now I need firms, roles, and pro hac vice details.

Counsel of record for Hulu, LLC — Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2:17-cv-07611 (C.D. Cal.)

Bottom line: Hulu was represented by a hybrid team — in-house Hulu patent counsel (Erin Greenfield Mehta) sitting on the docket as counsel of record, with WilmerHale's Los Angeles office handling the litigation and supplying the L.R. 83-2.4 local counsel for a pro hac vice admission. Six attorneys total appear for Hulu in the docket extracts I could retrieve. Four of the six I could not tie to a firm with a reliable source; those gaps are flagged rather than filled.

Docket grounding

The appearances are recorded as C.D. Cal. Form G-123 "Notice of Appearance or Withdrawal of Counsel" entries on the Unified Patents litigation portal docket for this case (portal.unifiedpatents.com, case 2:17-cv-07611):

• Mehta — "Adding Erin Greenfield Mehta as counsel of record for Hulu, LLC … (Entered: 10/26/2017)." Nine days after filing; the first Hulu-side appearance.
• Grossman — notice adding "Andrew B. Grossman as counsel of record for Hulu, LLC … (Entered: 11/21/2017)."
• Vidal — notice adding "Katherine Vidal as counsel of record for Hulu, LLC."
• Netikosol — notice adding "Joe S. Netikosol as counsel of record" (Entered: 11/27/2017).
• McCullough — notice adding "Matthew R. McCullough as counsel of record" (Entered: 12/15/2017).
• Raghavan — "ORDER GRANTING APPLICATION of Non-Resident Attorney Saranya Raghavan to Appear Pro Hac Vice on behalf of Defendant Hulu, LLC and designating Andrew B Grossman as local counsel 36 by Judge S. James Otero" (Dkt. 34 application, Dkt. 35 deficiency notice re: the PHV application, Dkt. 36 granting order). The sequence confirms Grossman was functioning as the California-based anchor for the team, not merely one of several signatories.

All six remained on the docket through the 2018-09-26 order of dismissal with prejudice (Dkt. entry per Justia docket, cited in the earlier section); I found no substitution or withdrawal entry for any of them.

Attorney-by-attorney notes

Erin Greenfield Mehta — in-house. Docket address is Hulu's Santa Monica headquarters, and a parallel Hulu matter lists her as "LEAD ATTORNEY … Hulu LLC, 2500 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Santa Monica, CA 90404" (CourtListener, DivX, LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2:19-cv-01606). Her own professional bio states she "manag[es] all of Hulu's patent litigation and prosecution," previously practiced at WilmerHale and at Ropes & Gray (formerly Fish & Neave) in New York and Los Angeles, holds an EE degree from Clemson and a J.D. from Tulane, and is now Principal Counsel, Litigation & Patents at [The Walt Disney Company](/litigations/by-plaintiff/The%20Walt%20Disney%20Company) (IP Counsel Café bio). She was publicly billed as "Counsel, Litigation & Patents, Hulu LLC" at a Foley IP conference in 2017 (Foley & Lardner speaker release), and signed PTAB papers as "Senior Counsel, Litigation & Patents" for Hulu in 2021. Relevant experience: she is Hulu's recurring patent-litigation point person, appearing in the Sound View Innovations v. Hulu, DivX v. Hulu and SITO Mobile matters, i.e., the same NPE-defense docket as this case (UniCourt, Sound View Innovations v. Hulu).

Andrew B. Grossman — WilmerHale, Los Angeles (local counsel of record). The Dkt. 36 order expressly "designat[es] Andrew B Grossman as local counsel" for Raghavan's pro hac vice admission, which is the strongest available evidence of his role. Directory data places him as a WilmerHale partner in IP litigation at 350 S. Grand Ave., Ste. 2100, Los Angeles — admitted 2000 (California), USC Law J.D., Penn B.A. (lawyerdb profile). Caution: PlainSite's attorney page for the same person shows the same 350 S. Grand Ave. suite but under Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, lists a WilmerHale Atlanta address, and counts only "at least 24 legal documents in 5 cases" (PlainSite). The overlap in suite number is consistent with a later firm move (WilmerHale → Debevoise's LA office) rather than a conflict in the 2017 record, but I could not verify the timing. Treat "WilmerHale in 2017" as well-supported but not ironclad.

Saranya Raghavan — pro hac vice, firm unverified. Her admission is documented (Dkt. 34/35/36), but I could not retrieve a source establishing her firm in late 2017 and will not guess. Her appearance on Hulu's side in the same window as the WilmerHale team makes a WilmerHale affiliation the natural inference, but that is an inference, not a sourced fact.

Katherine Vidal — counsel of record, firm not confirmed. Her G-123 appearance for Hulu in November 2017 is on the docket. What I can confirm is her later public trajectory: she became Under Secretary of Commerce for IP and USPTO Director (2022–2024), and is profiled as a Washington, DC patent litigator ([Best Lawyers profile](https://www.bestlaw