Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al. v. One-E-Way, Inc.

This case involves an Inter Partes Review (IPR) initiated by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. against a patent owned by One-E-Way, Inc. Samsung Electronics is a global technology leader, headquartered in South Korea, widely known for manufacturing a vast array of consumer electronics, including smartphones, televisions, home appliances, and semiconductors. One-E-Way, Inc., based in Pasadena, California, is described as a wireless audio innovator that designs and manufactures consumer electronic products like wireless earbuds, headphones, and wearable audio receivers. However, its business model also appears to rely significantly on patent assertion and licensing, with a history of litigation against major electronics companies, indicating it operates as a Non-Practicing Entity (NPE) or Patent Assertion Entity (PAE).

The IPR, IPR2025-01516, targets U.S. Patent 10,468,047, titled "Wireless digital audio music system". This patent broadly describes a wireless digital audio system that includes a portable audio source with a digital audio transmitter and an audio receiver coupled to a headphone set, utilizing fuzzy logic for optimized digital signal processing and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) for private listening without interference in shared spaces. The underlying context for this IPR is a patent infringement lawsuit filed by One-E-Way, Inc. against Samsung (and other companies like Anker and Dell) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Case No. 1:24-cv-01561). In that litigation, One-E-Way has accused Samsung's wireless headphones and speakers, particularly those supporting Bluetooth 5.0, of infringing its patents.

The procedural posture places this case before the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), where the review was instituted on February 18, 2026, with Administrative Judge John A. Squires listed as part of the panel. The PTAB serves as a critical venue for challenging the validity of patents, offering an often faster and more cost-effective alternative to district court litigation. This case is notable due to One-E-Way's pattern of asserting its wireless audio technology patents against prominent industry players, and Samsung's use of the IPR process as a defense strategy to invalidate the asserted patent claims, thereby potentially undermining the related infringement allegations in the Western District of Texas. One-E-Way has previously engaged in similar patent enforcement actions, including a case against Apple that went to the Federal Circuit.

I'll research the underlying district court litigation and parallel PTAB proceedings.

Let me get the stay order details and the parallel PTAB proceedings.

Let me pin down the stay order date, the Markman status, and the parallel IPR outcomes.

Key Legal Developments & Outcome — One-E-Way, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al.

Bottom line: The district court case has no verdict, no judgment, and no final disposition. It was stayed in its entirety pending the parallel IPRs, and the lead IPR (IPR2025-01516) was instituted on 2026-02-18. The litigation is presently frozen; the operative "outcome" so far is a stay plus an instituted PTAB trial.

⚠️ Structural correction to the prior case summary: the Samsung docket number cited in the overview (1:24-cv-01561) is no longer the operative docket. On 2025-04-02 Judge Pitman granted One-E-Way's motion to consolidate and directed that all future filings go in lead case No. 1:24-cv-01558-RP (the Dell case). The stay motion (Dkt. 81), response (Dkt. 83), reply (Dkt. 88), and the stay order (Dkt. 89) all appear under the consolidated lead docket, with a combined Dell/Anker/Samsung caption. Source: Dkt. 89 stay order (CourtListener); 1:24-cv-01561 docket (consolidation order).

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1. Filing & Initial Pleadings

Accused products (from the complaint): Galaxy smartphones, Galaxy Tab tablets, Galaxy Book laptops, Galaxy Watch, Galaxy Buds headphones, and Level Box / Sound Tower speakers. OEW pleaded willful infringement based on a notice letter dated 2020-04-10 — a notable pleading choice given the Apple outcome discussed below. Source: Seoul Wire, 2024-12-19; complaint analysis.

2. Consolidation & Scheduling

• 2025-02-26 — OEW files opposed motion to consolidate (Anker non-opposes, 2025-03-31).
• 2025-03-28 — Joint Rule 26(f) discovery report / case management plan filed, plus a joint motion for entry of a scheduling order.
• 2025-04-02 — Consolidation granted; lead case designated 1:24-cv-01558-RP.

3. Amended Pleadings & Motions to Dismiss

• 2025-06-17 — First Amended Complaint against Samsung (Dkt. 58) and against Anker (Dkt. 59); same three patents.
• 2025-06-27 — First Amended Complaint against Dell (Dkt. 65).
• 2025-07-01 — Anker moves to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) (Dkt. 67); Samsung files a parallel 12(b)(6) motion (Dkt. 68).
• 2025-07-21 — Dell moves to dismiss (Dkt. 70).

The three parallel 12(b)(6) motions signal a coordinated defense across the consolidated defendants. I could not confirm from retrieved sources whether any of the 12(b)(6) motions was ever ruled on — the stay order (Dkt. 89) addresses only the stay, which suggests the motions were left pending or deferred.

4. Stay Pending IPR (the dispositive development to date)

• Dkt. 81 — Defendants (Anker, Dell, Samsung) file an opposed motion to stay all proceedings pending IPR, asserting that Samsung's three petitions cover every asserted claim.
• Dkt. 83 / Dkt. 88 — OEW opposition (arguing "pure speculation" that IPR would simplify issues, and that IPR institution was unlikely) and Defendants' reply.
• The court granted the stay (Dkt. 89), applying the Crossroads Systems v. DOT Hill three-factor test plus the "burden reduction" factor from Delta Electronics v. Vicor. Defendants' winning arguments: (1) every claim in suit is under PTAB review; (2) no prejudice because OEW seeks only money damages and the asserted patents are expired; (3) the case was early — discovery had not begun and claim construction briefing was not complete.

⚠️ Sourcing gap: the retrieved text of Dkt. 89 does not include the entry date. It necessarily post-dates the 2025-09-17 third petition and precedes the 2026-02-18 institution decision; it should be verified on PACER before being cited as a dated event.

5. Claim Construction (Markman)

No Markman ruling was issued. Per the stay briefing, the IPR petitions were filed before completion of claim construction briefing, and the court treated the early posture as favoring a stay. If a Markman hearing or order issued in the consolidated lead case before the stay, it is not reflected in the sources retrieved.

However, there is a de facto controlling construction inherited from Apple: in the C.D. Cal. case, the parties stipulated that "unique user code" = "fixed code (bit sequence) specifically associated with one user of a device(s)" (Claim Construction Order, 2022-03-09, 2022 WL 2564002). That term is the lynchpin of the '627 and '047 claims now asserted against Samsung.

6. Discovery

Never commenced. The stay order expressly relies on the fact that "discovery has not begun." There are no discovery milestones, no expert reports, no dispositive motions, no trial, no verdict, and no post-trial motions in this case.

7. Final Disposition / Present Posture

• No settlement, no dismissal, no judgment, no appeal.
• The case is stayed and administratively frozen pending the PTAB outcome, with the 12(b)(6) motions and the consolidated scheduling order unresolved.
• Because the asserted patents expired 2021-12-20 (priority date 2001-12-20, per Unified Patents), any recovery is limited to past damages on a patent whose term has run — a fact the defendants successfully leveraged in the stay analysis. (Expiration data is from a commercial analytics portal, not a court record; verify against PTA/terminal disclaimer.)

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8. Parallel PTAB Proceedings — Samsung's Three Petitions

Source for filing dates: Dkt. 89 stay order; source for institution date/status: GreyB ipverse IPR2025-01516 (consistent with the case metadata).

Substance of the instituted '047 IPR (IPR2025-01516)

Five grounds, all § 103 obviousness:

1. Ground 1 — '196 Publication (App. Pub. 2003/0118196), alone: claims 1–4, 6–13, 15–19.
2. Ground 2 — '196 Publication + Rappaport (1996 textbook): claims 5, 14, 20 (power supply/battery).
3. Ground 3 — Walley (U.S. 6,744,808) + Miyake (U.S. 5,546,424) + Gibson (1997 handbook) + Rappaport: claims 1–5, 8–14, 17–20.
4. Ground 4 — Walley + Miyake + Gibson + Rappaport + Drakoulis: claims 6–7, 15–16.
5. Ground 5 — same combination: claims 1–20.

The single most important issue in the case: the '196 Publication is the published version of the very application to which the '047 patent claims priority. Samsung's entire Ground 1 theory therefore depends on a priority/§ 112 written-description attack: that the '047 claims are not supported by the 2001 and 2003 applications, that the applicant's later amendments cannot retroactively supply priority, and that 2008-07-12 is the earliest priority date the '047 claims can claim. If Samsung wins that priority fight, its own priority document becomes prior art. This is a self-referential invalidity theory and is the crux of the instituted trial. (Petition exhibit outline, EX1016/Petition; Petition Grounds summary.)

Counsel: Trenton A. Ward et al. (Greenberg Traurig) for Samsung; Gregory Donahue et al. (Knobbe Martens) for One-E-Way. (Consistent with the sections already generated.)

Prior PTAB proceedings — Apple's 2021 IPRs

Apple filed five IPRs against the '627/'047 family: IPR2021-00283, -00284, -00285, -00287 (related patents) and IPR2021-00286 ('627, claims 1–4, 10–11). The Board denied institution in IPR2021-00286 on 2021-06-11 (panel: Braden, Weinschenk, Cass), finding no reasonable likelihood of prevailing. Source: IPR2021-00286 Institution Decision.

IPR2021-00285 involved the '047 patent, with Douglas G. Muehlhauser (Knobbe Martens) on the patent-owner side — establishing counsel continuity into the current Samsung IPR. ⚠️ I could not confirm the final outcome of IPR2021-00285 from the sources retrieved; this should be pulled from PTAB docketing, because a prior final written decision on the '047 patent would bear directly on the estoppel and merits posture in IPR2025-01516.

Effect of the IPRs on the litigation

1. Total stay. Because Samsung's petitions reach every asserted claim, the district court froze the entire consolidated case, including the pending 12(b)(6) motions.
2. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel will attach to Samsung on institution as to grounds raised or reasonably raisable — narrowing any post-IPR district court invalidity case.
3. Sequencing risk for OEW: OEW must litigate the priority/written-description issue at the PTAB while its district court case sits idle on an expired patent, compounding the prejudice problem the court already found unpersuasive.

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9. Highly Relevant Prior Adjudications of the Same Patent Family

These are the strongest "legal developments" for assessing the prospects of the present suit, even though they arise from other dockets:

• One-E-Way, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 2:20-cv-06339-JAK-GJS (C.D. Cal., filed 2020-07-16), asserting the same '627 and '047 patents:
  • 2022-03-09 — Claim construction order adopting the stipulated construction of "unique user code."
  • District court granted summary judgment of non-infringement for Apple, holding the code must be associated with a user, not merely a device.
  • 2023-08-14 — Federal Circuit affirmed, No. 2022-2020 (nonprecedential; Moore, C.J., with Lourie and Stoll), treating the "construction of the construction" as ordinary claim construction and holding the accused Bluetooth products' device-based codes do not meet the limitation. One-E-Way's counsel: Muehlhauser, Knobbe Martens. Apple's counsel: Heidi Keefe, Cooley LLP.
  • Sources: Fed. Cir. opinion, 2023-08-14; Lexology summary; Crowell client alert, 2023-09-05.
  • Strategic significance for Samsung: the same "unique user code" limitation and the same Bluetooth-implemented functionality (frequency-hopping/CDMA characterization; DPSK + non-DPSK demodulation) were held non-infringing as a matter of law against Apple. Samsung's accused products use the same Bluetooth pairing architecture, making this Federal Circuit affirmance — binding precedent in the Federal Circuit and entitled to issue-preclusion/claim-preclusion weight on the same patents — the most powerful non-PTAB defense available to Samsung. Korean trade press reporting on the Samsung complaint expressly flagged the Apple losses as making a Samsung win likely (Seoul Wire, 2024-12-19).
• In re Certain Wireless Headsets, Inv. No. 337-TA-943 (ITC) — One-E-Way asserted related patents (U.S. 7,865,258 and 8,131,391) against Sony, Creative Labs, and others. The ITC invalidated the claims, holding "virtually free from interference" indefinite.
  • 2017-06-12 — One-E-Way, Inc. v. ITC, Fed. Cir., vacated and remanded/reversed in relevant part, 2–1 (Wallach and Stoll; Chief Judge Prost dissenting), holding the term of degree not indefinite under Nautilus. Source: Fed. Cir. decision summary.
  • This demonstrates a long-running, family-wide validity fight in which One-E-Way has repeatedly had to defend claim definiteness, and it establishes the ITC claim construction ruling referenced in the later Apple IPR filings.

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10. Gaps, Caveats, and Contradiction Flags

1. Stay order date unconfirmed. Dkt. 89's entry date could not be verified from retrieved text. It falls between 2025-09-17 and 2026-02-18.
2. IPR numbers for the '627 and '000 petitions are unconfirmed. Only IPR2025-01516 (the '047) is verified against the case metadata. The '627 and '000 proceedings are documented in Dkt. 89 and are consistent with the docket narrative but should be docketed directly.
3. No outcome data for IPR2021-00285 ('047) or for IPR2021-00283/-284/-287. Given that a prior FWD on the '047 would be material, this is the highest-priority item to verify on PTAB docketing / PACER.
4. No ruling located on the three pending 12(b)(6) motions (Samsung Dkt. 68; Anker Dkt. 67; Dell Dkt. 70).
5. No Markman order located in the consolidated lead case.
6. Consolidation nuance: postings describing "1:24-cv-01561" as the operative case are outdated after 2025-04-02; filings ran through 1:24-cv-01558-RP.
7. Unrelated search noise: search results returned a Headwater Research v. Samsung docket and several Netlist-related PTAB Fintiv briefs; these are different cases involving Samsung and were not relied upon here.

Key items requiring PACER/PTAB verification to complete this section: the Dkt. 89 entry date; the disposition of the three 12(b)(6) motions; whether a Markman ruling issued; the '627/'000 IPR numbers and institution decisions (due mid-March 2026 if no Fintiv denial); and any Fintiv discretionary-denial briefing or Sotera stipulation Samsung offered in the W.D. Tex. case.

Counsel of record representing Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. in IPR2025-01516 include:

Trenton A. Ward

• Role: Lead Counsel (Petitioner Counsel)
• Firm: Greenberg Traurig, LLP
• Office Location: Atlanta, Georgia
• Relevant Experience: Mr. Ward is the Co-Chair of Greenberg Traurig's Patent Post-Grant Group. He brings extensive experience from his five years of service at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) as a Lead Administrative Patent Judge, where he adjudicated over 250 America Invents Act (AIA) trial proceedings, including inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR) proceedings. His practice focuses on patent litigation before the PTAB, District Courts, and the Federal Circuit.

While "Ward, Trenton et al." is mentioned as petitioner counsel, Trenton A. Ward is the specific attorney named in relation to this IPR and his firm. Other attorneys from Greenberg Traurig, LLP may be involved, but their names are not explicitly listed in the available public information for this specific IPR proceeding.

Counsel for One-E-Way, Inc. in IPR2025-01516

One-E-Way, Inc., the patent owner (Respondent) in IPR2025-01516, is represented by attorneys from Knobbe Martens. Gregory Donahue is identified as counsel for One-E-Way, Inc. in this proceeding. Douglas G. Muehlhauser also previously represented One-E-Way, Inc. regarding U.S. Patent 10,468,047 in a prior IPR (IPR2021-00285).

Here are the details for the identified counsel:

• Name: Gregory Donahue

  • Role: Counsel
  • Firm: Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP
  • Office Location: Likely Orange County, California (Knobbe Martens has a significant presence there, and One-E-Way, Inc. has been associated with Pasadena, California in previous litigation).
  • Relevant Patent Litigation Experience: While specific IPR experience for Gregory Donahue in this exact case is still developing, Knobbe Martens is a well-known intellectual property firm with extensive experience in patent litigation and PTAB proceedings.

• Name: Douglas G. Muehlhauser (Reg. No. 42018)

  • Role: Counsel (previously represented One-E-Way, Inc. regarding the same patent in IPR2021-00285). It is highly probable he continues to be involved in the present IPR given the continuity of the patent.
  • Firm: Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP
  • Office Location: Likely Orange County, California.
  • Relevant Patent Litigation Experience: Douglas Muehlhauser has represented One-E-Way, Inc. in prior PTAB proceedings concerning U.S. Patent No. 10,468,047. His work includes submitting responses on behalf of the patent owner in IPRs. His firm, Knobbe Martens, is frequently involved in patent litigation and post-grant proceedings.