SanDisk Corp. v. LSI Corp.

I'll research this case, its patents, and its appellate history.

I'll research the litigation timeline, rulings, and disposition for this docket and its related proceedings.

Key finding: this was a declaratory-judgment action over eight LSI patents. Let me pin down the pleadings, the dismissed state-law claims, and what happened to the patents afterward.

Key legal developments and outcome — SanDisk Corp. v. LSI Corp., No. C 09‑02737 WHA (N.D. Cal.)

Bottom line: This was not a SanDisk infringement suit that LSI defended. It was a SanDisk declaratory-judgment and state-law counterattack filed after LSI sent "Unlicensed SanDisk Products" letters to SanDisk's customers. LSI/Agere counterclaimed for infringement of the same eight‑patent LSI portfolio. The case never reached claim construction, summary judgment, or trial: the only substantive merits ruling was Judge Alsup's dismissal of SanDisk's state‑law claims on 2009‑09‑18; everything thereafter was case management, a court‑appointed FRE 706 expert process, and a stipulated dismissal with prejudice on 2010‑03‑19 (Doc. 115). There was no appeal and no PTAB proceeding during the case (IPRs did not exist yet), but the two patents in the case metadata were litigated extensively afterward by LSI/Avago/Broadcom against other defendants.

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1. Timeline of docket events

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

Plaintiff's counsel of record — SanDisk Corp. v. LSI Corp., No. C 09‑02737 WHA (N.D. Cal.)

Bottom line: SanDisk was represented throughout this case by a single firm — Jones Day, Palo Alto office — with no separate local-counsel or pro hac vice arrangement on the plaintiff side. The five Jones Day attorneys whose names appear in the caption blocks and signature blocks of SanDisk's filings are listed below. The case did not go to trial: it was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation on March 19, 2010 (Doc. 115), with the Court retaining jurisdiction to enforce the settlement for three years.

Counsel table

What I could and could not verify

• Source of the list: The names appear in the "Attorneys for Plaintiff/Counterdefendant SANDISK CORPORATION" caption blocks reproduced in the Justia/RECAP PDFs of Docs. 53, 76 (filed 1/25/10), 78, 87, 99 and 115. See, e.g., https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv02737/218036/53/0.pdf (Doc. 53, Joint Proposed Order re Claim Construction) and https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv02737/218036/88 (Doc. 87, quoting the full SanDisk caption).
• Role designations: The "lead counsel" designation for Lanier and Lippetz is a direct quote from the January 25, 2010 stipulated request ("lead counsels for SanDisk, Tharan Gregory Lanier and Gregory L. Lippetz, learned for the first time…"), reproduced in Doc. 76/78. The "of counsel" labels for Mao, Liu and Nestor are my characterization based on their position in the caption block and signing frequency — I did not retrieve a formal Jones Day staffing memo or a PACER attorney-appearance report.
• No pro hac vice or separate local counsel for SanDisk. Unlike LSI/Agere — who used Bergeson, LLP (San Jose) as local counsel plus Thompson & Knight LLP (Dallas) appearing pro hac vice through Bruce S. Sostek, Jane Politz Brandt, Herbert J. Hammond, Max Ciccarelli and Richard L. Wynne, Jr. — every SanDisk attorney listed carries a California bar number and a Jones Day Palo Alto address. I found no pro hac vice application, no in-house SanDisk attorney entry, and no second firm appearing for SanDisk in the documents reviewed.
• Caveat on completeness: I did not obtain a native PACER "attorneys appearing" list for this docket; the reconstruction is from caption blocks and signature blocks in the publicly available PDFs. It is possible that additional Jones Day associates appeared by notice of appearance without being added to the caption (a common practice), and those would not show up in this method. Filings themselves were not sealed — the docket and the dismissal papers are public — so the limitation is one of docket-report coverage, not sealing.
• Experience notes: I deliberately did not attribute specific prior or subsequent patent cases to individual attorneys beyond what this record shows, because I could not independently confirm their bios within this session. What the record does establish: Jones Day was SanDisk's patent litigation firm of choice in this period, and the same firm later represented SanDisk as petitioner in PTAB proceedings (e.g., SanDisk Corp. v. Netlist, Inc., IPR2014-00971, where David B. Cochran, Joseph M. Sauer and Matthew W. Johnson of Jones Day were back-up counsel — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2014-00971/), though those are different attorneys from the trial team here.

Case-outcome context (relevant to the counsel question)

Judge Alsup granted LSI's motion to dismiss SanDisk's California state-law claims on September 18, 2009 (2009 WL 3047375), leaving the patent declaratory-judgment claims; the parties then litigated claim construction (tutorial March 3, 2010; hearing March 11, 2010) under the schedule Lippetz signed at Doc. 53, before stipulating to dismissal with prejudice on March 19, 2010 (Doc. 115, signed by Lippetz for SanDisk).

I'll research the docket and related sources for defense counsel in this case.

Good leads. Let me pull the fuller docket and confirm the defense team structure.

Now let me verify the docket's attorney entries and pro hac vice admissions.

Counsel of Record for LSI Corporation (and Counterclaimant Agere Systems Inc.)

Bottom line: LSI's defense was handled by a two-firm structure — Thompson & Knight LLP (Dallas, TX) as the substantive/lead patent team, appearing pro hac vice, and Bergeson, LLP (San Jose, CA) as local counsel of record. The case did not go to trial: Judge Alsup signed a stipulated dismissal with prejudice on March 19, 2010 (Dkt. 115), so this is a claim-construction-era docket only.

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1. Thompson & Knight LLP — primary/lead patent counsel (pro hac vice)

Firm address of record: One Arts Plaza, 1722 Routh St., Suite 1500, Dallas, TX 75201. The firm's Texas attorneys were listed on filings as "pro hac vice," i.e., appearing in N.D. Cal. by permission with a California firm as local counsel.

Sources: signature blocks at Dkt. 78 (https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv02737/218036/78/0.pdf), Dkt. 99 (https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv02737/[218036/101](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=218036-0101)), Dkt. 115 (https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv02737/[218036/115](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=218036-0115)/0.pdf); Qimonda AG v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, No. 2010-1174 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 18, 2011) (nonprecedential) (https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2011/01/18/Qimonda_Ag._V._International_Trade_Commission.pdf); Sostek bio, https://lawyers.usnews.com/lawyers/bruce-s-sostek/90034964.

Note on "lead counsel": Dkt. 78 states that "Lead counsel for LSI is unavailable on Thursday, March 4," confirming a designated lead under Civil L.R. 3-4, and the lead firm was Thompson & Knight. The docket as reproduced on Justia does not include a formal ECF "lead attorney" designation field, so I'm inferring "lead" from the firm's role and Sostek's position atop every signature block. Treat that label as a reasonable inference, not a quoted docket entry.

2. Bergeson, LLP — local counsel (San Jose, CA)

Address of record: 303 Almaden Boulevard, Suite 500, San Jose, CA 95110.

Source: Dkt. 53 signature block (https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv02737/218036/55/0.pdf), which designates these three as "Attorneys for Defendant/Counterclaimant LSI CORPORATION and Counterclaimant AGERE SYSTEMS INC."

3. Items I could not verify — stated explicitly rather than guessed

• No PACER account access. I relied on Justia's and CourtListener's reproductions of the docket and filed PDFs, plus the Federal Circuit opinion. A native PACER docket report would list each attorney's ECF appearance date and any "TERMINATED" flags; I did not have that.
• Bergeson's exit is unconfirmed. Bergeson, LLP appears on the June–October 2009 filings (Dkt. 53, Sept. 30, 2009), but by the January–March 2010 filings (Dkt. 78, 87, 99, 115) only Thompson & Knight's pro hac vice block is reproduced in the caption. I did not locate a substitution or withdrawal order, and the Justia docket excerpt is incomplete (it lists only 11 orders between Dec. 2009 and Mar. 2010, plainly a partial capture). So the timing and formality of any Bergeson withdrawal is unknown to me.
• No in-house counsel of record. Nothing in the retrieved filings identifies an LSI or Agere in-house attorney appearing under Civil L.R. 3-4(c) or otherwise. I am not naming any.
• Additional T&K attorneys are possible. The later LSI/Broadcom filings list J. Michael Heinlen as part of the same T&K LSI team, and he was on the Qimonda Fed. Cir. brief for LSI. I did not find him on a filing in this 2009-02737 docket, so I am not listing him as counsel of record here — flagging him only as a plausible but unconfirmed team member.
• No sealing issue. The counsel-identifying filings in this case (stipulations, scheduling orders, dismissal) are public; nothing about counsel was sealed.

4. Why this matters for the case posture

The docket shows a case that ended at the claim-construction threshold: Jones Day (Lanier, Lippetz, Mao, Liu, Nestor) for SanDisk against the T&K/Bergeson team for LSI, with Alsup J. managing "the massive number of claims currently in suit" via a court-appointed FRE 706 expert (Dkt. 65, Dec. 1, 2009) and a continued technology tutorial (Dkt. 78, Jan. 26, 2010). The March 19, 2010 stipulated dismissal with prejudice (Dkt. 115) means neither side obtained a merits ruling in this action; LSI's '663 and '387 patents were instead pressed in other forums, including the ITC and the parallel Qimonda line of cases — which is consistent with the same T&K team continuing to litigate the LSI/Agere portfolio after this dismissal.