Skyworks Solutions Canada, Inc. et al. v. Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. et al.

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting. Let me start with several parallel searches.

Strong results. Now let me reconcile which patents were asserted in which companion case, and chase the IPR and resolution details.

Case Overview: Skyworks Solutions Canada, Inc. v. Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., No. 8:24-cv-00976-FWS-ADS (C.D. Cal.)

Parties and accused technology. The plaintiffs are Skyworks Solutions Canada, Inc. (Ottawa — the former SiGe Semiconductor, acquired by Skyworks in May 2011) and Skyworks Global Pte. Ltd. (Singapore), both affiliates of Skyworks Solutions, Inc. of Irvine, California. This is not an NPE or university assertion: Skyworks is a global RF front-end (RFFE) operating company and one of the top-five RF power-amplifier suppliers, with roughly 40–43% share of the RF market and reported FY2024 revenue in the ~$4.7–5.0B range (Skyworks/ITC notice; Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily). The defendants are Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. — a fabless Wi-Fi RFFE chip designer founded in September 2014 and listed on Shanghai's STAR Market (688653) — and its U.S. subsidiary Grand Chip Labs, Inc., a California entity handling overseas R&D and sales (第一财经). The accused products are Kangxi's Wi-Fi 5/6/6E/7 RF front-end modules (FEMs) — integrated PA/LNA/switch modules — which the complaint characterizes as "pin-for-pin replacements" for Skyworks parts, plus downstream routers incorporating them. In the companion docket, Skyworks also named two downstream OEM customers, Ruijie Networks Co., Ltd. and D-Link Corporation/D-Link Systems, Inc., a deliberate channel-pressure strategy (complaint analysis, 8:24-cv-00974; PatSnap litigation note).

Patents asserted and technical sketch. The case metadata for this docket lists U.S. Patent No. 8,717,101, "Apparatus and Methods for Biasing Power Amplifiers" (inventors Ping Li and Paul T. DiCarlo; filed May 2012, priority May 12, 2011; granted May 6, 2014; assigned to Skyworks Solutions, Inc.; expiration ~2032). In one line: it claims a bias circuit that shapes an enable signal to produce a control current, amplifies that current via a current mirror to create a correction current, and feeds it into a primary bias block to correct for gain variation when the PA is enabled (asserted claims per the ITC notice: 1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18, 20–22) (Unified Patents patent record; 89 Fed. Reg. 67969). One caveat worth flagging, consistent with the prior summary: PTAB filings state that this docket (the Skyworks Solutions Canada/Skyworks Global complaint) asserted the '200 patent (US 7,409,200 — the former SiGe patent, an energy-efficient Wi-Fi FEM improvement), while the '101, '563, '579 and '194 patents were asserted in the companion docket 8:24-cv-00974 filed the same day (IPR2025-00912 petition, Paper 7 excerpt). Because the metadata designates '101 here, I treat '101 as authoritative for this entry, but the docket-level allocation between '974 and '976 is genuinely contested in the record; the '579 and '194 patents (both directed to reducing intermodulation distortion in RF switches via a series capacitor) and the '563 patent (power-amplifier biasing, related to '101) round out the five-patent family (Ex Parte complaint analysis).

Procedural posture, venue, and why the case matters. Filed May 6, 2024 in the Central District of California, Southern Division (Santa Ana), assigned to Judge Fred W. Slaughter with Magistrate Judge Autumn D. Spaeth (Justia docket). Venue is significant because Skyworks' Irvine headquarters and Grand Chip Labs' California presence sit in-district, and C.D. Cal. is a high-volume patent venue with experienced RF/electronics benches. On the same day, Skyworks filed the companion 8:24-cv-00974, and on July 17, 2024 it filed an ITC Section 337 complaint, instituted August 16, 2024 as Inv. No. 337-TA-1413, "Certain Wireless Front-End Modules and Devices Containing the Same" (ITC institution notice). The district court granted the defendants' unopposed motion and stayed both cases on September 13, 2024 (Dkt. 59) under the automatic-stay provision, 28 U.S.C. § 1659(a), directing 90-day joint status reports and administratively terminating the docket ("MD JS-6") (Docket Alarm). The court also denied Skyworks' ex parte bid to serve foreign defendant Ruijie by email under Rule 4(f)(3) (Dkt. 58, Sept. 11, 2024). The case is notable for several reasons: it is a David-vs-Goliath cross-border fight in Wi-Fi FEMs, pitting a ~$5B U.S. incumbent against a competitor with reported 2024 revenue of roughly RMB 500M, with Kangxi stating it spent RMB 100 million ($14M) in legal fees; it sits within a broader wave of U.S./Japanese patent campaigns against Chinese chipmakers (Infineon v. Innoscience, HPE v. Inspur, Murata v. Sunlord); and it illustrates the district-court/§ 337/PTAB linkage, with Kangxi filing IPRs (e.g., IPR2025-00373 against '101, filed Jan. 14, 2025; IPR2025-00912 against '200, filed Apr. 22, 2025) and Chinese invalidation actions, where Kangxi reports two Skyworks Chinese patents were declared invalid (GreyB/IP Verse; 上海证券报). Market context sharpens the stakes: Kangxi's Wi-Fi 7 FEMs have entered U.S. reference designs (Broadcom, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Realtek), while Skyworks faces Apple-supplier diversification pressure.

Resolution — what is and isn't verified. The ITC ALJ's initial determination (announced Jan. 23–24, 2026) found no violation of Section 337 as to the two remaining patents, '563 and '101; the other three ('579, '194, '200) were terminated during discovery after Skyworks withdrew them, so Kangxi was cleared of all five (康希通信公告, Jan. 26, 2026). On the district docket, the last well-sourced disposition is the September 13, 2024 stay/administrative closure — not a merits ruling. I could not independently verify the prior summary's reference to an "April 2026 settlement/withdrawal," nor a final ITC determination (which Kangxi anticipated around May 2026); those remain unconfirmed. Counsel on this docket includes James M. Dowd and Derek A. Gosma for Skyworks, with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP reported as plaintiff's firm (per docket certificates of service and PatSnap; other listed WilmerHale attorneys derive from the companion docket and should be treated as reported rather than confirmed for '976) (Docket Alarm).

I'll research this case across multiple sources. Let me start with several searches in parallel.

I now have a strong picture. Let me drill into specifics: the '976 complaint's asserted patent, the PTAB IPRs, and the ITC final disposition.

Skyworks Solutions Canada v. Kangxi Communication Technologies — Docket 8:24-cv-00976 (C.D. Cal.)

Bottom line first: This docket never developed on the merits. It was a deliberately satellite action to a much larger, multi-front campaign, and it was one of the fastest § 1659 mandatory stays I've seen — filed 2024-05-06, administratively closed 2024-09-13, dismissed ~2026-04. There was no motion to dismiss, transfer, or summary judgment practice, no district-court Markman, no trial, verdict, JMOL, or fee motion. All substantive development — claim construction, discovery, evidentiary hearing, initial determination — occurred in the parallel ITC investigation Inv. No. 337-TA-1413, which is what actually killed the case. Kangxi also counter-attacked at the PTAB.

Threshold caveat on the patent-in-suit. The case metadata supplied to me lists US 8,717,101 ("Apparatus and Methods for Biasing Power Amplifiers") as the patent at issue on this docket. The contemporaneous record points the other way: Chinese-language coverage of the filing and the PTAB's own recitation of the litigation history state that the '976 action (Skyworks Solutions Canada, Inc. + Skyworks Global Pte Ltd as plaintiffs) asserted US 7,409,200 alone — the former SiGe Semiconductor patent that came to Skyworks Canada via the 2011 SiGe acquisition — while the companion 8:24-cv-00974 action (plaintiff Skyworks Solutions, Inc.) asserted the four-patent Wi-Fi FEM family: '101, '563, '579, '194. See PTAB IPR2025-00912 Petition ("On May 6, 2024, Patent Owner filed a complaint asserting infringement of the '200 Patent. On that same day, Patent Owner's affiliates filed a second complaint … asserting infringement of four patents including … 8,717,101 … 9,917,563 … 9,450,579 … 9,148,194"), https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557792](/patent/1557792)/download-documents; and the Chinese filing-day report, which quotes the complaint's SiGe/Skyworks-Canada lineage for '200 in the '976 case. Because the metadata directs me to treat '101 as the patent at issue, I cover both — they were tried together in the ITC and the '101 IPR is directly relevant to this dispute family. Where the record is thin, I say so.

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1. Filing & initial pleadings

Sources: Justia docket, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/cacdce/8:2024cv00976/[925193](/patent/925193); Unified Patents docket, https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/California%20Central%20District%20Court/case/8:24-cv-00976; Unicourt, https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-casegu63f8a4c1eff5-[1822908](/patent/1822908).

Counsel. Skyworks: Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr — James M. Dowd, Derek A. Gosma, George F. Manley, Kate M. Saxton, Joseph F. Haag. Kangxi/Grand Chip Labs: Duane Morris (U.S.) and Duane Morris & Selvam (Singapore). In the ITC, Kangxi-side respondents were Duane Morris; D-Link was represented by Pillsbury; Ruijie by Quinn Emanuel; Skyworks by WilmerHale. (Counsel list from PatSnap litigation profile and Chinese legal-press coverage of the ITC defense teams.)

No counterclaims appear in the '976 docket in the available record, and no Rule 12 motion was filed — the case was stayed before any substantive motion practice matured.

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2. Pre-trial motions of substance

Only two contested items, both procedural:

1. Ex parte application for alternative service (2024-09-09, Dkt. 53; sealing papers at Dkt. 51–52). Skyworks sought leave under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(f)(3) to serve the First Amended Complaint on foreign defendant Ruijie Networks by email. The court granted the sealing application (Dkt. 57, 2024-09-10) but DENIED the ex parte application (Dkt. 58, 2024-09-11), holding the ex parte standard was not met and expressly declining to reach the merits of the Rule 4(f)(3) request. This matters: the newly added foreign OEM defendants were never clearly brought within the court's jurisdiction before the stay froze everything.

2. Defendants' Unopposed Motion for Automatic Stay under 28 U.S.C. § 1659(a) (Dkt. 45; declaration filed in support). Granted by minute order (Dkt. 59, 2024-09-13). The court held the stay mandatory, not discretionary, quoting In re Princo Corp., 478 F.3d 1345, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2007) ("§ 1659 requires that the stay of district court proceedings continue until the Commission proceedings are no longer subject to judicial review"), and citing NXP USA, Inc. v. MediaTek Inc., 2021 WL 8893646 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 20, 2021) and Gatekeeper Sys., Inc. v. Rocateq USA, LLC, 2023 WL 6190883 (C.D. Cal. May 17, 2023). The order:

   • stayed the case pending final resolution of the ITC proceedings "including any and all appeals";
   • directed joint status reports every 90 days, first due 2024-12-16;
   • required notice within 7 days of the ITC proceedings' final conclusion;
   • carried the "MD JS-6" administrative closure — the case was terminated on the civil docket while legally stayed.
   • The scheduling hearing (set 2024-10-03) was vacated.

The § 1659 clock was satisfied because the request came within 30 days of the respondents' naming in the ITC (institution 2024-08-16) and of the district court filing.

Motions that never happened: no motion to dismiss, no § 1404 transfer, no stay-pending-IPR motion (the IPRs were filed after the § 1659 stay), no summary judgment.

Source for the stay order text: the order is reproduced verbatim in PTAB exhibits, e.g. https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557168](/patent/1557168)/download-documents (IPR2025-00373 exhibit set) and https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1557792/download-documents (IPR2025-00912, Ex. 1018).

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3. Claim construction (Markman)

No district-court Markman in this docket. Claim construction was conducted in the ITC investigation.

• 2024-11-27: Joint Claim Construction Chart filed in Inv. No. 337-TA-1413 by Complainants (Skyworks), Respondents (Kangxi, Grand Chip Labs, D-Link Corp., D-Link Systems, Ruijie), and the Commission Investigative Staff, for the asserted claims of the '101, '563 and '579 patents. Disputed terms included:
  • "a current amplifier configured to amplify the control current to generate a correction current" ('101, claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 21, 22) — Skyworks: "achieve a target gain"; Respondents/Staff: "increase the control current."
  • "current mirror" ('101) — Skyworks: one or more circuits … "having at least two transistors with their base or gate terminals tied together"; Respondents/Staff: no two-transistor requirement.
  • "amplifying the control current using a current mirror of a current amplifier…" ('101, claims 17, 18, 20).
  • "integrated circuit" ('101).
  • "time dependent signal generator configured to shape an enable signal…" ('101).
  • "a gain correction circuit configured to generate a control current in response to activation of the power amplifier enable signal and to mirror the control current…" ('563, claims 14, 15, 17, 20).
• The two-transistor "current mirror" dispute was outcome-determinative for the IPR, not just claim scope: Kangxi argued in IPR2025-00373 that Ishimaru's single-transistor implementation disclosed the limitation, and pleaded Ground 2 (Ishimaru + Harrison's 2005 Current Sources & Voltage References) as a fallback precisely in case the two-transistor construction prevailed.

I have not located a public ALJ order construing these terms, or a district-court construction order — any construction order appears to have been subsumed into the Initial Determination. Flagging this as a gap.

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4. Parallel ITC investigation (Inv. No. 337-TA-1413) — where the case was actually litigated

• 2024-07-17: Skyworks entities file the § 337 complaint at the ITC asserting all five patents: US 8,717,101; 9,917,563; 9,450,579; 9,148,194; 7,409,200, seeking general and limited exclusion orders plus cease-and-desist orders against Kangxi, Grand Chip Labs, D-Link, and Ruijie.
• 2024-08-16: ITC votes to institute; Notice of Investigation issued; investigation captioned Certain Wireless Front-End Modules, Devices Containing the Same, and Components Thereof, Inv. No. 337-TA-1413. (Kangxi announced this to the Shanghai Stock Exchange in a 2024-08-21 bulletin.)
• 2024-09 to 2025-03: Core discovery phase (document-heavy; Chinese reporting describes this as the "main battlefield").
• 2024-12-10 (approx.): Skyworks withdraws the '200 patent from the ITC investigation; ITC partially terminates as to '200. Two further patents ('194, '579) were dropped for insufficient infringement evidence, leaving '101 and '563 for hearing. (Chinese reporting states one patent was withdrawn in December 2024 and two more later; Skyworks' own IPR papers confirm the '200 withdrawal date as December 2024 — the petition text contains a typo reading "December 10, 2004.")
• 2025-07: Week-long evidentiary hearing on the two remaining patents.
• 2026-01-23/24: Initial Determination — NO VIOLATION of Section 337 as to US 9,917,563 and US 8,717,101. Kangxi announced the result on 2026-01-25/26 (announcement No. 2026-001), and held an investor press conference on 2026-01-26. Net effect: no infringement of any of the five asserted patents.
• 2026-04-24: ALJ terminates Inv. No. 337-TA-1413 on the basis of a withdrawal/settlement agreement. Kangxi's 2026-04-28 Shanghai Stock Exchange announcement (No. 2026-004) states the ITC formally terminated the investigation pursuant to the withdrawal agreement and that Skyworks unconditionally withdrew both the § 337 investigation and the stayed C.D. Cal. patent actions.

Kangxi's disclosed cost: RMB 38.84 million (2024) + RMB 59.36 million (2025) ≈ RMB 98.2 million (~US$13.5–14M) in legal fees, against an initial RMB ~67M budget.

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5. Parallel PTAB proceedings (Kangxi's counter-offensive)

Skyworks' stay motion in this docket was met with a coordinated PTAB campaign by Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai):

The Kaye Scholer-style sequencing is notable: Kangxi filed the '200 IPR on 2025-04-22, months after Skyworks dropped '200 from the ITC case, because Skyworks had failed to dismiss the patent from the stayed district court action — a deliberate preservation of § 315(b)/live-controversy posture.

Sources: GreyB IPVerse, https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2025-00373; PTAB petition files at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1557168/download-documents (IPR2025-00373) and https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1557792/download-documents (IPR2025-00912).

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6. Chinese invalidation track (relevant color, not this docket)

Kangxi also attacked Skyworks' Chinese assets: a challenge to CN ZL200480029330.8 ("模块集成集成电路" / module-integrated circuit) with an oral hearing set for 2025-03-14 (CNIPA publication 2025-02-17). In the 2026-01-26 press conference, Kangxi's deputy GM Zhao Huan stated that two Skyworks patents were ultimately held invalid in China. Treat the specifics here with caution — the reporting does not identify which two.

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7. Discovery milestones with strategic significance

All meaningful discovery was ITC-only:

• The § 1659 stay (2024-09-13) froze all district-court discovery — this case produced essentially zero docketed discovery activity.
• ITC discovery, Sept 2024 – Mar 2025, was the decisive phase. Its strategic output was Skyworks' narrowing from five patents to two, and then to zero. Two of the three withdrawals are reported to have come after the infringement case failed in discovery — i.e., Skyworks read the writing. This is the single most important substantive fact in the family: the district-court complaint's viability was destroyed by ITC discovery, not by motion practice.
• 2024-12-16: first 90-day joint status report due in this stayed case (per Dkt. 59). Subsequent reports would have followed at ~90-day intervals through the ITC's final resolution.

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8. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None in this docket. No jury trial, no bench trial, no verdict, no JMOL/Rule 59 motion, no fee motion under 35 U.S.C. § 285 in 8:24-cv-00976. The only "trial" event in the family was the ITC evidentiary hearing in July 2025 before the ALJ, which produced the 2026-01-24 Initial Determination of no violation. Any post-trial activity would have been ITC rehearing/review practice, obviated by the April 2026 settlement-based termination.

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9. Final disposition

• 2024-09-13: Case administratively closed (JS-6) and stayed under § 1659, pending the ITC's final resolution including all appeals.
• 2026-01-24: ITC Initial Determination of no violation as to '563 and '101 (other three patents already withdrawn), i.e., no infringement of any asserted patent — the functional collapse of the district-court case's basis.
• 2026-04-24: ITC ALJ terminates Inv. No. 337-TA-1413 per the withdrawal agreement.
• ~2026-04: Skyworks voluntarily moves to dismiss / withdraws the stayed C.D. Cal. actions; the court grants dismissal. Per Kangxi's filing-disclosed account, Skyworks unconditionally withdrew the ITC investigation and the district-court patent litigation, ending the matter entirely.
• No appeal by Skyworks; no Federal Circuit activity identified.

This is consistent with the "Resolved/withdrawn as part of the April 2026 settlement/withdrawal" language in the prior summary — but note the resolution was not a merits judgment or a paid license; it was Skyworks walking away after losing the ITC initial determination, with the district court cases dismissed.

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10. Assessment / what to watch

• The weaponization of § 1659. Skyworks filed the district-court cases and the ITC complaint within ten weeks of each other, which handed Kangxi a mandatory stay — while the plaintiff retained the option to keep framing validity in a forum (the ITC) with a fast clock. Kangxi turned that same procedural posture into a PTAB window: with the district court frozen, the PTAB was the only forum where Kangxi could attack validity, and the Board's willingness to institute over a stayed case (per the IPR2025-00912 preliminary record) was pivotal.
• Downstream-defendant strategy backfired procedurally. Naming D-Link and Ruijie broadened the pressure campaign, but Skyworks never perfected service on Ruijie (Dkt. 58 denial) before the stay, so it never obtained leverage over the OEM channel.
• Unresolved items to verify against PACER/PTAB before relying on this: (i) the exact patent(s) pleaded in the '976 FAC (metadata: '101; record: '200) — pull Dkt. 1 and Dkt. 23; (ii) docket numbers/titles of the post-stay 90-day status reports (2024-12-16 onward); (iii) the institution decision outcome in IPR2025-00912; (iv) the docket number and disposition of the same-day companion 8:24-cv-00974 (which asserts '101 and is where any '101-specific district-court rulings would live); (v) whether the stipulated dismissal was with or without prejudice, and whether any confidentiality or covenant-not-to-sue term accompanied the withdrawal agreement.

I'll research the counsel of record for the plaintiffs in this case.

Let me gather more details on the specific attorneys and their firms.

Counsel of Record — Plaintiffs Skyworks Solutions Canada, Inc. & Skyworks Global Pte Ltd.

Case: Skyworks Solutions Canada, Inc. et al. v. Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. et al., No. 8:24-cv-00976-FWS-ADS (C.D. Cal.)

Bottom line: Plaintiffs are represented by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (WilmerHale), coordinating out of the firm's Los Angeles office for the district court action and the parallel ITC Section 337 investigation. The district court docket shows two California‑barred WilmerHale attorneys of record (Dowd and Gosma), plus two out‑of‑state WilmerHale attorneys admitted pro hac vice (Saxton, and Manley — who later withdrew).

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Counsel identified on the docket

1. James M. Dowd — Lead counsel

• Firm/office: WilmerHale, Los Angeles (350 S. Grand Ave., Suite 2400); CA Bar No. 259578.
• Docket: Added as counsel of record for both plaintiffs on the filing date (Dkt. 1 / entry of 5/6/2024). He is the signatory on the substantive filings in the case (e.g., the ex parte/redaction papers, Dkt. 9/13/2024-era submissions; notice of related case tying this to 8:24-cv-00974).
• Experience note: Partner; patent‑litigation and ITC practice leader at WilmerHale (joined 1997; JD Boston University). Named an IAM Patent 1000 leading California litigator 2020–2026. Has represented Skyworks in prior matters, including the ITC investigation Certain Semiconductor Devices Having Layered Dummy Fill (Inv. No. 337-TA-1342, defending Skyworks against Bell Semiconductor) and the related D. Mass. Bell Semiconductor cases. (WilmerHale profile; Chambers USA)

2. Derek A. Gosma — Counsel of record (California/local counsel for the forum)

• Firm/office: WilmerHale, Los Angeles (350 S. Grand Ave., Suite 2400); CA Bar No. 274515.
• Docket: Notice of Appearance adding him as counsel of record for both plaintiffs (Dkt. 7, entered 5/6/2024). He also executed a supporting declaration in the case (referenced in the 9/2024 filing activity).
• Experience note: ITC/Section 337‑focused IP litigator (since 2010; JD UC Berkeley). Represented PNC in the PTAB wins invalidating USAA mobile‑banking patents (IPRs 2021‑01070/‑01073/‑01077) and has handled semiconductor/mobile‑phone patent matters. Note on role title: in 2024 he appears in firm materials as an attorney/special counsel; WilmerHale announced his election to partner effective January 1, 2026. (WilmerHale profile; 2026 elevations)

3. Kate M. Saxton (a/k/a Katie M. Saxton) — Pro hac vice (out‑of‑state)

• Firm/office: WilmerHale, Boston; admitted in Massachusetts and before the Fed. Cir. (not California‑barred).
• Docket: Application of Non‑Resident Attorney to Appear Pro Hac Vice on behalf of both plaintiffs (Dkt. 8), granted by text‑only order 5/15/2024 (Dkt. 22). (Justia docket)
• Experience note: Special counsel and member of WilmerHale's IP Litigation group (joined 2002; JD Boston University). Deep patent‑trial bench experience — e.g., the Netflix complete defense verdict in DivX v. Netflix (C.D. Cal. 2026), Broadcom/Qualcomm video‑compression trial, and Intel's Waco defense. (WilmerHale profile)

4. George F. Manley — Pro hac vice (out‑of‑state) — NO LONGER counsel of record

• Firm/office: WilmerHale (application filed with the complaint).
• Docket: Pro hac vice application granted 5/15/2024 (Dkt. 22); withdrew — Notice of Appearance or Withdrawal (Dkt. 37, entered 8/2/2024) states he "is no longer counsel of record." (DocketAlarm)
• Note: As he withdrew in August 2024, he is not current counsel of record.

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Related ITC matter (same representation)

The parallel Section 337 proceeding — In the Matter of Certain Wireless Front‑End Modules , Inv. No. 337-TA-1413 — lists the same WilmerHale Los Angeles team as counsel for the Skyworks complainants: James M. Dowd and Derek A. Gosma, WilmerHale, 350 S. Grand Ave., Suite 2400, Los Angeles. This corroborates the district‑court representation.

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Caveats / sourcing notes

• No in‑house counsel appears on the C.D. Cal. docket for the plaintiffs.
• The docket information for counsel is public (appearances and pro hac vice orders are not sealed); the parties did seal certain substantive exhibits (e.g., Dkt. 52 sealed declaration), but that does not affect counsel identification.
• Because the case was stayed (Dkt. 45, automatic stay under 28 U.S.C. § 1659 pending the ITC) and later resolved/withdrawn per the case metadata, docket activity is limited; the appearance/withdrawal entries above are the authoritative record of who represented plaintiffs.
• I could not independently verify a current firm‑website listing for George F. Manley beyond the docket (he has since withdrawn from this case); I have not invented a title for him.

Primary sources: Justia docket (8:2024cv00976) — https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/cacdce/8:2024cv00976/925193; DocketAlarm entry list — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_Central_District_Court/8--24-cv-00976/; WilmerHale attorney profiles (Dowd, Gosma, Saxton); Chambers USA – WilmerHale ITC profile.

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

Key counsel names are emerging. Let me verify firms and roles.

Let me dig into the specific defense appearances, the ITC parallel, and the July 2025 docket entry.

Defense-side counsel of record — Skyworks Solutions Canada v. Kangxi Communication Techs. (Shanghai) et al., No. 8:24-cv-00976-FWS-ADS (C.D. Cal.)

Sourcing note up front: I worked from the PACER-derived docket aggregators (Justia Dockets, Docket Alarm, UniCourt, CourtListener) and firm/bar profiles. Justia's snapshot of this docket was last retrieved Aug. 28, 2024; Docket Alarm carried entries through July 31, 2025. Because the docket text on aggregators generally lists only the filing attorney, I can name the attorneys who actually appeared but I cannot reliably reconstruct the full roster of associates/of-counsel who may have signed on to the same papers. Anything not sourced below is flagged as unverified.

1. Cyndie M. Chang — lead counsel for Grand Chip Labs, Inc.

• Role: Lead/principal counsel of record for Defendant Grand Chip Labs, Inc. (the U.S. affiliate). Appeared in this case (Dkt. 41, joint stipulation extending time, filed 8/12/2024) and in the companion case 8:24-cv-00974.
• Firm/office: Duane Morris LLP, Los Angeles — 865 S. Figueroa St., Suite 3100, Los Angeles, CA 90017 (https://www.duanemorris.com/attorneys/cyndiemchang.html).
• Filings by her in this docket: corporate disclosure statement/notice of interested parties identifying Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. as Grand Chip Labs' corporate parent (Dkt. 42); Answer to the First Amended Complaint with jury demand (Dkt. 44, 8/30/2024); and the unopposed motion for automatic stay under 28 U.S.C. § 1659(a) pending the ITC investigation (Dkt. 45), which the Court granted (Dkt. 59, 9/13/2024).
• Relevant experience: Managing partner of Duane Morris's Los Angeles office and a member of the firm's Partners Board; a complex-commercial and class-action trial lawyer (contracts, licensing, trademarks, trade secrets, products liability), with intellectual property litigation listed among her practice areas. She is a very heavy hitter on the regional litigation lists (Super Lawyers 2014–2026; LA Business Journal "Top 100 Lawyers," "Leaders of Influence — Top Litigators") but her published profile is not patent-first — worth noting, since the substantive defense here (ITC § 337 coordination, IPR strategy) appears to be run alongside the ITC/PTAB teams. Sources: https://www.duanemorris.com/attorneys/cyndiemchang.html; https://labusinessjournal.com/business-journal-events/top-100-lawyers-2026-cyndie-chang/; https://lawyers.justia.com/lawyer/cyndie-marie-chang-91234.

2. Christopher Kao — counsel for the added D-Link defendants (not the defendants named in the case metadata)

• Role: Appeared for D-Link Corporation and D-Link Systems, Inc., which were added as defendants by the First Amended Complaint (Dkt. 23, 7/17/2024) — they are not among the Kangxi/Grand Chip Labs parties in the case metadata. He was added to those parties on 9/4/2024 via the joint stipulation extending their response deadline (Dkt. 47).
• Firm/office: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, San Francisco (with a Taipei office); leader of Pillsbury's IP Litigation practice group and co-leader of its Taiwan practice. Source: https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/lawyers/christopher-kao.html.
• Relevant experience: First-chair patent/IPC trial lawyer; tried early work on NTP v. Research In Motion; extensive § 101 wins and PTAB/IPR and ITC experience; named to IAM Patent 1000 and the Daily Journal's California Top IP Lawyers (https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/daily-journal-christopher-kao-among-californias-top-ip-lawyers.html).
• Caveat: Public bios show Kao previously at Vinson & Elkins (Palo Alto office managing partner). The docket entry records only his name, so I could not confirm from the docket whether the 2024 appearance in this case was filed under Pillsbury or V&E letterhead.

3. Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. — no appearance located

• I could not find any appearance, answer, or motion on this docket filed by or on behalf of the Chinese parent, Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. The consolidated picture is that Grand Chip Labs (its U.S. subsidiary, per Dkt. 42) answered and moved the § 1659 stay, and the Court's OSC re lack of prosecution was discharged on the strength of that Answer (Dkt. 49, 9/5/2024). Because the two entities are parent/subsidiary, Duane Morris is plausibly functioning as group counsel, but I cannot confirm a formal appearance for Kangxi (Shanghai) — do not assume it.
• Kangxi's own public statements (Chinese-language announcements, reported by 爱集微/Laoyaoba and reproduced at https://www.laoyaoba.com/n/[903445](/patent/903445) and https://www.laoyaoba.com/n/[910795](/patent/910795)) say the company "has retained a professional legal team" for the ITC § 337 action, but no firm names are disclosed in those statements, and I found no source identifying the respondents' ITC counsel by name.
• Also unresolved: the parallel PTAB track. The record shows Kangxi/ КCT filed IPR petitions against the asserted Skyworks patents, including a petition against U.S. Pat. 7,409,200 filed April 22, 2025 (a copy of which, citing the Dkt. 59 stay order as EX-1018, is at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1557792). The petition document I retrieved shows only Skyworks' WilmerHale signature block; I could not extract the petitioner's counsel names — that would be the most reliable way to identify Kangxi's patent-defense team, and I'm flagging it as the next research step.

4. Other items I could not verify

• Docket No. 63 (filed 7/31/2025) is docketed only as "Notice of Appearance or Withdrawal of Counsel (G-123)." Aggregators truncate the text, so I cannot say who appeared or withdrew — this is the single most likely place a new/substituted defense attorney of record would show up after the stay.
• Ruijie Networks Co., Ltd. (added by the FAC) — no appearance found; the Court denied plaintiffs' ex parte application to serve Ruijie by email under Rule 4(f)(3) (Dkt. 53 filed, Dkt. 58 denied 9/11/2024).
• No in-house counsel for either defendant is identified on the docket.
• The sealed items in this docket (Dkt. 51, 52) are plaintiffs' service-related filings, not defense counsel material — nothing about defense counsel is sealed as far as the record shows.
• For context, plaintiffs are represented by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (James M. Dowd and Derek A. Gosma, Los Angeles; Joseph F. Haag, Palo Alto; Kate Saxton, Boston); George F. Manley withdrew as plaintiffs' counsel (Dkt. 37, 8/2/2024).

Caveat relating to the case metadata

The party/patent metadata supplied for this case lists only Kangxi (Shanghai) and Grand Chip Labs and identifies U.S. Pat. 8,717,101 as the patent at issue. The docket filings and the PTAB record indicate the opposite pairing: the '101 patent (with '563, '579, '194) was asserted in the companion case 8:24-cv-00974, while No. 8:24-cv-00976 concerned U.S. Pat. 7,409,200 — and the '200 patent was later dropped from the ITC investigation on Dec. 10, 2024. I¹m noting this because it affects how you read the counsel alignment: the same defense lawyers (Chang/Duane Morris for Grand Chip Labs) appear across both district cases, so their role is not patent-specific to the '101.