Sony Corporation v. Raytheon Company

I'll research this case carefully, since the metadata indicates this is a PTAB proceeding rather than a district court action — I need to verify the surrounding litigation context.

Now let me research the parallel district court litigation and its outcome.

Important framing note

The case metadata describes IPR2015-01201, which is an inter partes review before the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board — not a district court infringement action. So there is no "judge," no "division," and no "accused product" within this docket itself. The accused products, venue, and district judge come from the parallel E.D. Texas litigation that prompted the IPRs, which I've layered in below. I flag this because the two tracks are frequently conflated (some aggregators label the IPR "Plaintiff: Sony / Defendant: Raytheon," which is petitioner/patent-owner terminology, not plaintiff/defendant).

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Parties and roles. The petitioner in IPR2015-01201 was Sony Corporation (the Japanese parent), and the patent owner is Raytheon Company. This is a clash of large operating companies, not an NPE/PAE scenario: Raytheon is a legacy U.S. defense and aerospace prime contractor, and the '678 patent reached it through acquisition rather than through its own R&D — the application (Ser. No. 08/482,172, filed June 7, 1995, priority Jan. 19, 1993, issued Jan. 7, 1997) originally issued to Hughes Aircraft Company, was assigned to HE Holdings, Inc., and passed to Raytheon with its December

I'll research this case. Note upfront: the metadata identifies this as an IPR at the PTAB, not a district court action — so I'll need to check whether there was also a parallel district court litigation, and map the district-court-style timeline onto the actual IPR record.

Key finding already: this IPR was one front in a parallel district court campaign — Raytheon sued Sony, Samsung, Apple, and OmniVision in E.D. Tex. in March 2015. Let me research both tracks.

I'll research the counsel of record for Sony Corporation in this IPR proceeding.

Let me look for the counsel listings in the Board documents and related dockets.

I found the Federal Circuit docket entries for Sony's counsel on appeal. Let me dig deeper into the attorney names and the PTAB-level counsel of record.

Counsel of Record — Sony Corporation (Petitioner/Challenger)

Important framing note: This is not a district-court infringement action. IPR2015-01201 is an inter partes review before the PTAB in which Sony Corporation was the Petitioner (the party that filed the challenge) and Raytheon Company was the Patent Owner. Sony therefore occupies the "plaintiff-side"/challenger slot. Counsel of record appears on two levels — the PTAB trial itself and the ensuing Federal Circuit appeal (Raytheon Co. v. Sony Corp., Nos. 2017‑1554, ‑1556, ‑1557, which consolidated the appeals from IPR2015‑01201 and related Sony/Samsung IPRs against the '678 patent).

1. PTAB trial counsel (IPR2015‑01201)

I was unable to verify the PTAB-level counsel of record for Sony in this specific IPR from the sources retrieved. The Board's Final Written Decision (Paper 62, Nov. 30, 2016) carries a counsel caption, but the retrieved text did not include it, and I did not retrieve the mandatory notices (37 C.F.R. § 42.8) or the Petition's signature block. I will not guess at those names. To confirm them, the definitive sources are the Petition (Paper 2), the updated mandatory notices, and the counsel caption of the Final Written Decision, all available via Docket Alarm/PTAB (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-01201/).

2. Federal Circuit appellate counsel for Sony (Appellee) — verified

The Federal Circuit docket for 17‑1554 (dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/cafc/17-1554) records the following entries of appearance for Appellee Sony Corporation, filed Feb. 16–17, 2017:

• Firm/office: The docket text I retrieved does not state the firm or office location for these attorneys, so I cannot supply it without inventing it. (The entries were all filed through the same service contact, Matthew Smith, suggesting a single firm represented Sony on appeal.)
• Per the court's Feb. 17, 2017 Notice of Deficiency, the original combined appearance was ordered refiled individually for each attorney, which is why the corrected entries (25, 26) and separate entries (27, 28) appear.

Context — opposing/related counsel (not Sony's)

• Raytheon (Patent Owner) in the parallel Samsung IPR (IPR2016‑00739, same '678 patent): respondent counsel Thomas Filarski (per PTAB records). Raytheon's broader portfolio work has included Finnegan (e.g., Patrick J. Coyne), though I did not verify Filarski's or any firm's specific role in this IPR.
• Samsung (co-appellee on appeal): Heath J. Briggs entered as of counsel (Filing 17, 2/16/2017).
• In-house counsel: No Sony in-house attorney appears in the PTAB or Federal Circuit appearances I retrieved.

Caveats

• Party names, case number, judges (Kokoski, Chagnon, Abraham), patent ('678), and outcome (claims 1–18 unpatentable; affirmed in relevant part, 2018) are consistent across the Final Written Decision and the Federal Circuit opinion.
• The PTAB-level counsel of record for Sony and the firm/office affiliations of the appellate attorneys are the two data points I could not confirm; treat those as open items to be verified against the paper filings rather than as established facts.

I'll research Raytheon's counsel of record in this IPR (Raytheon = Patent Owner, occupying the "defendant" slot in this PTAB framing), plus any related district court track.

Now let me pin down Raytheon's IPR counsel specifically, and the firms/offices for the district court team.

Let me pin down Raytheon's PTAB counsel for this specific IPR and verify firm affiliations.

Bottom line up front

The task asks for "defendant" counsel, but this is a PTAB inter partes review, which has no plaintiff/defendant — only Petitioner (Sony) and Patent Owner (Raytheon). Applying the same mapping the earlier "plaintiff representatives" section used (Sony = challenger/"plaintiff" slot), the "defendant" slot here is Raytheon Company as Patent Owner. I therefore focused on Raytheon's PTAB counsel, and separately captured the Raytheon-side counsel in the parallel E.D. Tex. infringement suits, since that's the only true "defendant"-counsel data in the family of cases (and it's the opposite alignment).

Verification level matters here. I confirmed Raytheon's [Patent Owner] respondent counsel for the two sister ’678 IPRs, but I was unable to retrieve the counsel caption for IPR2015-01201 itself (the Board's FWD at Paper 62, and the patent owner's mandatory notices). I flag that rather than fill it in.

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1. Raytheon's PTAB counsel (Patent Owner) — the "defendant" slot in this IPR

How solid is this?

• Verified (sister proceedings): GreyB/Ipverse's PTAB case pages list "Respondent Counsel — Thomas Filarski" for both IPR2016-00209 (Sony v. Raytheon, same ’678 patent) and IPR2016-00739 (Samsung v. Raytheon, same ’678 patent). Sources: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2016-00209 and https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2016-00739
• Not directly verified for IPR2015-01201: Ipverse's IPR2015-01201 page has a "Counsels Involved" section, but the retrieved content did not expose its contents, and the docketalarm copy of the FWD (Paper 62) that I retrieved did not include the "For Petitioner / For Patent Owner" counsel block. Given Filarski's confirmed role across the two co-pending ’678 IPRs, he is very likely Raytheon's PTAB counsel here too — but treat that as inference.
• Definitive source to close the gap: the Petition/Preliminary Response signature blocks, Raytheon's mandatory notice (37 C.F.R. § 42.8) and power of attorney, and the caption page of Paper 62: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-01201/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._5591678/

Thomas J. Filarski — background (verified)

• Career/firms: UOP Inc. (chemical engineer, 1980–86) → Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione (1986–2011, chaired its Chemical Group) → Steptoe & Johnson LLP / Steptoe LLP (from 2011, Chicago IP department) → AddyHart (current). Sources: AddyHart bio (https://addyhart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Tom-Filarski-1.pdf); Brinks board/announcement items (lawfuel.com).
• Admissions: Illinois; N.D. Ill.; E.D. Wis.-none noted; U.S. Patent & Trademark Office; Federal Circuit; U.S. Supreme Court. Education: J.D. DePaul (1986), M.S. Chemical Engineering (Michigan Tech), B.A. Chemistry (Loyola Chicago).
• Notable patent litigation: ITC Section 337 enforcement win for ZF Friedrichshafen/ArvinMeritor (FreedomLine truck transmissions) as part of the Brinks trial team; Hatch-Waxman/ANDA pharmaceutical litigation in D. Del./D.N.J. and the Federal Circuit; a Federal Circuit reversal of a jury invalidity verdict in the Latisse® portfolio dispute; named in the inaugural IAM Patent Litigation 250 (2011) and IAM Patent 1000; former president of the Licensing Executives Society (USA & Canada); author of the "Patent Defenses" chapter in BNA's Patent Litigation Series Handbook.
• Caveat: the retrieved sources establish his Steptoe tenure but do not independently confirm that he filed in IPR2015-01201 in a Steptoe capacity. Also note his current firm (AddyHart) is different from the firm at the time of this 2015–16 proceeding — don't conflate the two.

Other Raytheon PTAB counsel: None verified for this IPR. For context only (and not this case), Raytheon Technologies later used Fish & Richardson (W. Karl Renner, David L. Holt, Gretchen DeVries) as lead/back-up in IPR2020-00405 — a different patent, different decade, different counsel team.

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2. Raytheon-side counsel in the parallel district court litigation (Raytheon was plaintiff there)

Raytheon asserted the same ’678 patent in E.D. Tex. in March 2015:

• Raytheon Co. v. Sony Kabushiki Kaisha et al., No. 2:15-cv-00342 (E.D. Tex., filed Mar. 6, 2015) — Judge Rodney Gilstrap, Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2015cv00342/[157969](/patent/157969)
• Raytheon Co. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., No. 2:15-cv-00341.

Source for the appearances: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2015cv00342/157969 (Filings 1, 5, 6) and https://unicourt.com/case/rc-db1-raytheon-company-v-samsung-electronics-co-ltd-et-al-[760856](/patent/760856) (attorney/firm list).

I could not verify firms/offices for Davis, Schlitter, Fahrenbach, or Stringfield and will not guess. The Firm/office data for the district court list is the biggest open item in this section.

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3. Cross-reference: the actual district-court defendants' counsel (Sony/Samsung/OmniVision side)

Because the caption flips sign between the IPR and the district court case, note for completeness that the district-court defendant-side attorney roster (from the UniCourt aggregation of 2:15-cv-00341/342) includes: Melissa Richards Smith (Marshall, Tex. local-counsel profile), Steven J. Routh / Sten Jensen / T. Vann Pearce, Jr. — Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (Washington, D.C.) for Samsung, Eric H. Findlay — Findlay Craft, P.C. (Tyler, Tex.) as local counsel, plus Ronald J. Pabis, Mark G. Davis, Richard A. Edlin, Minsoo Kim, Robert Louis Hails, Jr., T. Cy Walker, Zaed M. Billah, Deron R. Dacus, John Flock, James C. Yoon, Adeel Haroon, and John R. Hutchins. (Source: the PTAB/E.D. Tex. combined filing snippet and the UniCourt docket page.)

Contradiction/consistency flag worth raising: Robert Louis Hails, Jr. and T. Cy Walker appear on both (a) the E.D. Tex. defendant-side counsel list and (b) the earlier section's Federal Circuit Sony appellate-appearance list (17-1554, Feb. 2017). That is consistent — not contradictory — but it confirms the same firm represented Sony across the district court and appellate tracks, and it means these names should not be attributed to Raytheon.

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4. Explicit gaps / what remains unverified

1. Raytheon's counsel caption in IPR2015-01201 specifically — not retrieved. Filarski is the strong inference from the two sister ’678 IPRs; confirm via Paper 62's caption or Raytheon's § 42.8 mandatory notices on the docketalarm page.
2. Lead vs. back-up designation for Filarski in the PTAB proceeding — not stated in what I retrieved (ipverse labels him simply "Respondent Counsel").
3. Firms/offices for Davis, Schlitter, Fahrenbach, and Stringfield — unverified.
4. David Folsom's role, if any — unresolved; possibly a mediary or aggregation artifact.
5. In-house Raytheon counsel — none appeared in any retrieved source.
6. Whether any filing in the district court track was sealed — I did not encounter a sealing indication, but I could not review the full docket, so I can't rule it out.

Key primary sources to close these: PTAB docket for IPR2015-01201 (Petition Paper 2, Preliminary Response Paper 5, Paper 62 FWD caption); E.D. Tex.