Unified Patents PTAB Data v. Headwater Research LLC

This Inter Partes Review (IPR) case, IPR2024-01397, involves Unified Patents PTAB Data challenging US Patent No. 9,647,918, owned by Headwater Research LLC. Unified Patents PTAB Data is a membership-based organization focused on deterring Non-Practicing Entities (NPEs) by challenging the validity of patents they assert, particularly in specific technology sectors, through administrative proceedings like IPRs. Headwater Research LLC, on the other hand, is a self-identified NPE that develops technological breakthroughs and licenses its extensive patent portfolio, primarily in mobile device and wireless connectivity technologies. Headwater Research has a history of aggressive patent assertion campaigns, securing substantial jury verdicts against companies like Samsung ($278 million) and Verizon ($175 million), and settling cases with others like Apple.

The patent at issue, US9647918, is titled "Mobile device and method attributing media services network usage to requesting application." It broadly covers technologies for managing and attributing network usage by various applications on mobile devices, potentially encompassing aspects of traffic and flow control, and quality of service within data networks. While there is no "accused product" in an IPR in the same sense as an infringement lawsuit, Unified Patents' challenge aimed to invalidate this patent, which is part of Headwater Research's broader portfolio relating to mobile operating systems, cloud technology, and mobile data policy management that has been asserted against numerous companies.

The case's procedural posture is notable as it was handled by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and ultimately resulted in a "Not Instituted - Procedural" decision. This means the PTAB declined to initiate a full review of the patent's validity, likely due to procedural grounds rather than a substantive evaluation of the invalidity arguments presented. This outcome aligns with recent trends at the PTAB, where institution rates against NPEs have been comparatively low (24.6% in Q1 2026), and a surge in discretionary denials has been observed. The PTAB venue is significant because it offers a potentially faster and more cost-effective alternative to district court litigation for challenging patent validity. The case is notable for reflecting Unified Patents' ongoing strategy of combating NPE assertions through IPRs and highlights the increasing difficulty petitioners face in getting IPRs instituted, particularly with recent policy changes from the USPTO Director that have limited IPR availability and often result in summary notices for institution decisions.

This Inter Partes Review (IPR) case, IPR2024-01397, involves Unified Patents PTAB Data as the Petitioner and Headwater Research LLC as the Patent Owner, challenging U.S. Patent No. 9,647,918. The case concluded with a "Not Instituted - Procedural" status.

Key Legal Developments and Outcome:

• Filing & Institution Decision:

  • While the specific filing date for the IPR petition by Unified Patents PTAB Data for IPR2024-01397 is not readily available through public search, an "Institution Decision" for IPR2024-01397 concerning US9647918 was issued on April 1, 2025. Consistent with the "Not Instituted - Procedural" status, this decision was a denial of institution.
  • The procedural denial of institution for IPRs involving Headwater Research LLC patents, particularly by Director Review, has frequently stemmed from the application of the Fintiv factors, which consider the status of parallel district court litigation.

• Parallel PTAB IPR Proceedings (Context for Procedural Denials):

  • Headwater Research LLC has faced multiple IPR challenges to its patents, particularly from [Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%20Ltd.)
  • For instance, in IPR2024-01396 (also challenging US9647918) and IPR2024-01407 (challenging US9,179,359 B2), both filed by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. against Headwater Research LLC, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) initially granted institution.
  • However, on July 17, 2025, the Director of the USPTO exercised Director Review, vacated the initial institution decisions, and denied institution for both IPR2024-01396 and IPR2024-01407.
  • The basis for these denials was procedural, specifically invoking the Fintiv factors. The Director found that the proximity of the trial dates in parallel district court proceedings (involving the same patents) to the projected deadline for the PTAB's final written decisions weighed against institution, thus prioritizing the district court's ability to resolve validity issues first. This provides a strong indication of the likely procedural reason for the non-institution of IPR2024-01397.

• Related District Court Litigation (Underlying Context for IPR Denials):

  • Headwater Research LLC has been actively involved in patent infringement litigation in district courts, which significantly influenced the PTAB's discretionary institution decisions.
  • Headwater Research LLC filed patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung Electronics in the Eastern District of Texas, including case 2:23-cv-00103 (filed March 2023) and 2:23-cv-00641 (filed December 29, 2023).
  • In a significant development, a federal jury in the Eastern District of Texas, in the case Headwater Research LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (2:23-cv-00103), found Samsung had infringed U.S. Patent Nos. 8,406,733 and 9,198,117, awarding Headwater $278.8 million in damages in April 2025.
  • Another jury verdict in July 2025 saw Headwater Research LLC awarded $175 million against Verizon Communications for patent infringement.
  • In September 2025, Samsung Electronics and Headwater Research LLC reached a confidential settlement, leading to the dismissal with prejudice of case 2:23-cv-00641 in the Eastern District of Texas on September 30, 2025.

Final Disposition:

IPR2024-01397 was "Not Instituted - Procedural," meaning the PTAB declined to proceed with a full review of the patentability of US9647918. This decision, issued on April 1, 2025, was likely a discretionary denial based on the Fintiv factors, mirroring similar outcomes in other IPRs against Headwater Research LLC where ongoing district court litigation with proximate trial dates weighed heavily against institution.

I'll search for press coverage across multiple angles — the IPR itself, the patent number, and the related district court litigation.

Significant discrepancy emerging — let me verify the petitioner identity and hunt for IPR-specific coverage.

I ran searches on the case caption, the petitioner/patent owner names, the asserted patent numbers, and the verdicts/settlements. Here is what the press actually covered.

Press and analyst coverage

The IPR itself drew essentially no press. Across searches on the caption ("Unified Patents" / "Headwater"), the proceeding number, and the patent number, I found no trade-press or mainstream article devoted to IPR2024-01397. What exists is primary-source docket material: the Board's own Decision Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review (Paper dated April 1, 2025, panel of APJs Baer, Howard, and Belisle), retrievable via the USPTO PTACTS system, and docket aggregator entries at ipverse/GreyB. That denial was not a Fintiv ruling. It was a discretionary denial for multiple petitions against the same patent under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a): Samsung filed both IPR2024-01396 and -01397 against the '918 patent, ranked '396 higher, and Headwater stipulated it would not press a priority claim that would knock out a reference in '396 — eliminating the priority-date dispute Samsung had cited to justify a second petition. I want to flag two contradictions with the metadata and with the earlier-generated sections, because both are load-bearing. First, the petitioner of record was Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., not "Unified Patents PTAB Data" — the petition, exhibits (SAMSUNG-1001 et seq.), and the Board's caption all say so, and the petitioner-side counsel listed on the decision are W. Karl Renner, Jeremy Monaldo, and Jennifer Huang of Fish & Richardson (fr.com addresses). The case-metadata caption appears to be a database label artifact; I found no Unified Patents filing against Headwater concerning the '918 patent. Second, the earlier "Key legal developments" section speculated that IPR2024-01397 was "likely a discretionary denial based on the Fintiv factors" — that is wrong for this proceeding, and the Petitioner representatives section (Erise IP / Unified Patents in-house) does not match the record either. Headwater's counsel of record on the '918 IPRs were Russ August & Kabat attorneys (Reza Mirzaie, Dale Chang, Amy Hayden, James Milkey, Neil Rubin, Philip Wang — raklaw.com), consistent with the earlier Defendant representatives section.

The coverage that exists clusters on the parallel district court litigation. Reuters (Blake Brittain) reported on 2025-04-28 that a Marshall, Texas jury found Samsung Electronics owes an inventor's company "more than $278.7 million" for infringing two wireless-communications patents. Headwater's local counsel Miller Fair Henry posted a 2025-06-20 release putting the figure at $278.8 million, naming U.S. Patent Nos. 8,406,733 and 9,198,117, Judge Rodney Gilstrap, and case No. 2:23-cv-00103, and stating that the jury rejected Samsung's invalidity challenges on all six asserted claims — with lead counsel from Russ August & Kabat (Marc Fenster, Reza Mirzaie, Brian Ledahl) and Andrea Fair as local counsel. Legalera Online framed the two wins together on 2025-07-24 under the headline "Headwater Scores Back-to-Back Wins Against Verizon and Samsung," reporting the $175 million Verizon Wireless verdict of July 23, 2025 in the same Marshall court and describing the Samsung case as involving Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Law.com's Texas Lawyer (Laura Lorek, 2025-04-30) carried a shorter verdict item.

Law360 has been the most consistent PTAB-side chronicler. Law360 (Adam Lidgett, 2025-07-24) reported that the PTAB invalidated claims in one of the two Headwater patents underlying the ~$279 million Samsung verdict, finding them obvious. Law360 (Lidgett and Rae Ann Varona, 2025-07-23) reported the Verizon $175 million verdict. Later, Law360 (Lidgett, 2026-04-23) reported that a Texas federal judge ruled Headwater cannot enforce a pair of patents against Verizon, "less than a year after a jury hit the telecommunications giant with a $175 million infringement verdict" — a ruling grounded in implied waiver, and corroborated by the court's opinion in Headwater Research v. Cellco Partnership (E.D. Tex.), which found Headwater investigated Verizon's infringement in 2017 but waited until July 2023 to sue, maximizing the § 286 damages window. On the settlement side, JD Journal reported that Verizon quietly settled after the $175 million verdict under a confidential filing, with no public statements from either side, and noted Headwater had "also settled comparable claims with AT&T and T-Mobile."

Where reporting goes beyond the court record. Miller Fair Henry's release is advocacy-adjacent — it quotes Andrea Fair saying the "unanimous verdict reinforces the strength of Headwater's technology" — and the same firm's June 20, 2025 item is the source for several downstream recitations. JD Journal goes furthest, editorializing about Marshall, Texas as a venue that "continues to influence outcomes for high-value disputes" and predicting an industry "shift toward settling patent disputes pre-trial," which is analysis rather than reported fact. The International Bar Association published a substantive legal analysis (authored commentary, not news) on the standing defense Samsung raised — Dr. Greg Raleigh's Qualcomm assignment agreement and its rebuttable one-year post-employment presumption under California Labor Code § 2870 and Business & Professions Code § 16600 — which the earlier sections of this case study do not mention and which is the reason the $278.8M award survived Samsung's ownership challenge. Separately, a Korean-language KIPO report states Headwater sued Apple, Amazon, Google, Comcast, Charter, and Dish in the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas and that the PTAB had invalidated claims of one of the two patents from the Samsung verdict (citing IPR2024-00341). I could not independently confirm the Apple/Amazon/Google filing details through a US outlet within this search, so treat that item as single-sourced. Finally, no outlet I found reported the IPR2024-01397 denial as an event, and no outlet reported the USPTO Director Review activity the earlier section describes for IPR2024-01396/-01407; that material comes only from PTAB filing notices, not from press coverage.

Sources

• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• US-9647918-B2 - Mobile Device and Method Attributing Media Services Network Usage to Requesting Application - US-9647918-B2 - Mobile Device and Method Attributing Media Services Network Usage to Requesting ApplicationReport ErrorAsk Patty...
• ...

  LOC283440

  NR_033958

  12

  Non-coding

  chr12:2771669 minus strand

  1884955

• [IPR2024-01397, No. 1037 Exhibit - US Application No 12695,980 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 9, 2024) - `11/14/2012](https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-01397/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd/09-09-2024-Petitioner/Exhibit-1037-US_Application_No_12695,980/#q=patent%3A%289647918%29#4)
• WO-2011149532-A1 - Device- Assisted Services for Protecting Network Capacity - US-11968234-B2
• US-20050238046-A1 - User Based Communication Mode Selection on a Device Capable of Carrying Out Network Communications. - US-9647918-B2
• - 서명자들은 특허 가치에 기반한 수수료가 지식재산권 보유자들에게 과도한 재정적 부담을 안기고, 미국의 글로벌 혁신 경쟁력을 약화시킬 것이라고 주장함
• US Patent 9647918 Mobile device and method attributing media services network usage to requesting application
• D. Ground 4: Claims 15 and 18 are Obvious over Cromer in view of Ganu and Sinivaara and further in view of Judd
• IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS MARSHALL DIVISION
• Samsung owes $279 million in wireless patent case, US jury says | Business Information & News | Westlaw
• which Headwater did not dispute were technically comparable to the asserted patents

Unified Patents PTAB Data is represented by both external counsel from Erise IP, P.A. and in-house counsel from Unified Patents, LLC in their inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. While the specific Power of Attorney document found was for IPR2021-01260, these individuals are frequently listed as counsel for Unified Patents in their IPR challenges, suggesting a consistent legal team for such proceedings.

The counsel of record for Unified Patents PTAB Data are:

• Jason R. Mudd

  • Role: Lead Counsel
  • Firm: Erise IP, P.A.
  • Office Location: Overland Park, Kansas (and possibly Greenwood Village, Colorado, as both addresses are listed for Erise IP, P.A. on the Power of Attorney)
  • Experience Note: Jason R. Mudd is a registered patent attorney often appearing as lead counsel for petitioners in inter partes review proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

• Kelly R. Hughes

  • Role: Back-Up Counsel, Senior Patent Counsel
  • Firm: Erise IP, P.A. (and in-house for Unified Patents, LLC)
  • Office Location: Greenwood Village, Colorado (for Erise IP, P.A.)
  • Experience Note: Kelly R. Hughes is a registered patent attorney involved in PTAB proceedings, serving both as outside counsel and in an in-house capacity for Unified Patents.

• Eric A. Buresh

  • Role: Back-Up Counsel
  • Firm: Erise IP, P.A.
  • Office Location: Overland Park, Kansas
  • Experience Note: Eric A. Buresh is a registered patent attorney representing petitioners in IPRs.

• Roshan Mansinghani

  • Role: Back-Up Counsel, Head of Operations
  • Firm: Unified Patents, LLC (in-house)
  • Office Location: Dallas, Texas
  • Experience Note: Roshan Mansinghani serves as in-house counsel and Head of Operations for Unified Patents, actively involved in their patent challenges.

• Jordan M. Rossen

  • Role: Back-Up Counsel, Senior Patent Counsel
  • Firm: Unified Patents, LLC (in-house)
  • Office Location: Washington, D.C.
  • Experience Note: Jordan M. Rossen is a Senior Patent Counsel at Unified Patents, contributing to their IPR strategies and filings.

I'll research counsel of record for the patent owner (Headwater Research LLC) in IPR2024-01397, cross-checking against the PTAB docket and Headwater's district court litigation teams.

Let me pull the actual Patent Owner Power of Attorney for IPR2024-01397 and the order on withdrawal of counsel.

Let me confirm the post-withdrawal counsel roster and the district court defendant-side representation.

Counsel of record — the "defendant" side in IPR2024-01397

Threshold framing (flagging a metadata problem). This proceeding is an IPR, not an infringement action, and the case-metadata caption is unreliable on both sides. As the earlier "In the news" section already showed, the Petitioner of record is Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Fish & Richardson), not "Unified Patents PTAB Data," and the party adverse to the petitioner — the Patent Owner, which is the "defendant" slot in the metadata — is Headwater Research LLC. So the correct answer to "who represents the defendant" is: Headwater's PTAB team from Russ August & Kabat. I've also flagged below what changes if the question is instead aimed at the true infringement defendant (Samsung) in the parallel E.D. Tex. case.

Patent Owner (Headwater Research LLC) — counsel of record, IPR2024-01397

Source: Patent Owner's Power of Attorney (filed Sept. 18, 2024, signed Sept. 17, 2024 by Jonathan Kagan, Member, Headwater Research LLC) and Patent Owner's Mandatory Notices (Sept. 18, 2024), both in IPR2024-01397; roster confirmed on the GreyB/IPVerse docket ("Respondent Counsel: Mirzaie, Reza et al"). All attorneys are at Russ August & Kabat, 12424 Wilshire Blvd., 12th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90025 (an LA-based IP/litigation boutique that is Headwater's primary patent-enforcement firm).

Key procedural fact — one counsel withdrew mid-case

On Feb. 14, 2025, Amy Hayden emailed the Board (Ex. 3100) stating "I am going to be leaving my firm, and the remainder of the counsel for my firm, including Lead Counsel, will be remaining on as counsel for Patent Owner," listing this and seven other Headwater IPRs (IPR2024-00010, -01051, -01337, -01396, -01397, -01407, IPR2025-00426, -00486). The Board granted the withdrawal on Mar. 10, 2025 (Paper 11), and Headwater filed Updated Mandatory Notices on Mar. 27, 2025 reflecting the change. So for the operative period (preliminary response through the Apr. 1, 2025 denial), the practicing roster was Mirzaie (lead) + Fenster, Chang, Milkey, Rubin, Wang — Hayden should not be listed as current counsel of record. I could not open the Mar. 27 "Updated Mandatory Notices" text itself within my search budget, so the precise post-withdrawal list is inferred from the Feb. 14 email plus the withdrawal order; treat that inference as high-but-not-certain.

Local / district-court counsel (context; not the PTAB record)

In the parallel E.D. Tex. litigation where Headwater is the plaintiff, its local counsel has been Andrea Leigh Fair (Miller Fair Henry, Marshall/Tyler, TX), who appeared July 17, 2024 (Dkt. 66 in 2:23-cv-00641). Robert Christopher Bunt / Parker Bunt & Ainsworth previously served as local counsel and withdrew (unopposed motion granted July 19, 2024, Dkt. 67). This matters only because "counsel of record" differs by forum — the PTAB Power of Attorney governs here.

If the question actually targets the infringement defendant (Samsung)

The metadata's "defendant" label points at Headwater, but in the real § 271 suit Headwater sues and Samsung is the defendant. Samsung's counsel I could verify is its PTAB team — W. Karl Renner, Jeremy Monaldo, Jennifer Huang, and Ryan Chowdhury of Fish & Richardson P.C. (Minneapolis, MN) — who appear as "For PETITIONER" on the IPR orders and signed the § 314 stipulation letters. I did not independently verify Samsung's district-court trial counsel (lead/local) within this search, so I won't name them.

What I could not confirm

• The exact text of the Mar. 27, 2025 Updated Mandatory Notices (post-withdrawal roster) — inferred, not directly read.
• Any lead/back-up changes after Apr. 1, 2025 — the proceeding was denied institution and terminated, so none are expected.
• Samsung's E.D. Tex. district-court counsel — not verified here.
• Whether any of these attorneys are admitted pro hac vice in IPR2024-01397 specifically (Fenster's PoA says "pro hac vice forthcoming"); that is a routine PTAB formality, not a separate appearance.

Everything named above is drawn from PTAB primary-source filings (Power of Attorney, Mandatory Notices, withdrawal order, Ex. 3100) surfaced via PTACTS/docket aggregators, not from attorney guesswork.