Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. SAP America, Inc. et al.

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting.

Case Overview: Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. SAP America, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00021 (E.D. Tex.)

The parties. Valtrus Innovations Ltd. is a Dublin, Ireland–based non-practicing patent monetization entity (NPE/PAE) that makes and sells nothing: it is the "successor in interest to a substantial patent portfolio created by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its predecessor companies, including Compaq, Verity, and Hewlett-Packard Development Company," roughly 1,500 patents of which about half are U.S. patents, and it licenses through U.S. agent Patent Platform Services LLC ("PPS"). Co-plaintiff Key Patent Innovations Ltd. ("KPI") is Valtrus's sole parent and the beneficiary of a Declaration of Trust into which the asserted patents were placed; per SAP's motion to dismiss, the structure runs New PP Holdings LLC → New PP Licensing LLC → KPI (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 4 Ltd.) → Valtrus (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 9 Ltd.), with Valtrus characterized as an "uncapitalized shell." Defendants are SAP America, Inc. (SAP's U.S. subsidiary, with an office in Plano, Texas) and SAP SE (Walldorf, Germany) — the world's largest enterprise-application software vendor (ERP, SAP HANA, Business Technology Platform). Valtrus/KPI are represented by Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg with Miller Fair Henry as local counsel; SAP by Winston & Strawn, which added former USPTO Director Katherine Vidal to the team in January 2025. Valtrus has run the same HPE portfolio against AT&T (2:23-cv-00443, settled Aug. 2024), NTT Data (2:24-cv-00361), Starbucks, Google, and Lumen.

The accused technology. The complaint and Valtrus's March 11, 2024 infringement contentions are not public, and I could not verify from public sources a complete list of the accused SAP offerings in the '021 case. What is publicly sourced shows the theory targets SAP's enterprise data and messaging infrastructure rather than any one product: SAP's own declaratory-judgment complaint (see below) answers Valtrus's allegations by arguing that the SAP Integration Suite / Cloud Integration does not "store data and messages prior to transmission" as the '244 patent requires; that SAP's Sybase ASE database and its high-availability features (and SAP MaxDB/ASE replication, per SAP's invalidity contentions) are the prior-art backdrop; and later Valtrus suits accuse open-source-based functionality inside SAP offerings (Kubernetes, Kafka, Hadoop components — the basis of the '538 patent assertions flagged by Unified Patents and targeted by Starbucks's and Google's declaratory judgment actions). Valtrus pleads both direct (§ 271(a)) and indirect (§ 271(b)/(c)) infringement. Practically, the patents read on techniques that are pervasive in modern enterprise stacks — message store-and-forward with fault tolerance, context tagging in a protocol stack, event-driven "zero latency enterprise" data transformation, cache-coherent memory subsystems, and data replication/high availability.

The seven asserted patents (all HPE-origin, from the "HPE Patent Portfolio" per SAP's MTD; the four that survived to claim construction and expert discovery, per Dr. Farach-Colton's May 12, 2025 report, were the '244, '182, '575 and '738):

• U.S. 7,936,738 ("Storing context information in an outgoing message"; some filings label it "Fault tolerant systems," issued May 3, 2011) — inserting layer-specific "context information" into an outgoing protocol-stack message so that the response echoes it back, allowing a node to restore state after failover. Asserted claims 1, 3, 33.
• U.S. 6,889,244 — a method of transmitting messages between nodes coupled to a fault-tolerant storage system (FTSS): store the message in "highly reliable fault-tolerant storage media," process it at the FTSS under a messaging paradigm, then forward it. Asserted claim 1.
• U.S. 7,152,182 — enterprise storage/data-management and high-availability subject matter (claims 1–18 asserted in part); SAP's invalidity case runs on Sybase ASE, Margerie, Ruuth, HP ServiceGuard, Froemke and Ofek, while Valtrus defeated petitioner grounds by arguing HP-origin references (Lubbers, Sicola) are disqualified under pre-AIA § 103(c) common ownership.
• U.S. 7,313,575 — "zero latency enterprise" real-time data handling: a real-time information director (RTID) transforming data under "polymorphic metadata" defining security and data-integrity rules. Asserted claims 1, 31, 36.
• U.S. 6,823,409 — multiprocessor memory subsystem hardware: "coherency control module," "request module" and "static RAM interface module" claim elements (cache-coherent memory/interface control).
• U.S. 6,871,264 — a "high-speed interconnect coupling" limitation directed to processor/memory (or system) interconnect fabric.
• U.S. 6,691,139 — asserted as the Fifth Claim of the amended complaint and dismissed by joint stipulation in April 2025 before claim construction; I could not verify its title or technical subject matter from public sources, so I flag it as unverified rather than sketch it.

Procedural posture and why the venue matters. Filed January 15, 2024 in the Marshall Division, assigned to Chief Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap with Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne (docketed 2:24-cv-00021-JRG-RSP). Key events: SAP moved intra-district to transfer to the Sherman Division on March 20, 2024 (Dkt. 22), which Judge Gilstrap denied on December 13, 2024 (Dkt. 93), and the Federal Circuit denied SAP's mandamus petition on April 10, 2025 (In re SAP America, No. 2025-118, per curiam (Dyk, Prost, Chen)). SAP's motion to dismiss for lack of standing (Dkt. 54, July 18, 2024) partially succeeded: the court held Valtrus had Article III standing but did not hold "all substantial rights" under 35 U.S.C. § 281, and it allowed KPI to join via amended complaint (Dkt. 57, Nov. 2024); SAP's sealed motion for reconsideration (Dkt. 91) was fully briefed into January 2025. Valtrus's duplicate second suit on the same patents (2:24-cv-00533, filed July 12, 2024, and understood to be Valtrus's cure for the standing defect) was consolidated into the '021 lead case on February 24, 2025. On April 26, 2025 the parties stipulated to dismissal with prejudice of the '409, '139 and '264 claims, leaving four patents for trial; a Markman order issued as Dkt. 166; and on August 22, 2025 Judge Payne (Dkt. 295) denied SAP leave to add its own Sybase product as invalidating art while granting Valtrus leave to supplement its expert report because the court's construction of "highly reliable fault-tolerant storage media" was "unexpected." SAP filed a parallel IPR series on January 15, 2025 (IPR2025-00414 on the '182, IPR2025-00418, IPR2025-00419 on the '738, IPR2025-00420, among others), and terminated IPR2025-00419 on an unopposed motion in mid-2025; the Board authorized withdrawal on June 23, 2025. Venue matters here both for the usual reason (Judge Gilstrap's Marshall docket is fast and historically plaintiff-friendly) and because the Federal Circuit's refusal to disturb a nine-month-delayed intra-district transfer denial is a meaningful data point on § 1404(a) deference — SAP argued the case was "an inconvenient venue unconnected to any SAP product allegedly at issue," while its Plano office sits in the Sherman Division.

Why the case is notable. First, it is a template "privateering"/portfolio-monetization story: an operating company's (HPE's) patent portfolio sold to an Irish NPE that demands portfolio-wide licenses (Valtrus's 2022–2023 letters, presentations and an October 18, 2023 standstill preceded the suit), provoking unusual counter-moves — SAP's June 26, 2024 declaratory-judgment action in D. Del. (SAP America, Inc. v. Valtrus Innovations Ltd., 1:24-cv-00756-GBW) attacking the licensing conduct and seeking non-infringement declarations on several patents, plus a third E.D. Tex. suit (2:25-cv-00556-JRG) and later DJ actions by Starbucks and Google. Second, the § 281/Article III trust-structure fight — where the "patentee" holds bare title while a related trust beneficiary controls enforcement and alienation — is directly relevant to how NPEs structure ownership, and here it forced a mid-case joinder and consolidation. Third, the IPR linkage is dense (SAP's multi-petition challenge, the '738 IPR termination, § 325(d)/Fintiv-type discretionary-denial briefing premised on the standing defect) and the open-source angle (Unified Patents' PATROLL contests on the '538 patent, "Kubernetes" prior art) signals that the accused functionality is the commercial off-the-shelf middleware beneath SAP's products, giving the case FTO significance for any ERP, iPaaS, database, or observability vendor. Finally, the case settled: reporting indicates a SAP settlement in December 2025, with the resolution sourced to a joint motion to dismiss with prejudice in the related 2:25-cv-00556-JRG matter (PatSnap's PACER-based analysis quoting the dismissal order), leaving the patents enforceable against the market at large — though a dismissal order terminating the '021/'533 lead docket itself could not be confirmed from the sources I retrieved.

Sourcing caveats. Docket numbers, the transfer/mandamus rulings, the standing order, the consolidation date, the April 2025 stipulated dismissals, the August 2025 order, and the IPR filings/termination are grounded in court opinions and PTAB filings (links above: cafc.uscourts.gov 2025-118 order; Justia docs 166 and 295; IPR2025-00419 termination motion; Unified Patents' PATROLL page; RPX's copy of SAP's Delaware complaint). The exact accused-product mapping for this docket, the '139 patent's technical scope, whether the September 22, 2025 trial setting held, and the precise terms/terminal entry of the December 2025 settlement are not independently verified here — the settlement narrative comes from an AI-generated PatSnap summary and should be treated as provisional.

I'll research this case thoroughly using multiple targeted searches.

I have strong initial leads. Let me dig deeper into specific dockets, the standing decision, claim construction, and the IPRs.

Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. SAP America, Inc. — Litigation Development Timeline

Bottom line: This was a seven-patent, HPE-derived "enterprise software" assertion by Valtrus/KPI against SAP in Judge Gilstrap's Marshall Division. SAP lost two threshold venue/standing fights (intra‑district transfer, Fed. Cir. mandamus) and a Rule 12(b)(1) constitutional standing challenge, though the court did hold that Valtrus lacked statutory standing as "patentee" under 35 U.S.C. § 281 — a defect cured by joining parent Key Patent Innovations Ltd. ("KPI") as co-plaintiff. The case narrowed from seven to four patents by stipulation, reached claim construction and full expert discovery, and a September 22, 2025 trial setting, and then resolved by settlement (reported Dec. 2025 per case metadata) without any merits adjudication. SAP's six live IPR petitions were all denied institution under § 314(a) in July 2025, and its seventh (the '738 patent) was withdrawn and terminated.

Confidence note: Docket-level facts below are drawn from PACER/Justia/CourtListener and PTAB filings reproduced in the search results. I was not able to retrieve the final dismissal order for 2:24-cv-00021 itself; the settlement appears via case metadata and secondary reporting, so the operative closing entry is flagged as unverified.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

Answer / counterclaims: The docket shows SAP took two extensions to respond (to 2024‑03‑13, then further), and its principal responsive pleading in this window was the standing motion. I could not verify a separately docketed answer or counterclaims from the sources retrieved. Notably, SAP instead filed a declaratory judgment action for non-infringement in Delaware (see below), which suggests it pursued DJ relief there rather than by counterclaim in Marshall. Treat "answer/counterclaims in E.D. Tex." as unconfirmed.

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2. Related and parallel filings that shaped strategy

• 2024-06-26 — SAP's Delaware DJ action: SAP America, Inc. v. Valtrus Innovations Ltd. et al., No. 1:24-cv-00756-GBW (D. Del., Judge Gregory B. Williams), seeking declarations of non-infringement (of the '139 and '738 patents, among others). Valtrus moved to dismiss on first-to-file/personal-jurisdiction grounds (Dkt. 14, 32). It ultimately terminated by stipulation of dismissal ("SO ORDERED, re 70 Stipulation of Dismissal … ***Civil Case Terminated"), with no merits ruling. (PatSnap summary of PACER 1:24-cv-00756)
• 2024-07-12 — "Valtrus II": Valtrus Innovations Ltd. and Key Patent Innovations Ltd. v. SAP America, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00533-JRG (E.D. Tex.), filed by Valtrus and KPI together, then stayed. This was a direct strategic response to SAP's standing attack (see §3). (PTAB Ex. 1012/1013)
• Earlier co-pending case: Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. AT&T, No. 2:23-cv-00443-JRG (E.D. Tex.), asserted one of the same patents and became a contested factor in the transfer fight (it was closed with all defendants dismissed before SAP's transfer motion was decided).

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3. Pre-trial motions of substance

(a) Intra-district transfer — denied, then mandamus denied

• 2024-03-20: SAP moves under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) to transfer from Marshall to the Sherman Division (Dkt. 22), citing SAP America's Sherman offices, a Valtrus-licensing-agent witness there, and two Sherman SAP employees with "potentially relevant knowledge."
• 2024-12-13: Court denies transfer (Dkt. 93), holding SAP failed to show Sherman was "clearly more convenient." The court rejected the willing-witness argument (most witnesses outside Texas, many outside the U.S.; the Sherman declarant said Marshall was not inconvenient), found sources-of-proof and compulsory-process neutral, and weighed the AT&T case and "smoothly proceeding" congestion factors against transfer. (Dkt. 93, Justia)
• 2025-04-10: Federal Circuit denies SAP's mandamus petition: In re SAP America, Inc., SAP SE, No. 2025-118 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 10, 2025) (Dyk, Prost, Chen, per curiam). The panel agreed SAP had identified two district-court errors (reliance on the now-closed AT&T case, and misapplication of the court-congestion factor under In re TikTok/In re Adobe), but held SAP still failed the "clearly more convenient" showing. (VitalLaw; Fed. Cir. order) SAP's mandamus team was led by Katherine K. Vidal, former USPTO Director (Winston & Strawn).

(b) Motion to stay — denied as moot

• 2024 (~Dkt. 76): SAP moved to stay the case pending resolution of the transfer motion and the standing motion. The 2024-12-13 order denied it as moot once both were decided. No motion to stay pending IPR appears in the record I retrieved.

(c) Motion to dismiss for lack of standing — the pivotal ruling

• SAP argued (i) under Rule 12(b)(1) that Valtrus lacked Article III standing and held no exclusionary rights, and (ii) under Rule 12(b)(6) that Valtrus was not the "patentee" under 35 U.S.C. § 281. The premise: Valtrus had executed a Declaration of Trust placing the asserted patents in trust for the exclusive benefit of its parent KPI, which held the right of first refusal to enforce, directed any enforcement action, and whose approval was required for Valtrus's alienation/licensing acts. SAP characterized Valtrus as an "uncapitalized shell" holding title "in name only."
• Valtrus simultaneously moved for leave to amend to join KPI under Rule 20 (Dkt. 56).
• 2024-11-08: Court issues its Memorandum Opinion and Order (Dkt. 83, public version) granting-in-part and denying-in-part the MTD: it rejected the Article III challenge (Valtrus has constitutional standing) but held Valtrus lacks "all substantial rights" and therefore does not satisfy § 281 as patentee, applying Sicom v. Agilent and Lone Star. The court then granted Valtrus's motion for leave to amend to add KPI, whose joinder cures the § 281 defect. The court also invited the parties to address the co-pending Valtrus II case. (Order text reproduced at PTAB Ex. 1010/1011)
• 2024-11-15: Plaintiffs file Statement Regarding Valtrus II (Dkt. 85), urging consolidation rather than dismissal of Valtrus II. (Ex. 1013)
• Late 2024: SAP moves for reconsideration of the partial denial (sealed, Dkt. 91; redacted reply Dkt. 101 filed 2025-01-03; redacted version Dkt. 102 on 2025-01-10; Valtrus sur-reply Dkt. 104 on 2025-01-15). A sealed order signed 2024-12-26 (entered 2024-12-27) appears on the docket at this point; its content is not verified in the sources retrieved.
• 2025-02-24 (entered 2025-02-26): Consolidation Order (Dkt. 120) — Valtrus II (2:24-cv-00533) is consolidated for all pretrial purposes into 2:24-cv-00021 as the lead case.

(d) Discovery motion

• 2025-02-11: Valtrus files a sealed motion to compel SAP to answer Interrogatories Nos. 9–11 (Dkt. 115); SAP responds 2025-02-25 (Dkt. 119). Outcome not confirmed in retrieved sources.

(e) Summary judgment

• No summary judgment motions were identified in this case in the retrieved record. The case proceeded from claim construction to expert discovery and a trial setting without an SJ ruling.

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4. Claim construction (Markman)

• 2025-01-31: Plaintiffs' Opening Claim Construction Brief filed (Dkt. 110) (pursuant to the Second Amended Docket Control Order, Dkt. 109).
• 2025-02-14: Court sua sponte appoints Michael D. Paul as technical advisor (Dkt. 116); SAP files Responsive Claim Construction Brief (Dkt. 117).
• 2025-02-21: Plaintiffs' Reply claim construction brief (Dkt. 118).
• 2025-02-28: Joint Claim Construction Chart (Dkt. 123).
• Mid-2025: Claim Construction Memorandum Opinion and Order at Dkt. 166 (public; available via Justia), applying Phillips and Nautilus.

Terms in dispute (from the briefing):

• '738 patent: "context information" (claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 10, 33); "potentially inaccurate or incomplete" (claim 10).
• '244 patent: preamble "the first and second nodes are each coupled to a fault tolerant storage system (FTSS)" (prosecution-history disclaimer dispute over the Utter reference and Ethernet/Internet); "highly reliable fault-tolerant storage media" (indefiniteness); "accessing determining which nodes should receive the broadcast message…" (claim 10).
• '575 patent: "polymorphic metadata" (indefiniteness); "assembler"/"disassembler"; the RTID/assembler limitation of claim 28.
• '409 patent: "coherency control module," "request module," "static RAM interface module."
• '264 patent: "high-speed interconnect coupling."

Valtrus's overarching position was that SAP could not carry its clear-and-convincing indefiniteness burden and had failed to show a "clear and unmistakable" prosecution disclaimer. I could not verify the court's specific constructions or which indefiniteness challenges (if any) succeeded; SAP's contentions expressly reserved the right to amend based on the ruling.

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5. Discovery milestones with strategic significance

• 2024-03-11 — Valtrus infringement contentions (all 7 patents; literal + DOE).
• 2024-05-20 — SAP invalidity contentions (SAP noted Valtrus's Rule 3‑1 disclosures were "incomplete or deficient," foreshadowing the motion to compel).
• 2025-02-11 — Valtrus motion to compel SAP interrogatory responses (Nos. 9–11).
• 2025-04-10 — Valtrus claim narrowing: per the Amended Docket Control Order (Dkt. 65), Valtrus elects asserted claims. (PTAB Ex. 2014)
• 2025-04-20 — Third Amended Docket Control Order (Dkt. 141).
• 2025-04-24/26 — Joint Stipulation of Dismissal (Dkt. 142) dismissing the '409, '139, and '264 claims from the Amended Complaint (Dkt. 57) with prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii); the court accepted/acknowledged it and directed the case remain open as other claims remained. This was the single largest narrowing event, dropping the case to four patents ('738, '244, '182, '575). (Order text)
• 2025-04-30 — [Proposed] Fourth Amended Docket Control Order (Dkt. 147-1).
• 2025-05-01 — SAP prior-art narrowing, retaining e.g. ASE/Margerie/Ruuth/Froemke/ServiceGuard ('182); Ofek/Bowman/Fuchs/Garg/Sybase HA ('244); Suarez/Chau/IBM UDB/Oracle 9i ('575); Actaworks/Akita/Iyer/Java Messaging/Kaler/Vontela ('738) — and dropping numerous references. (PTAB Ex. 2012)
• 2025-05-12 — Opening Expert Report of Dr. Martin Farach-Colton (Valtrus) on the four surviving patents — U.S. 6,889,244; 7,152,182; 7,313,575; 7,936,738 — with asserted claims '244 cl. 1; '182 cl. 1, 6, 10, 16–18; '575 cl. 1, 31, 36; '738 cl. 1, 3, 33. This document was later used as an IPR exhibit. (Ex. 1130) SAP's invalidity expert was Dr. Nick Feamster (¶ on the '575 patent). SAP also submitted a Sotera stipulation to neutralize overlap between its IPRs and the district court invalidity case.

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6. Parallel PTAB proceedings (all seven patents)

SAP filed seven IPR petitions on 2025-01-15, one per asserted patent:

Key PTAB events:

• 2025-06-23: Board authorizes SAP to move to withdraw the '738 petition; SAP moves the same day to "dismiss this IPR petition and terminate IPR2025-00419 to preserve the Board's and parties' resources." SAP represented that "The parties have not reached a settlement agreement regarding this, or any other, patent," and that the proceeding was still pre‑institution. Valtrus did not oppose. 2025-07-01: IPR2025-00419 terminated (the ai‑lab.exparte database labels the status "Terminated‑Settled," but that label is inconsistent with SAP's express statement and with the motion's stated basis — treat "settled" as a database artifact). (Motion to withdraw)
• 2025-07-10: Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart issues a Decision Denying Institution in all six remaining IPRs under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a), granting Valtrus's discretionary-denial requests. Reasoning split into two groups:
  • '182, '575, '244 (still-live patents): the projected final written decision dates (Aug.–Sept. 2026) would post-date the September 22, 2025 district court trial, and the patents had been in force 17+ years, creating strong settled expectations.
  • '139, '409, '264 (dismissed patents): the patents had been dismissed from the district court with prejudice, making IPR an inefficient use of Board resources, and they had been in force ~20 years.
    (Decision, IPR2025-00418 Paper 10; consolidated version at bannerwitcoff.com)

Effect on the litigation: Net-zero. Every PTAB challenge failed to institute or was withdrawn, so there was no stay, no IPR estoppel, and no PTAB invalidity ruling to leverage — leaving the case to be decided (or settled) entirely in Marshall. Conversely, the Director's decision levered the imminent Sept. 22, 2025 trial against institution.

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7. Trial setting, settlement, and final disposition

• Trial setting: September 22, 2025, before Judge Gilstrap (as recited in the Director's July 10, 2025 decision, which noted time-to-trial statistics suggesting trial would begin between September and December 2025).
• No verdict is reported. No post-trial motions (JMOL, new trial, fees) were identified, and no fee motion appears — consistent with a pre-verdict resolution.
• Settlement: Per the case metadata, a SAP settlement was reported in December 2025. Law360's IP and Technology dockets show activity dated December 9–10, 2025, consistent with that reporting. The available secondary record reflects a Joint Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice in which the parties "have agreed to settle, adjust and compromise all claims," with the court ordering dismissal with prejudice, each party bearing its own costs/fees, and all pending relief denied as moot. (PatSnap litigation note quoting the dismissal order) Caveat: that quoted order is attributed by the source to case 2:25-cv-00556, not 2:24-cv-00021, and the patent list attributed to it does not match this case's patents — so I cannot confirm the verbatim text or docket number of the 2:24-cv-00021 closing entry. What is confirmable is the case metadata's "settlement reported" status as of December 2025.
• Parallel Delaware DJ action (1:24-cv-00756-GBW) was also closed by stipulation of dismissal with no merits ruling.
• No appeal of any substantive ruling is reported; SAP's only appellate activity was the denied mandamus petition.

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8. Present posture and practical significance

• Status: Closed by settlement/dismissal (reported Dec. 2025); no merits adjudication of infringement or validity as to the four surviving patents.
• What SAP won: dismissal of three patents with prejudice ('409, '139, '264) and the Fed. Cir. mandamus denial aside, it avoided any adverse validity or infringement judgment — but it lost the venue fight, lost the constitutional standing challenge, and failed to get a single IPR instituted.
• What Valtrus/KPI won: survival of the assertion in its chosen Marshall venue, preservation of the four remaining patents ('738, '244, '182, '575), a favorable "no institution" outcome at the PTAB, and a with-prejudice dismissal that forecloses re-assertion of these claims against SAP on this accused conduct — while leaving the patents enforceable against the rest of the market.
• Legal effect of the dismissal: A stipulated dismissal with prejudice is not a judgment of invalidity or non-infringement and creates no issue preclusion or estoppel binding third parties; Valtrus retains full enforcement rights against other enterprise-software vendors.

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Items I could not verify (flagged, not asserted)

1. The docketed answer and any counterclaims by SAP in 2:24-cv-00021.
2. The substance and date of the sealed Dec. 26, 2024 order and the resolution of SAP's motion for reconsideration (Dkt. 91).
3. The outcome of Valtrus's motion to compel (Dkt. 115).
4. The specific claim constructions and indefiniteness holdings in the Dkt. 166 Markman opinion.
5. The exact closing docket entry and date in 2:24-cv-00021; the December 2025 settlement is asserted from case metadata and secondary reporting rather than a retrieved PACER entry.
6. The financial terms of the settlement — not publicly disclosed in any source retrieved.

Counsel of record: For Valtrus/KPI — Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP (Matthew Berkowitz, Navid C. Bayar, Brian C. Baran, Aaron Morris, Philip Eklem, Patrick R. Colsher, Khue V. Hoang), with local counsel Claire Abernathy Henry and Scott Lamar Cole. For SAP — Winston & Strawn LLP (Katherine K. Vidal, Michael A. Bittner, M. Brett Johnson, Thomas M. Melsheimer, Thanh Dinh Nguyen, Sean H. Suber, Samuel W. Riebe, Scott Border, Louis L. Campbell).

I'll research the counsel of record for Valtrus Innovations Ltd. in this case.

Let me gather additional detail on the individual attorneys and confirm current appearances.

Let me verify a few individual attorney details and the local-counsel designation.

Counsel of Record — Plaintiff Valtrus Innovations Ltd. (No. 2:24-cv-00021-JRG)

Sourcing note: The attorney list below is drawn from the E.D. Tex. docket sheet for 2:24-cv-00021 (as captured in third-party docket renditions retrieved 12/04/2025 and on the Justia/Docket Alarm RECAP pages), the individual appearance entries (Dkts. 5, 9–15, 19–20), the complaint signature block on the 01/15/2024 filing (signed by Claire Henry), and the Federal Circuit's 04/10/2025 order in In re SAP America, Inc., No. 25-118 (mandamus). One caveat up front: the docket renderings available publicly appear to merge 2:24-cv-00021 with its companion/related case 2:25-cv-00556 (a later Valtrus/KPI v. SAP suit) and a couple of other JRG matters, so a small number of the names at the bottom of that list may have appeared only in the related matter. I flag those where relevant. The core team below is confirmed in the '021 docket itself.

Lead counsel — Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP (RJLF)

RJLF — other attorneys of record (all "Attorney to be Noticed" unless noted)

Local counsel — Miller Fair Henry PLLC, Longview, TX (formerly Ward, Smith & Hill, PLLC)

Note: the earlier papers (including the LPR 3-1/3-2 notice) designate Fair and Henry as "Of Counsel" to Ward, Smith & Hill, PLLC; that firm was renamed Miller Fair Henry PLLC effective 2024/2025, and the later docket entries reflect the new name.

Not found / caveats

• No in-house counsel for Valtrus or its affiliate Key Patent Innovations Limited appears on the docket; Valtrus is a non-practicing-entity style plaintiff (Rule 7.1 disclosure, Dkt. 3, identifies Key Patent Innovations Limited as its affiliate), and its litigation is handled entirely by outside counsel.
• Because the public docket renditions I could reach aggregate the companion case 2:25-cv-00556, some of the more junior names (Gordon, Estremera, and possibly Garrett C. Parish of Miller Fair Henry) may be of record only in the related action. I could not verify each against a numbered appearance entry in '021 itself.
• The case has since been reported settled (per the prior summary), so no new appearances should be expected; if any post-settlement papers were filed under seal, those are not reflected here.
• One rendering artifact to be aware of: "Patrick R. Colsher" is sometimes mis-OCR'd as "Colbert," and "Khue V. Hoang" as "Khuu Van Hoang." The Federal Circuit order (No. 25-118, Apr. 10, 2025) confirms the correct forms as Patrick Robert Colsher and Khue V. Hoang.

Single best source for verification: the E.D. Tex. docket sheet, Civil Docket for Case # 2:24-cv-00021-JRG (attorney listing), plus Federal Circuit order 25-118 (Apr. 10, 2025), https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-118.ORDER.4-10-2025_2496431.pdf.

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

I have the core defendant-side firm (Winston & Strawn). Let me pin down the full appearance list, including local counsel.

Let me pull the full docket attorney list and verify a notable 2026 development involving the defense team.

Counsel of Record for Defendants SAP America, Inc. and SAP SE

Bottom line: Every defendant-side appearance in this docket (2:24-cv-00021-JRG) is from a single firm — Winston & Strawn LLP — acting for both SAP America, Inc. and SAP SE. I found no separate local-counsel firm, no in-house appearance, and no second defense firm on the docket sheet or in the Federal Circuit filings. The Winston team staffed the defense out of its Dallas office (with Houston, Redwood City, Chicago, and Washington, DC support), so the firm's own Texas offices satisfied the local-anchor function rather than an outside E.D. Tex. firm.

District court counsel of record (Defendants)

Docket sheet for 2:24-cv-00021-JRG (retrieved 12/04/2025, reproduced as an exhibit in the parallel IPRs) lists the following as "ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED" for SAP America, Inc. / SAP SE:

Additionally, a Winston & Strawn Houston address (800 Capitol St., Suite 2400) appears in the docket attorney block; the name associated with that entry was not fully legible in the excerpt I retrieved.

Same team on the PTAB side (not district court counsel of record, but the same defense group)

The seven parallel IPRs SAP filed against the Valtrus patents (IPR2025-00414 through -00420) are handled by Winston & Strawn, with overlap in personnel:

• Louis L. Campbell (USPTO Reg. 59,963) — Lead Counsel, Winston & Strawn, Redwood City, CA.
• Scott M. Border — Washington, DC; Samuel W. Riebe and Michael Bittner — Dallas; Matt R. McCullough — Redwood City; William Logan — Houston; Patrick Clark — Dallas.

Important caveats

1. No in-house counsel appeared. I found no SAP legal-department attorney on any district court or PTAB filing in this matter.
2. No outside Texas local counsel. Unlike the plaintiff side (which paired Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg with Ward, Smith & Hill / Miller Fair Henry of Longview, TX), SAP relied solely on Winston & Strawn's Texas offices. I could not retrieve the post-December-2025 docket entries, so I cannot confirm whether any Winston attorney formally moved to withdraw after the settlement was reported.
3. Unverified item: A web result dated February 3, 2026 (a King & Spalding attorney biography for Michael A. Bittner, plus a firm press release describing a nine-partner litigation group joining King & Spalding) indicates that Melsheimer, Bittner and other Winston Dallas partners moved to King & Spalding. I was unable to obtain a second confirming source before my search budget ran out, so treat that move as unconfirmed — and note that any such lateral move would not retroactively change who was counsel of record during the litigation.
4. Related proceedings where the same Winston team represents SAP: Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. SAP America, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00533-JRG (E.D. Tex., consolidated with this case by order dated Feb. 24, 2025) and SAP America, Inc. v. Valtrus Innovations Ltd., No. 1:24-cv-00756-GBW (D. Del. declaratory judgment action).

Sources: E.D. Tex. docket sheet, Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. SAP America, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00021-JRG (retrieved Dec. 4, 2025; reproduced as an exhibit in SAP's IPR filings); In re SAP America, Inc., SAP SE, No. 2025-118 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 10, 2025) (per curiam), https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/25-118.ORDER.4-10-2025_2496431.pdf; Dkt. 54 (motion to dismiss for lack of standing, July 18, 2024); Dkt. 93 (venue/transfer opinion, Dec. 13, 2024); IPR2025-00418 Petition and Petitioner's Power of Attorney (Jan. 13, 2025); Winston & Strawn attorney profiles; Justia docket entries 19–20 (Mar. 12, 2024).