VideoLabs, Inc. v. TCL Technology Group Corporation et al.

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting the overview. Let me start with parallel searches on the case itself and its key parties.

Let me dig deeper into VideoLabs' background, the IPR proceedings, and the case's resolution.

Case Overview and Background — VideoLabs, Inc. v. TCL Technology Group Corp., No. 2:25-cv-00161-JRG-RSP (E.D. Tex.)

The parties. VideoLabs, Inc. is a Palo Alto–based patent licensing platform (2100 Geng Road, Suite 210) that both RPX Insight and Unified Patents classify as an NPE/PAE, though VideoLabs markets itself as a "collaborative" alternative to traditional assertion. Per the complaint, the company launched its platform in 2019 with backing from "widely recognized industry leaders," assembled a portfolio of video-technology patents acquired from operating companies — Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, Swisscom, 3Com, Panasonic, LG and Nokia (Compl. ¶6) — and offers access through low-cost membership/licensing fees. It is run by Chairman/CEO Joe Chernesky; on February 25, 2025 — roughly two weeks after this suit was filed — VideoLabs announced the appointment of Eric Lucas (formerly VP of Licensing at Netlist and SVP at Acacia Research) as President, signaling an escalation of its monetization program. On the other side, the complaint names thirteen TCL entities spanning the group's corporate, Hong Kong, Mexican maquila (TCL Moka Manufacturing S.A. de C.V.; Manufacturas Avanzadas S.A. de C.V.), Vietnamese and Huizhou manufacturing arms — a naming strategy that reaches the full manufacturing-and-sales chain of one of the world's largest television manufacturers. Note a record inconsistency: the complaint caption and the Justia docket include TCL King Electrical Appliances (Huizhou) Co. Ltd. as a defendant, while the case metadata's defendant list omits it.

The accused technology. The complaint accuses a strikingly broad range of TCL consumer electronics — smart TVs, projectors, mobile phones and tablets (expressly including the TCL NXTPAPER 14 tablet and TCL TAB 10s), plus the infrastructure and equipment comprising the TCLtv+ streaming service. Four of the seven patents are asserted against devices "configured to support the H.264 standard," with direct infringement pleaded for decoding-side functionality and induced/contributory infringement premised on TCL's marketing of its devices, distribution of the TCLtv+ application, encouragement of H.264 streaming, and technical support (Compl. ¶¶130-137, 150-157, 170-177, 201-206). The '027 patent is pleaded separately against the system-level TCLtv+ infrastructure. The case also carried an explicit willfulness theory (the docket's cause-of-action entry reads "Willful Patent Infringement" in RPX's characterization of VideoLabs' parallel suits).

The patents (one-line technical sketch each). Drawing on the complaint as summarized in the Ex Parte complaint-analysis and the '238 IPR record:

• 7,769,238 — "Picture Coding Method and Picture Decoding Method": selects a variable-length code (VLC) table for coding the number of non-zero coefficients in a block based on a predictive value derived from neighboring, previously decoded blocks (H.264 CAVLC).
• 8,139,878 — same title family as the '238 (shared specification): CAVLC improvements for handling zero-coefficient blocks using contextual information from adjacent blocks.
• 7,970,059 — "Variable Length Coding Method and Variable Length Decoding Method": CABAC-style coding using a plurality of switchable probability tables.
• 8,220,027 — "Method and System to Convert Conventional Storage to an Audio/Video Server": couples a standard storage module to a video server via a standardized port so commodity storage can serve recorded media over a network (asserted claim 10; the TCLtv+ system patent).
• 7,525,535 — "Portable Terminal": physical construction of a touchscreen portable device with a capacitive touch pad and integrally formed transparent window to prevent dust/water ingress (asserted claim 5).
• 8,291,236 and 8,667,304 — I was unable to verify technical content for these two from the sources retrieved; neither the Ex Parte complaint analysis nor the docket/PDF snippets I found include a technology synopsis for them. Given that the '236 appears in VideoLabs' Netflix dispute and in multiple district-court and IPR dockets (Docket Alarm), it is likely a content-delivery/menu or digital-media patent, but I will not state that as fact without a citable source.

Procedural posture and venue. Filed February 10, 2025 in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas, assigned to District Judge Rodney Gilstrap with Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne (Dkt. 7-8, Feb. 11, 2025), with a jury demand (Dkt. 4). The case moved quickly into a service dispute rather than the merits: all defendants moved to dismiss on March 12, 2025 (Dkt. 11); VideoLabs obtained an unopposed extension (Dkt. 12); and the parties filed a joint motion to stay pending service of the TCL Defendants on March 28, 2025 (Dkt. 13), which Judge Payne granted as modified on March 31, 2025 (Dkt. 15). A deficient-document motion concerning service abroad (Dkt. 18) and a joint status report regarding service (Dkt. 19) followed through the summer and fall, with pro hac vice appearances (Dkt. 21) and a scheduling conference ultimately set for November 24, 2025 (Dkt. 25, Oct. 20, 2025). Venue mattered here in a practical rather than doctrinal sense: Marshall and Judge Gilstrap's docket remain the preferred venue for this genre of assertion, but the thirteen-defendant international structure meant Hague Convention service was still incomplete nine months in — the PTAB's mandatory-notice filing in the '238 IPR described this case as "stayed pending completion of service of the complaint." The '236/'238 docket-alarm association with Bunsow De Mory and Harness Dickey & Pierce suggests those firms were involved for the respective sides, though I could not confirm attorney-to-party role mapping; the confirmed appearances are Margaret Day, Marc Belloli and Jerry Tice II for VideoLabs and Scott Yackey and Glenn E. Forbis for the defendants.

Outcome and why it matters. The parties filed a joint motion to dismiss on November 5, 2025 stating they had "settled VideoLabs' claim for relief," requesting dismissal with prejudice with each side bearing its own fees (Dkt. 26). The court dismissed the case with prejudice on November 14, 2025 and filed the AO 120 patent form (Dkt. 27-28). The case never reached claim construction or trial — it functioned as leverage in a licensing negotiation. That reading is reinforced by the timeline: Hisense filed IPR2025-01329 against the '238 patent on July 25, 2025, VideoLabs filed a request for discretionary denial (with exhibits on its licensee base, its funding, and the Hisense notice letter, Exs. 2001-2012), and then the parties jointly moved to terminate after settlement — the Board terminated on November 25, 2025, treating the membership/license agreement as confidential business information under 35 U.S.C. § 317 (see ipverse/greyb case record and PTAB filings). One caveat on dates: Unified Patents' portal lists filing 2025-02-09 and termination 2025-11-13, one day off from the metadata and the Justia/PACER docket (2025-02-10 and 2025-11-14), likely a time-zone or indexing artifact.

The case is notable on four axes: (1) it is a data point in VideoLabs' broader campaign — parallel suits against Hisense, Giga-Byte, Roku, Amazon, Meta, Dell, HP, and the Acer/ASUS/Lenovo/MSI cluster, plus two terminated ITC investigations (Inv. Nos. 337-TA-1323 and 337-TA-1341) — and in VideoLabs' stated progress from 17 to 20 licensees (HP settled in May 2025); (2) it illustrates the district-court/IPR settlement feedback loop, where an IPR petition's discretionary-denial record and a § 317 termination both track a global license; (3) the patents are standard-implementation (H.264/AVC) video patents, sitting in the same policy space as the SEP/fair-value debates that commentary (e.g., the ABA Antitrust Section's 2026 piece on video streaming and SEPs) cites this very complaint for; and (4) it reflects TCL's dual posture as both a defendant in video-patent litigation and a licensee in the major HEVC pools (Access Advance and Via LA), highlighting the layered royalty burden on TV and device makers.

Sourcing note: PACER was not directly accessed; docket details are drawn from the Justia docket page, Docket Alarm/AI Lab PDF extracts of Dkts. 1 and 26, Unified Patents' portal, and PTAB filings retrievable via the PTAB/ipverse records. Claims about the '236 and '304 patents and about law-firm representation are flagged above as unverified.

I'll research this case across the docket, court rulings, PTAB, and legal press.

Good progress. Let me dig into the docket details, the motion to dismiss, and the PTAB proceedings.

Now let me investigate the PTAB proceedings on the other asserted patents and the broader VideoLabs campaign.

Bottom Line

This was a short-lived, service-phase case that never got past the pleadings. Filed 2025-02-10, it was stayed on consent on 2025-03-31 over a Hague-Convention service dispute, remained in limbo through the summer and fall as VideoLabs struggled to serve 13 foreign TCL entities, and was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice on 2025-11-14 (Dkt. 27) after a global settlement. There was no answer, no counterclaims, no Markman, no scheduling order, no discovery, no trial, no verdict, and no fee motion. The only substantive motion practice was a defense motion to dismiss on service and pleading grounds, which was effectively mooted and withdrawn as part of a negotiated stay.

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1. Filing & Initial Pleadings

Asserted patents (7) and the independent claims the complaint targeted (per Exhibit H–N claim charts referenced at Compl. ¶¶100, 112, 124, 144, 164, 184, 196):

• Video coding (H.264) family: '238 ("Picture Coding Method and Picture Decoding Method") — claim 1; '878 (same family, CAVLC) — claim 1; '059 ("Variable Length Coding Method…," CABAC) — claim 1.
• Conditional access / DRM-bridging family (Digital Keystone lineage): '236 ("Methods and Apparatuses for Secondary Conditional Access Server") — claim 130; '304 (continuation of '236) — claim 5.
• '535 ("Portable Terminal," touchscreen/capacitive-pad construction) — claim 5.
• '027 ("Method and System to Convert Conventional Storage to an Audio/Video Server") — claim 10, directed at TCLtv+ infrastructure. Note: this is U.S. 8,220,027 — not the 7,219,027 asserted in VideoLabs' ASUS case; two different patents share the "'027" shorthand.

Accused instrumentalities: TCL Smart TVs (e.g., P735), projectors, phones, tablets (TCL TAB 10s, TCL NXTPAPER 14), and the TCLtv+ streaming-service infrastructure; HDCP/DRM streaming for the '236/'304 theories.

No answer or counterclaim was ever filed. The last docketed action on defendants' response deadline was a third extension (Dkt. 22, granted Dkt. 23), and the case settled before any responsive pleading or invalidity/non-infringement declaratory counterclaim.

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2. Pre-Trial Motions of Substance

Defense motion to dismiss (2025-03-12)

Dkt. 11 — motion to dismiss by all defendants, on two grounds reflected in the proposed order (Dkt. 11-4):

1. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(5) improper service — VideoLabs' service on two defendants through the Texas Secretary of State was improper for the foreign TCL entities; and
2. Failure to state a claim for indirect infringement — the complaint "does not allege that TCL had knowledge of the patent-in-suit prior to the filing of the Complaint," a fatal gap for inducement/contributory infringement absent pre-suit notice.

VideoLabs obtained an extension of its response deadline (Dkt. 12, 2025-03-26; granted as Dkt. 14, 2025-03-28, response due 2025-04-03) and never filed an opposition — instead the parties negotiated a stay.

📄 Dkt. 11-4 proposed order

Joint motion to stay pending service (2025-03-28 → 2025-03-31)

Dkt. 13 — Joint Motion to Stay Pending Service of the TCL Defendants. The parties agreed that:

• VideoLabs would serve TCL Technology Group Corporation, TCL Industries Holdings, TCL King Electrical Appliances (Huizhou), TCL Moka Manufacturing, Manufacturas Avanzadas, Shenzhen TCL New Technology, and TCL Optoelectronics Technology (Huizhou) through Hague Service Convention channels; and
• defense counsel would accept service for TCL Electronics Holdings, T.C.L. Industries Holdings (H.K.), TTE Corporation, TCL Moka International, TCL Smart Device (Vietnam), and TCL Overseas Marketing — and that Dkt. 11 be dismissed as moot.

Dkt. 15 (2025-03-31) — Magistrate Judge Payne granted the stay "as modified." The case was, for practical purposes, frozen from that date forward.

📄 Dkt. 13 joint stay motion

What was never litigated

No motion to transfer, no motion to dismiss for improper venue or § 101, no motion to stay pending IPR (the case was already stayed on service grounds), and no summary judgment motion.

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3. Claim Construction (Markman)

None. The case never reached a scheduling order, never exchanged infringement/invalidity contentions, and no Markman briefing or hearing occurred. The only claim-construction activity involving these patents took place in other VideoLabs cases — e.g., a Claim Construction Report and Recommendation and Claim Construction Order were introduced as EX 2010–2011 in the parallel Hisense IPR — and in the WDTX ASUS case, where Judge Albright bifurcated and stayed the '027, '059, and '236 counts pending trial on '238, '878, and '542 (W.D. Tex. 6:22-cv-00720-ADA, order dated 2025-02-06). Key unconstrued term for the TCL case would have been "secondary conditional access server" ('236/'304).

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4. Discovery Milestones

None of strategic significance. Because of the 2025-03-31 stay — never formally lifted before dismissal — there was no Rule 26(f) conference, no written discovery, no ESI protocol, no depositions, and no damages contentions. The docket activity from April through October 2025 is entirely service administration:

• 2025-04-21 — PHV appearance of J. Bradley Luchsinger for Shenzhen TCL New Technology (Dkt. 16).
• 2025-06-24 — two deficient-document motions requesting service abroad (Hague/letters rogatory) (Dkts. 17–18) — an indication of how slowly foreign service was progressing.
• 2025-07-01 — Joint Status Report Regarding Service of the TCL Defendants and Joint Motion to Continue (Dkt. 19).
• 2025-08-12 — VideoLabs' Notice of Designation of Lead Attorney (Dkt. 20).
• 2025-09-02 — PHV appearance of Glenn E. Forbis for all defendants (Dkt. 21) — TCL was staffing up for a merits fight.
• 2025-10-01 / 10-02 — Unopposed third motion for extension of time to answer, granted (Dkts. 22–23).
• 2025-10-03 — appearance of Hillary N. Bunsow for VideoLabs (Dkt. 24).
• 2025-10-20 — Order setting a Scheduling Conference for 2025-11-24 before Judge Gilstrap (Dkt. 25) — the first sign the case was about to move. That conference never occurred.

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5. Trial, Verdict, Post-Trial Motions

None. No trial date, no jury selection, no verdict, no JMOL, no new-trial motion, and no attorney's-fee motion under § 285. The dismissal order expressly left each side to bear its own fees, costs, and expenses.

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6. Final Disposition

Settlement terms were not disclosed on the docket. (VideoLabs' parallel PTAB filings show the company does enter "Membership and License Agreement"-type instruments with respondents — see § 7.)

📄 Dkt. 26 joint motion to dismiss

Minor metadata note: the case-metadata defendant roster omits TCL King Electrical Appliances (Huizhou) Co. Ltd., which appears in the complaint caption, the joint stay motion, and the joint dismissal motion — so there were 13 TCL entities, not 12. Docket aggregators also split on the termination date (Unified Patents: 2025-11-13; the order was entered 2025-11-14).

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7. Parallel PTAB Proceedings on the Asserted Patents

No TCL-filed IPR/PGR on any of the seven asserted patents was identified. The PTAB pressure on VideoLabs came from Hisense and ASUSTeK, VideoLabs' other targets:

IPR2025-01329 — Hisense USA Corp. & Hisense Electronica Mexico S.A. de C.V. v. VideoLabs, Inc. (U.S. 7,769,238, claim 1)

• Filed 2025-07-25; accorded a filing date 2025-08-08.
• Ground: obviousness of claim 1 over Karczewicz (WO 03/063501) in combination with the H.324 and H.263 ITU-T Recommendations. The petition's central argument was that Karczewicz — not previously before the Board — expressly teaches the spatial/neighboring-block prediction the PTAB had found missing from the prior art of record in two earlier IPRs against the '238 patent.
• 2025-08-05 — Petitioner filed a Notice of Sotera stipulation (waving its own district-court invalidity grounds to defeat a discretionary-denial argument).
• 2025-08-15 — VideoLabs' Mandatory Notice (37 C.F.R. § 42.8), identifying as related matters: VideoLabs v. Giga-Byte Technology, No. 2:25-cv-00704 (E.D. Tex.), and this TCL case, described as "stayed pending completion of service of the complaint."
• 2025-10-08 — VideoLabs filed a Request for Discretionary Denial with exhibits including the Digital Keystone provenance materials, VideoLabs' licensee list, its Hisense notice letter, the Hisense district-court complaint, LinkedIn evidence re Roku/ASUS, and claim-construction orders from the parallel litigations.
• 2025-11-11/18 — Joint motion to terminate under 35 U.S.C. §§ 317 and 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.72/42.74, with a joint request to keep a "Membership and License Agreement" business-confidential.
• 2025-11-25 — Termination Decision granting the joint motion to terminate the proceeding (status: "Terminated‑Settled"). Petitioner's refund of post-institution fees was requested 2026-01-21 and approved 2026-01-27.

📄 PTAB docket, IPR2025-01329 · IPVerse record · VideoLabs Mandatory Notice

Other parallel VideoLabs challenges (context, not TCL-specific)

• IPR2025-00305 — ASUSTeK Computer Inc. v. VideoLabs, Inc. (asserted patents overlap the TCL set; exhibits include the WDTX ASUS amended complaint).
• IPR2025-00881 — Hisense USA Corp. v. VideoLabs, Inc. (Patent Owner exhibit 2006 is a VideoLabs licensing deck mapping the '059, '236, '304 ("DRM bridging") and H.264 patents against Hisense products, with 2023 notice letters and claim charts).
• Associated district-court matters: VideoLabs v. Hisense, No. 2:24-cv-00904 (E.D. Tex.) and VideoLabs v. Giga-Byte, No. 2:25-cv-00704 (E.D. Tex.), both pending as of the August 2025 mandatory notice.

Effect on the TCL litigation: the IPRs did not produce an institution decision or a stay motion in the TCL case. Instead, the timing is telling — the TCL dismissal (2025-11-14) and the near-simultaneous termination of the Hisense '238 IPR as settled under a license agreement (2025-11-25) point to a coordinated, multi-front resolution of VideoLabs' H.264/DRM campaign in late 2025 rather than case-specific litigation outcomes.

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8. Strategic Takeaways

1. The pleading-stage knowledge defect mattered. TCL's 12(b)(6) attack on the indirect-infringement counts (no pre-suit knowledge pled) was paired with a 12(b)(5) service defect, and VideoLabs never answered it. Contrast Hisense, which had received notice letters and claim charts in April and June 2023 — VideoLabs' TCL complaint conspicuously lacked comparable pre-suit notice allegations.
2. Service, not substance, consumed the case. Service on twelve-plus foreign TCL entities under the Hague Convention generated the entire 2025 docket (deficient-document motions, status reports, serial answer extensions), and the parties' negotiated stay was premised on that bottleneck.
3. Defendants gave up nothing on the merits. Because no answer, invalidity contentions, or IPR petition was ever filed by TCL, the dismissal with prejudice resolved the dispute without any adjudicated validity, infringement, or damages ruling — and each side bore its own fees and costs.
4. The dismissal is best read as a licensing event, not a litigation loss. Reading this file in isolation understates VideoLabs; the parallel IPR terminations on a "Membership and License Agreement" within eleven days of the TCL dismissal suggest a paid resolution across multiple defendants.

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Source Reliability Notes

• Primary docket entries (Dkts. 1–28) are corroborated across Justia Dockets, Docket Alarm, and Unified Patents' litigation portal; the Justia docket snapshot was last refreshed 2025-03-31, so entries after March 2025 come from Docket Alarm and Unified Patents.
• Full text of Dkts. 5, 13, 26, and 11-4 was retrieved; several other post-March entries (Dkts. 16–25) are characterized from docket titles and summaries rather than full documents — treat the descriptions of those filings as docket-title-level, not verbatim.
• I could not retrieve the operative complaint exhibits H–N (claim charts), the Dkt. 11 moving brief, or any settlement/license instrument. Counsel names for TCL's side (Scott Yackey per the Dkt. 11 signature block; Glenn E. Forbis; J. Bradley Luchsinger) are drawn from docket signatures and appearances.
• No PACER-native docket image was available; I found no separate Rule 12(b)(3) venue attack, § 101 motion, or TCL-originated IPR petition.

I'll search several angles to find press coverage of this case.

Initial searches returned mostly docket aggregators. Let me search news-specific angles.

Press coverage of VideoLabs v. TCL (E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00161)

Bottom line: I found essentially no dedicated news coverage of this particular case. My searches — on the case caption, the parties, the asserted patent numbers ('027, '535, '238, '059, '878, '236, '304), and the outcome — surfaced docket aggregators and legal databases rather than reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, or the trade press. The only hits that reliably describe the case itself are court-record aggregators: Justia Dockets and Unified Patents' litigation portal, which confirm the February 10, 2025 filing, the TCL entity defendants, the seven asserted patents, and a terminated/closed status (listed as Nov. 13–14, 2025). No outlet I could locate published an article specifically about VideoLabs's infringement suit against TCL or about its dismissal.

The closest thing to substantive coverage is the court record itself, which reflects a settlement rather than a litigated result. VideoLabs's own joint motion to dismiss, Docket No. 26 (Nov. 5, 2025), states that "the Parties have settled VideoLabs' claim for relief asserted against Defendants in this litigation" and requests dismissal with prejudice with each side bearing its own fees and costs — consistent with the dismissal entered on November 14, 2025. Note that this is a primary-source court filing surfaced through an aggregator, not press reporting, and the terms of the settlement are not disclosed in the record. Earlier docket activity shows a defense motion to dismiss alleging improper service and failure to plead pre-suit knowledge (Dkt. 11, Mar. 12, 2025) and a stay pending service (Dkt. 15, Mar. 31, 2025), but again this is docket material, not coverage.

Two adjacent items are worth flagging, with caveats. First, VideoLabs has drawn trade-press attention in other matters, not this one: a Law360 item (dated Feb. 20, 2026, by Elliot Weld) reports that the Federal Circuit upheld a PTAB decision invalidating most challenged claims of VideoLabs's U.S. Patent 8,605,794 on data synchronization — a patent not among the seven asserted against TCL, so it does not bear on this case except as background on VideoLabs as an NPE. A Law360 headline, "Meta, VideoLabs Resolve Video Tech Patent Dispute" (Oct. 2, 2025), similarly concerns Meta, not TCL — I could see only the headline/listing, not the article body, so I cannot confirm its details.

Second, the video-patent licensing dispute that does involve TCL was covered by IP Fray, in a piece cited by a later ABA Antitrust Law Section article, "Video Streaming and Smartphones: The New Frontier of SEP Disputes" (June 2026). That ABA piece cites IP Fray's report, "Septacular week also sees three major video patent license deals settling disputes: Nokia-HP, Access Advance with HP and TCL" (Oct. 30, 2024), which concerns an Access Advance pool license with TCL — a separate licensing stream from this VideoLabs action. I did not verify the underlying IP Fray article directly, and it predates this lawsuit.

In short: this appears to have been a low-visibility, short-lived NPE suit that resolved quickly by settlement, and I could not find any mainstream or specialist outlet that reported on it by name. I would caution against treating the adjacent VideoLabs/Meta, VideoLabs/'794, or Access Advance/TCL items as coverage of this case — they are not, and no outlet I found reported damages figures, settlement terms, or market impact for VideoLabs v. TCL.

Sources

• Complaint | 2:25-cv-00161 | VideoLabs Inc v. TCL Technology Group Corp | Ex Parte
• Patent Cases, Dockets and Filings in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
• Complaint analysis | 2:25-cv-00161 | VideoLabs Inc v. TCL Technology Group Corp | Ex Parte
• Search court records on patent:(8291236)
• Search court records on patent:(8291236) - - All Courts
• IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS MARSHALL DIVISION
• 2:25-cv-00161 | VideoLabs Inc v. TCL Technology Group Corp | Ex Parte
• Cases
• (INFRINGEMENT OF U.S. PATENT NO. 8,291,236)
• 184. The '535 patent Accused Instrumentalities satisfy all claim limitations of one or more claims of the '535 patent
• Search court records on patent:(8291236)
• Search court records on patent:(8291236) - - All Courts

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

Good initial data. Let me dig into specific docket entries and the complaint's signature block.

Let me verify the full docket and the complaint's signature block, plus check for other VideoLabs appearances.

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff VideoLabs, Inc.

Case: VideoLabs, Inc. v. TCL Technology Group Corp. et al., No. 2:25-cv-00161-JRG-RSP (E.D. Tex., Marshall Div.), dismissed with prejudice and closed by order entered Nov. 14, 2025 (Dkt. 27).

VideoLabs was represented throughout by the Silicon Valley patent-monetization boutique Bunsow De Mory LLP (headquartered at 701 El Camino Real, Redwood City, CA 94063, with an Alexandria, VA office). No separate Texas "local counsel" firm and no in-house VideoLabs attorney appear on the docket in the sources I could retrieve — the Texas-bar-qualified member of the trial team (Tice) is a Bunsow De Mory attorney.

Attorneys who appeared in this case

Docket support

• Dkt. 1 — Complaint, filed Feb. 10, 2025 ("Plaintiff VideoLabs, Inc. … through its attorneys").
• Dkt. 4 — Plaintiff's jury demand.
• Dkt. 5 — Notice of Appearance of Jerry D. Tice II, dated Feb. 11, 2025; signed by Tice and lists the firm's full VideoLabs team signature block: M. Elizabeth Day, Marc Belloli, Jerry D. Tice II, Bunsow De Mory LLP, 701 El Camino Real, Redwood City, CA 94063.
• Dkt. 6 — Notice of Attorney Appearance by Marc Belloli, Feb. 11, 2025.
• Dkt. 7/9 — Summons (issued Feb. 18, 2025) directs service on M. Elizabeth Day, identified as "admitted in EDTX," Bunsow De Mory LLP.
• Dkt. 20 — Plaintiff's Notice of Designation of Lead Attorney, Aug. 12, 2025: "Elizabeth Day of Bunsow De Mory LLP … should be designated as lead attorney for Plaintiff."
• Dkt. 24 — Notice of Attorney Appearance by Hillary Noelle Bunsow, Oct. 3, 2025.
• Dkt. 26 / 26-1 — Joint Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Settlement, filed by VideoLabs Nov. 5, 2025; Dkt. 27 — dismissal order, Nov. 14, 2025; Dkt. 28 — AO 120 termination form.

PTAB-side counsel (separate forum — verify before relying)

VideoLabs' Patent Owner filings in the parallel IPRs (e.g., Hisense USA Corp. v. VideoLabs, Inc., IPR2025-00883) list Wayne M. Helge (Reg. No. 56,905) as lead counsel and James T. Wilson (Reg. No. 41,439) as back-up counsel, both at Bunsow De Mory LLP, 277 S. Washington St., Suite 210, #1088, Alexandria, VA 22314. That mandatory notice also lists this TCL case (described there as "stayed") among related matters. I did not find a district-court notice of appearance for either Helge or Wilson in 2:25-cv-00161; treat them as PTAB counsel unless a docket entry confirms otherwise.

Gaps and caveats

• No in-house counsel for VideoLabs appears in any retrieved filing.
• I could not retrieve every docket entry (the case closed quickly after a stay pending service, a motion to dismiss, an extension, and a settlement dismissal). It is possible additional VideoLabs appearances exist among the intervening docket numbers (e.g., around Dkts. 12–23) that I could not source. Everything above is tied to a numbered docket entry or a reproduced filing; I have not listed any attorney without such support.
• Anything characterized as "experience" comes from firm/IAM Patent 1000 profiles rather than from filings in this case, and should be described as such if reused.
• The docket reflects that the parties' dispute was resolved by settlement (Dkt. 26-1) before any claim construction or trial activity, so there is no merits opinion naming counsel.

I'll research defense counsel of record through docket aggregators, firm announcements, and related coverage.

Found key docket leads: Dkt. 16 (J. Bradley Luchsinger, pro hac vice) and Dkt. 21 (Glenn E. Forbis, all defendants). Let me identify their firms and any lead counsel.

Confirmed Harness Dickey & Pierce for TCL. Now let me find the full docket entries and any local counsel.

Counsel of Record for the Defendants — VideoLabs, Inc. v. TCL Technology Group Corp., No. 2:25-cv-00161-JRG-RSP (E.D. Tex.)

Bottom line: The TCL defendants were represented by Harness, Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C., led out of the firm's Troy, Michigan office. Two Harness Dickey attorneys made formal appearances in this case (Dkt. 16 and Dkt. 21), and the defense's early dispositive motion was filed collectively "by All Defendants," indicating joint representation of all twelve TCL entities by a single firm. Because the case was stayed on service grounds for most of its life and settled before answers were filed, the appearance record is unusually thin — and I could not verify the identity of local E.D. Tex. counsel or any in-house TCL attorney on the docket.

Caveat on scope: docket aggregators (Docket Alarm, Unified Patents, Ex Parte) show document-level metadata but not full PDFs for every entry. Where I could not open a filing, I say so rather than infer the signer.

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Defense counsel identified

1. Glenn E. Forbis — Harness Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C. (Troy, MI) — lead/principal defense counsel

• Appearance: Notice of Attorney Appearance Pro Hac Vice on behalf of All Defendants, Dkt. 21 (filed Sept. 2, 2025).
• Contact of record: Harness, Dickey & Pierce, PLC, 5445 Corporate Drive, Troy, MI 48098; gforbis@harnessip.com; (248) 641-1600 (per PTAB filing in related TCL matters, PTACTS petition document).
• Experience note: Registered patent attorney who has repeatedly represented TCL entities in patent suits, including Multimodal Media LLC v. TCL Technology Group Corporation et al. (E.D. Tex.) — where a Feb. 23, 2023 order terminated the appearances of "Scott E Yackey, Robert M. Siminski, Glenn E. Forbis, and J. Bradley Luchsinger" (Patexia docket). He is also listed as counsel for TCL Electronics Holdings Ltd. in PTAB papers.

2. J. Bradley Luchsinger — Harness Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C. (Troy, MI) — defense counsel

• Appearance: Notice of Attorney Appearance Pro Hac Vice on behalf of Shenzhen TCL New Technology Co., Ltd., Dkt. 16 (filed Apr. 21, 2025). The caption truncates in the aggregator; the appearance may cover additional defendants.
• Experience note: Same Harness Dickey TCL team as Forbis; both attorneys were terminated from the Multimodal Media v. TCL defense in the 2023 withdrawal order cited above.

3. Douglas A. Robinson — Harness Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C. (St. Louis, MO) — counsel for TCL Electronics Holdings (PTAB papers); district-court appearance NOT verified

• Contact of record: 7700 Bonhomme Ave., Suite 400, St. Louis, MO 63105; drobinson@harnessip.com; (314) 726-7500.
• Source: He signs as "Attorney for TCL Electronics Holdings Ltd. (f/k/a TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings, Ltd.)" in a PTAB filing (PTACTS document). I could not confirm a Notice of Appearance by him in 2:25-cv-00161 itself — the same may be true of other Harness Dickey attorneys (e.g., Scott E. Yackey, Robert M. Siminski) who worked the prior TCL defense.

4. Local E.D. Tex. counsel — not identified; likely existed but unconfirmed

• Dkt. 11, the MOTION to Dismiss by All Defendants (Mar. 12, 2025), was filed before any pro hac vice appearance appears on the visible docket (the earliest is Dkt. 16, Apr. 21, 2025). Under E.D. Tex. practice, that motion and the pro hac vice applications would ordinarily be signed/sponsored by local counsel, whose name I could not retrieve because I could not open the underlying PDFs. I am not naming anyone here, because I cannot source it.

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Items I deliberately did NOT attribute (unverified)

• Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (Bas de Blank, Xiang Wang, Richard Martinelli, "Thomas A.…") appears in a PTAB service-list block on documents in VideoLabs-related IPRs (e.g., the June 18, 2025 Patent Owner Mandatory Notice in Hisense USA Corp. v. VideoLabs, Inc., IPR2025-00883, surfaced via Docket Alarm). Those names are associated with IPR-side representation of some party in the VideoLabs IPR family, not shown to be TCL's district-court counsel. Because I could not confirm whose counsel they are in that document (petitioner vs. a different patent owner matter), I am not listing them as TCL's counsel. If TCL filed its own IPRs against VideoLabs, Orrick is a plausible candidate — but that hypothesis is unsourced and should be checked before use.
• No in-house TCL attorney appears anywhere in the docket metadata I retrieved.

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Cross-references and consistency checks with the prior sections

• The prior "In the news" section correctly noted the case resolved by settlement (Joint Motion to Dismiss, Dkt. 26, Nov. 5, 2025) and a dismissal order at Dkt. 27 (Nov. 14, 2025). Both are consistent with the sparse defense appearance record: no answer, no IPR-driven stay, and no substantive motion practice beyond Dkt. 11.
• Docket timeline note bearing on counsel: the case was stayed pending completion of service of the complaint (Dkt. 15, Mar. 31, 2025 order; the PTAB mandatory notice describes the case as "stayed pending completion of service"), with joint status reports on service at Dkts. 19 and 25. That explains why defense-side appearances were late and limited to pro hac vice notices rather than a full trial team.
• Minor metadata discrepancy (flagged, not material): the case metadata and Dkt. 27 give termination as Nov. 14, 2025, while Unified Patents' portal lists 2025-11-13 — an aggregator rounding artifact, previously flagged.
• Notable Dkt. 11 content: the defense motion to dismiss was directed at improper service and failure to plead pre-suit knowledge, per the prior section. That is a service/knowledge challenge characteristic of Harness Dickey's TCL practice in this period, but I have not verified the signer.

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What to pull next (if you need higher confidence)

1. Dkt. 11 PDF (Motion to Dismiss, Mar. 12, 2025) — first-page signature block will reveal both Harness Dickey's lead signer and local counsel.
2. Dkt. 16 and Dkt. 21 PDFs — confirm which of the twelve TCL entities each pro hac vice appearance covers.
3. Dkt. 14 (the one gap in the entries I compiled) and any pro hac vice applications (as opposed to notices) — often list sponsoring local counsel.
4. Dkt. 26 / 26-1 (Joint Motion to Dismiss) — signature blocks will show the complete defense signature line as of settlement, the best single confirmation of final counsel of record.

Sources: Justia Docket 2:25-cv-00161 · Docket Alarm docket documents · Unified Patents litigation portal · PTACTS petition document (TCL Electronics Holdings / Harness Dickey) · Patexia — Multimodal Media v. TCL docket (Harness Dickey withdrawals)