VIZIO, Inc. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

I'll research this case across the docket, PTAB records, and legal press before drafting.

Good foundation. Now let me verify the outcomes — the final written decision in the joined IPR, and the parallel Delaware district court case against VIZIO.

Below is an overview and background for VIZIO, Inc. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC, IPR2016-00914. One framing note up front: this docket is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district court case, so there is no "division" or district judge here — the adjudicators were a three-judge PTAB panel, and the "venue" story is really about the parallel district court litigations and the § 315(b) joinder mechanism that put VIZIO in front of the Board at all.

---

Parties. VIZIO, Inc. is an operating company — a U.S. consumer-electronics manufacturer best known for televisions, soundbars, and displays — and it appears here solely as Petitioner. Innovative Display Technologies LLC ("IDT") is a patent-assertion entity: a Texas-registered shell (press accounts place its address at 1701 Directors Blvd., Austin, sharing a suite with a dozen other Acacia subsidiaries) that holds the asserted patents and whose real parties in interest in the PTAB listings are Acacia Research Group LLC and Acacia Research Corp. (Unified Patents case list; Techdirt, "Know Your Troll," Aug. 12, 2014). IDT frequently litigated alongside Delaware Display Group LLC, a sister Acacia entity. The patent family's provenance is a classic NPE chain: the "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" patents originated with inventor Jeffrey R. Parker and Lumitex, Inc. (Cleveland); moved to Solid State Opto Limited; were sold to Rambus (reported at ~$26M by Taiwan's STPI); were transferred to Acacia in March 2013; and were then housed in IDT for assertion (RPX Insight, Jan. 9, 2014; STPI/科技產業資訊室, 2013). IDT's campaign was broad — roughly 34–37 active suits by 2014 against TV, phone, PC, camera, GPS, and automotive defendants, including Apple, Dell, HP, Acer, Huawei, ZTE, BlackBerry, Amazon, LG, Lenovo, VIZIO, Canon, Nikon, Garmin, and the automakers (Techdirt; Stanford NPE database; RPX).

Accused technology and the patent at issue. The accused instrumentalities are LCD backlight modules — specifically edge-lit and 2-D-array backlights — incorporated into VIZIO's televisions and monitors, with panel-level components supplied by display makers such as LG Display (see the parallel Innovative Display Techs. LLC v. LG Display Co., No. 2:16-cv-00932 (E.D. Tex.) complaint analysis, which identifies accused LCMs and names VIZIO as an end-product seller). The challenged patent, U.S. 7,537,370 ("Light Emitting Panel Assemblies"), issued May 26, 2009 from an application filed Oct. 11, 2006, bearing a June 27, 1995 earliest priority date and sharing a common written description with six sibling "Display Patents" ('547, '194, '177, '660, '974, '816) in IDT's portfolio (E.D. Tex. Markman opinion, IDT v. Hyundai Motor Grp., No. 2:14-cv-201-JRG, Dkt. 244). In one line each: the '370 patent claims an edge-lit light guide ("optical panel member") carrying a pattern of light-extracting "deformities" — projections or depressions/microprisms — that varies along the panel's length or width, with deformities on opposite sides of the panel differing in type or varying differently (claims 29), and claim 47 adds a "transition region" containing optical elements between the light-input edge and the deformities. (The related patents cover much the same ground — e.g., the '974 patent claims a panel member seated inside a reflective tray/housing with mounting posts and walls acting as edge reflectors, per the District of Delaware's enablement opinion.) A threshold fact that shaped the whole IPR: the '370 patent expired on June 27, 2015, so no claim amendments were available and the Board applied Phillips claim construction (VIZIO Petition at 9).

Procedural posture and why it matters. VIZIO filed this petition on April 18, 2016 challenging only claims 29 and 47, deliberately tracking the grounds the Board had already instituted in K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. IDT, IPR2015-01867 (filed Sept. 11, 2015; instituted March 17, 2016 on § 103(a) grounds over Suzuki (JP H03-189679) for claim 29 and Suzuki + Pristash (U.S. 5,005,108) for claim 47), and it filed a concurrent motion for joinder under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) / 37 C.F.R. § 42.122(b) — a necessity, because VIZIO had been served in Delaware years earlier and would otherwise have been time-barred. The Board (APJs Giannetti, Quinn, and Bunting) instituted and granted joinder on October 4, 2016, and held a consolidated oral hearing in Detroit on January 10, 2017, at which VIZIO appeared through Gibson Dunn (Blair Silver; Jason Lo) and IDT through Bragalone Conroy (Jeffrey R. Bragalone; Justin B. Kimble). The Final Written Decision issued March 9–10, 2017 and applied to both proceedings; the Board held that Petitioner had not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 29 and 47 are unpatentable — Suzuki did not disclose a panel with patterns on both sides that each vary in a different way, and the petition supplied no adequate rationale to modify Suzuki to get there (IPR2015-01867 FWD; the '00914 docket closed the same day). Note a discrepancy: aggregators such as IPVerse/GreyB label this outcome "Unpatentable," which conflicts with the FWD text; I treat the decision document as controlling, but recommend confirming against the PTAB record. The IPR was one front in a multi-front defense. In D. Del., Delaware Display Group LLC v. VIZIO, Inc., No. 1:13-cv-02112-RGA (Judge Richard G. Andrews) — part of a Dec. 31, 2013 wave of consolidated Acacia suits (1:13-cv-02106 through -02112) — VIZIO faced claims including '370 claims 13 and 47 and fought a stay pending the IPRs; Judge Andrews denied VIZIO's summary judgment of invalidity (enablement/written description) and non-infringement on March 1, 2017, with trial imminent, while the E.D. Tex. Marshall cases before Judge Rodney Gilstrap (e.g., IDT v. Acer, No. 2:13-cv-522-JRG, 2014 WL 4230037 (Aug. 26, 2014)) had already supplied the key construction — "transition region" = "a region configured to transmit light" — that VIZIO imported into its petition. The case is notable for three reasons: it is a well-documented example of a downstream OEM riding a supplier's IPR into the proceeding through § 315(b) joinder to defeat a time bar (VIZIO also filed a parallel joinder IPR, IPR2016-00910, on the '974 patent); it illustrates the expired-patent IPR scenario (no amendments, Phillips construction) inside a large Acacia campaign that drew coordinated PTAB challenges from LG Display (IPR2014-01096, FWD Dec. 18, 2015), K.J. Pretech, VIZIO, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz; and it shows IDT largely holding the line at the Board on the '370 patent after an earlier IPR on the same patent (IPR2015-00753) settled before institution.

Sourcing caveats. Verified: petition/institution/joinder dates and panel, challenged claims and grounds, the March 2017 FWD text, counsel of record, the Delaware and E.D. Tex. case numbers and judges, the '370 patent's June 27, 2015 expiry, and the Acacia→IDT ownership chain (PTAB documents; RPX; ded.uscourts.gov opinion 13-2112.pdf). Not verified from the sources I could reach: the verdict or final disposition of the Delaware VIZIO case after the March 2017 summary-judgment ruling; the outcome of LG Display's IPR2014-01096 FWD; and the specific patents at issue in the Ford/Mercedes petitions (aggregator listings show institution denied). Those points should be confirmed against PACER/docket and PAIR before being relied on.

I'll research this case and its parallel litigation. Note the anchor case here is the PTAB IPR (IPR2016-00914), which was a VIZIO-filed IPR joined into IPR2015-01867; the underlying infringement suit is the EDTX litigation. Let me gather docket, opinions, and PTAB records.

The anchor IPR is now clear, and I've found the underlying D. Del. litigation (Delaware Display Group/IDT v. VIZIO, C.A. 13-2112-RGA). Let me dig into the district court rulings, the IPR final decisions, and any appeal.

Important framing note

The case metadata anchors this entry on IPR2016-00914 — a PTAB inter partes review filed by VIZIO against Innovative Display Technologies LLC (IDT) on the '370 patent (US 7,537,370), instituted 2016-10-04, joined to IPR2015-01867 (K.J. Pretech v. IDT), and closed 2017-03-09. That IPR was a defensive flank in a much larger district-court infringement campaign (Acacia/IDT + Delaware Display Group v. VIZIO and other TV/display makers). The chronology below therefore covers (a) the underlying infringement litigation and (b) the parallel PTAB proceedings, because the IPR's whole purpose was to affect the litigation.

One sourcing caveat up front: I was able to pull the PTAB record, the D. Del. summary-judgment papers, and the D. Del. March 2017 opinion in part, but my research was cut off before I could confirm the district court's final holding and ultimate disposition with a primary source. Where I could not confirm an outcome, I say so rather than guessing.

---

Chronology

2013 — The infringement campaign begins

• 2013-06-28: IDT filed its first wave of suits in E.D. Tex. (Marshall), including IDT v. Acer, No. 2:13-cv-00522 (lead consolidated case), asserting seven patents from the Parker "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" family: 6,755,547; 7,300,194; 7,384,177; 7,404,660; 7,434,974; 7,537,370; 8,215,816. IDT claimed the patents as acquired from the Rambus → Acacia chain (originally Lumitex/Solid State Opto).
• Late 2013 (Dec.): New Acacia sub Delaware Display Group (DDG) joined as co-plaintiff to file a second wave against Amazon, HTC, Lenovo, LG, Pantech, Sony, and VIZIO, adding DDG-owned 7,914,196. This produced DDG & IDT v. VIZIO, Inc., C.A. No. 13-2112-RGA (D. Del.) — the VIZIO district-court case relevant here. (RPX Insight, Jan. 9, 2014.)

2014–2015 — First PTAB waves and claim construction

• 2014-06-16: IDT filed its opening claim construction (Markman) brief in the E.D. Tex. consolidated case (Dkt. 69, No. 2:13-cv-00522), addressing "pattern of deformities," "transition region," "different type," "air gap," etc. A claim construction order from that E.D. Tex. case (Judge Gilstrap) was later cited by both sides and by the Board.
• 2015-07/08: Various IPRs filed against the family; several institution denials (e.g., Mercedes-Benz IPR2015-01113/-01114/-01115, all denied; Ford IPR2015-01540 denied).
• 2015-09-11: K.J. Pretech filed IPR2015-01866, -01867, and -01868 against IDT. IPR2015-01867 challenged claims 1, 4–6, 9, 13, 29, 47 of the '370 patent, relying on Kobayashi (US 5,408,388), Suzuki (JP H03-189679), and Pristash (US 5,005,108).
• 2015-12-18: FWD in LG Display v. IDT, IPR2014-01096 (Paper 40) — an earlier LG-filed IPR on this family, cited as precedent in the later petitions.
• 2015 (late): DDG/IDT v. VIZIO, No. 1:15-cv-01222 (D. Del.) — a second VIZIO action in Delaware. (Docket confirmed via Stanford NPE database; I did not confirm the exact filing date or asserted patents.)
• In the D. Del. litigation, defendants (led by LG) moved to stay pending IPR; the stay was denied, and LG's renewed motion to stay was also denied (referenced in the '1867 record, Ex. listing "LG – Reply in Support of Renewed Motion to Stay" and "Brief in Opposition to Stay Dkt 41").

2016 — Institution, VIZIO's IPR + joinder, and a new E.D. Tex. suit

• 2016-03-17: Board institutes IPR2015-01867 on claims 29 and 47 only (Paper 15). Claims 1, 4–6, 9, 13 denied. The Panel: Giannetti, Quinn, Bunting (Kellogg also listed).
• 2016-04-18: VIZIO files IPR2016-00914 challenging claims 29 and 47 of the '370 patent on the same grounds instituted in '1867 — Ground: claim 29 obvious over Suzuki (§103); claim 47 obvious over Suzuki + Pristash (§103) — and concurrently filed a Motion for Joinder with '1867 (37 C.F.R. § 42.122(b)). VIZIO relied on the same Credelle declaration (Ex. 1004) and same references. (Paper 1 Pet.; Paper 3 Joinder Motion.) VIZIO also filed a companion petition, IPR2016-00910, seeking joinder to IPR2015-01866.
• 2016-07-20: IDT filed its Preliminary Response in -00914, attaching the D. Del. complaint (Ex. 2002) and summons (Ex. 2001), and argued the petition was untimely and that Suzuki did not teach the "vary in a different way or manner" limitation.
• 2016-08-24: IDT filed IDT v. LG Display, LG Electronics, VIZIO, ASUS, No. 2:16-cv-00932 (E.D. Tex., Judge Gilstrap) — naming VIZIO as a defendant and asserting '370-family patents (the complaint also referenced '730 and '965 patents). This refreshed the infringement exposure the IPRs were meant to blunt.
• 2016-10-04: Board institutes IPR2016-00914 on all challenged claims and grants VIZIO's Motion for Joinder with '1867. Institution decision (Giannetti, J.) expressly adopted the '1867 analysis and rejected IDT's untimeliness argument. Because of joinder, the two proceedings would be decided together.
• 2016-09-30: In D. Del. 13-2112, VIZIO filed its reply ISO summary judgment of non-infringement of the '370 patent (D.I. 337), arguing: (1) IDT's infringement proof failed its own evidentiary standard (bare photographs, no measurement of "projections or depressions"); (2) "pattern" variation is distinct from deformity size variation; (3) no evidence the front/back deformities "vary in a different way"; and (4) accused panels lack a "transition region." This brief is a useful roadmap of the district-court claim-scoping fight that paralleled the IPRs.

2017 — The decisions (PTAB and district court)

• 2017-01-04 to 01-10: Housekeeping in the joined PTAB case: VIZIO power of attorney, updated mandatory disclosures, pro hac vice admissions (J. Lo for VIZIO; Bragalone and Kennedy for IDT); VIZIO's counsel was Jason C. Lo / Gibson Dunn.

• 2017-01-10: Oral hearing in the joined IPR (record at Paper 24 for '1867).

• 2017-02-13: Oral argument in D. Del. 13-2112 on six dispositive/Daubert motions (Tr., D.I. 379).

• 2017-02-17: Record of oral hearing docketed in the PTAB case.

• 2017-03-09/10: Final Written Decision (35 U.S.C. § 318(a)) in the joined IPR, applying to both IPR2015-01867 and IPR2016-00914. This is the termination event for IPR2016-00914 (metadata date 2017-03-09). Holding:

  "Petitioner has not shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 29 and 47 of the '370 patent are unpatentable."

  The Board agreed with IDT that Suzuki failed to teach element [29.e]/[47.e] — a panel where the deformity patterns on opposite sides vary in different ways. The Board credited IDT's expert Kenneth Werner over VIZIO's Dr. Thomas Credelle, held Credelle's conclusory "may be used" testimony was entitled to little/no weight under 37 C.F.R. § 42.65(a), and found no adequate motivation to combine Suzuki's Table 1 (two-sided) and Table 2 (one-sided variable) embodiments. Claim 47 fell with claim 29 (the Pristash "transition region" issue was not reached). The Board also declined to reach IDT's § 315(b) time-bar/RPI argument (that LG, a time-barred party, was the real party in interest behind the K.J. Pretech petitions).

  Bottom line: VIZIO's IPR failed on the merits — the '370 patent's claims 29 and 47 survived.

• March 2017: Memorandum Opinion, DDG & IDT v. VIZIO, No. 13-2112-RGA (D. Del.) (Judge Richard G. Andrews; opinion file at ded.uscourts.gov, 13-2112.pdf). It resolved six motions the parties flagged in a 2017-01-10 Joint Status Report (D.I. 364):

  1. VIZIO MSJ of non-enablement/written description (D.I. 274) — re '974 and '370;
  2. VIZIO motion to exclude Dr. Frederic Kahn (D.I. 275);
  3. VIZIO MSJ of non-infringement of the '370 patent (D.I. 278);
  4. IDT's partial MSJ on VIZIO's § 112 enablement/written-description defense (D.I. 280);
  5. IDT motion to strike VIZIO's non-infringing-alternatives opinions (D.I. 284);
  6. IDT motion to exclude testimony re Richard A. Flasek (D.I. 287).

  The portion of the opinion I retrieved addresses the § 112 enablement/written-description analysis (finding no genuine dispute that the "light source" limitation was not the novel aspect of the '974/'370 inventions). I was unable to confirm from a primary source how the court ruled on VIZIO's non-infringement MSJ on the '370 or the Daubert motions; treat any specific holding there as unverified in this report.

---

Final disposition and present posture

• IPR2016-00914: Terminated 2017-03-09 by the joined Final Written Decision. Outcome: IDT prevailed — claims 29 and 47 were not held unpatentable. Note: some third-party PTAB dashboards (e.g., IP Verse/GreyB) label the outcome "Unpatentable"; the FWD text itself controls and says the opposite (petitioner failed to prove unpatentability). No appeal of the FWD by VIZIO is reflected in the records I reviewed.
• D. Del. 13-2112 / 15-1222 and E.D. Tex. 2:16-cv-00932: These are the VIZIO infringement suits. I could not confirm the final termination mechanism (settlement/dismissal vs. judgment) from a primary source within my search budget. Given the campaign context (a mass NPE licensing campaign that largely wound down), a negotiated resolution is plausible but I am not asserting it as fact.

---

Parallel PTAB proceedings on the '370 family (and their effect)

Effect on the litigation: VIZIO's IPR was, in substance, a piggyback — it tracked exactly the two grounds K.J. Pretech had gotten instituted (Suzuki; Suzuki+Pristash) and used the same expert (Credelle) and same references, then sought joinder rather than an independent challenge. That strategy meant VIZIO could not outrun the '1867 record, and when the Board credited IDT's expert and found no motivation to combine, both '1867 and -00914 failed together. The tangible consequence for VIZIO was that the '370 patent remained valid and enforceable for the concurrent district-court and E.D. Tex. proceedings — no PTAB cancellation to moot or narrow the infringement case. Meanwhile, IDT's repeated success at the PTAB (Kobayashi-based grounds rejected; Suzuki grounds rejected) preserved the patents even as the district court weighed non-infringement and § 112 defenses.

---

Key strategic takeaways

1. Claim-scoping symmetry mattered across fora. IDT argued to the PTAB that a mere image of "spot" features does not prove "projections or depressions," and VIZIO turned that exact position against IDT's own infringement evidence at summary judgment (D.I. 337). The district court's Markman construction ("deformities… are a type of optical element") was the pivot.
2. Joinder cut both ways. Joining VIZIO into '1867 conserved resources and aligned the record, but it also subordinated VIZIO's challenge to K.J. Pretech's trial strategy and expert.
3. The § 315(b)/RPI issue was never resolved. IDT's theory that LG (a time-barred party) was the real party in interest behind the supplier-filed petitions was raised but left undecided because the merits went IDT's way — an unresolved question with echoes in later PTAB privity jurisprudence.
4. The '370 patent expired 2015-06-27, so the IPRs and the litigation ran on past damages only, and the Board applied Phillips claim construction (no patentee amendments available).

---

Open items / unverified

• The precise holding and date of the D. Del. March 2017 opinion on the '370 non-infringement MSJ and the Daubert motions.
• The final disposition (settlement, dismissal, or judgment) of D. Del. 13-2112 and 15-1222 and E.D. Tex. 2:16-cv-00932.
• Filing date/patents asserted in the second D. Del. action, 1:15-cv-01222.
• Outcomes of the sibling IPRs -01866, -01868, -01717, and IPR2014-01096 (only the Dec. 2015 FWD date is confirmed).

If you want, I can do a focused follow-up pass on the D. Del. docket (13-2112/15-1222) and the E.D. Tex. case to pin down the final judgments and any Federal Circuit activity.

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

Let me search additional angles for press and trade coverage.

Press coverage summary

The bottom line: the IPR itself drew essentially no press. Across searches on the case caption ("VIZIO, Inc. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC"), the proceeding number (IPR2016-00914), the patent number (US 7,537,370), and the party names, I found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, EFF Deeplinks, JD Supra, or mainstream coverage of this inter partes review. Every hit on the IPR number was a primary-source or analytics record rather than journalism: the Board's own institution/joinder decision (Paper 8, instituting review of claims 29 and 47 and joining the case to K.J. Pretech's IPR2015-01867, with VIZIO taking an "understudy role"), the termination document dated 2017-03-09, and database entries from RPX Insight, IPVerse/GreyB, and Ex Parte. The substantive outcome — the joined proceeding's final written decision holding that the petitioner had not shown claims 29 and 47 unpatentable, i.e., a win for Innovative Display Technologies — appears in the PTAB record, not in any news article I could locate. Notably, that decision is a reminder that this IPR did not kill the '370 patent; earlier, in IPR2014-01096, the Board had cancelled different claims (15 and 27) of the same patent on LG's petition.

What the trade press did cover was the underlying licensing campaign against VIZIO, of which this IPR was a defensive flank. RPX Insight reported on 2014-01-09 that Acacia Research subsidiaries Innovative Display Technologies (IDT) and the newly created Delaware Display Group (DDG) had launched a campaign asserting seven "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" patents — expressly including the '370 patent — against Amazon, HTC, Lenovo, LG, Pantech, Sony, and VIZIO, and noted that the patents had been transferred from Rambus to Acacia in March 2013. RPX Insight followed on 2015-12-29 with the news that IDT/DDG had filed fresh complaints against Lenovo, LG Electronics, and VIZIO (the VIZIO action being D. Del. No. 1:15-cv-01222), asserting three patents they had been forced to drop from earlier Delaware cases after Judge Richard Andrews threatened to stay those cases; the piece frames the NPEs as consenting to stays pending the instituted LG IPRs. On the automotive side of the same campaign, Law360 maintains a case page for Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Volkswagen AG (E.D. Tex.), with items dated 2014-04-07 (the filing) and 2014-06-03 (Volkswagen's motion to dismiss, arguing the allegations swept in "essentially every Volkswagen and Audi" sold in the U.S.) — none of which concerns VIZIO or this IPR. A Taiwanese industry outlet, STPI/iKnow, published a 2013 analysis of IDT's Dell/HP/Huawei/ZTE/Acer complaints that traces the asserted family's ownership chain from Lumitex → Solid State Opto → Rambus → Acacia → IDT, and characterizes IDT as an NPE monetizing acquired display-backlight patents.

On numbers and outcomes, the reporting is thin and comes mostly from the plaintiff's own securities disclosures. MarketExclusive, reproducing an Acacia Research Form 8-K item, reported that DDG and IDT entered into an agreement with VIZIO resolving D. Del. Nos. 1:13-cv-02112 and 1:15-cv-01221 and E.D. Tex. No. 2:16-cv-00932 — that is, the campaign ended in settlement rather than judgment. No financial terms were disclosed in that item, and I found no reported damages figure, verdict, or license royalty for VIZIO. Comparable Acacia disclosures — carried by BusinessWire and Benzinga on 2015-08-13 for the Sony settlement, by Acacia's 8-K for GM/Valeo, and by Acacia's March 2015 8-K for Dell/HP — likewise resolve litigation without stating dollar amounts, and the press releases are boilerplate with no executive commentary beyond Acacia's standard "industry leader in patent licensing" language.

Where accounts differ, and where coverage goes beyond the record. The docket numbers are inconsistent across secondary sources: the Acacia 8-K as summarized by MarketExclusive lists a 2015 Delaware VIZIO case as 1:15-cv-01221, while RPX Insight's December 2015 article identifies VIZIO's new Delaware action as 1:15-cv-01222 (01221 being the LG Electronics case). I could not verify independently which is correct, and I flag it as a discrepancy rather than resolving it. Beyond the docket databases and the RPX trade reporting, most of what search surfaces about this dispute is not press at all — e.g., a Mandour Law firm blog post recounting IDT's Texas complaint against Dell and HP, and a Studicata summary of the Delaware court's March 2017 memorandum opinion denying VIZIO summary judgment on enablement and non-infringement (which the aggregator mislabels as a Third Circuit ruling). I found no analyst commentary, industry-reaction pieces, or executive statements specifically about IPR2016-00914 — so any claim about why commentators considered this proceeding significant would not be supportable from published coverage.

Sources

• Filed on behalf of Innovative Display Technologies LLC By: Justin B
• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• Innovative Display competitive analysis - IP Verse
• Petition analysis | IPR2016-00914 | Vizio Inc v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC | Ex Parte
• IPR2016-00914 | Vizio Inc v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC | Ex Parte
• Innovative Display Technologies LLC
• 7384177 | NPE Litigation Database - 7384177
• Ex. 1011 | IPR2015-00753 | Sony Corp v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC | Ex Parte
• 571- 272- 7822
• Innovative Display Techs. LLC v. Acer Inc. - Innovative Display Techs. LLC v. Acer Inc.
• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• 發光面板組件專利訴訟，Innovative Display Technologies 控告Dell等6間公司 - ︿Top

I'll research counsel for the plaintiff-side party. Note: in this PTAB IPR the metadata lists VIZIO, Inc. as Plaintiff(s) (i.e., the Petitioner/challenger), so the "plaintiff" side here is VIZIO's team — complementing the Patent Owner (IDT) roster already covered. Let me verify against PTAB records and firm sources.

Key primary source found. Let me verify the petitioner team details and the petition's counsel block, plus check whether Mayer Brown (listed in a prior section) was actually VIZIO's counsel or another party's.

I'll research the counsel of record for this IPR. Note first that this is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district court case — so the "defendant" framing maps to the Patent Owner, Innovative Display Technologies LLC (the petitioner being VIZIO). Let me confirm and gather counsel details.

Good — I have the core record. Let me verify attorney backgrounds and the related district court litigation counsel.

Let me confirm the remaining attorneys' backgrounds and current firm affiliations.

Threshold clarification: who the "defendant" is here

IPR2016-00914 is not a district court infringement action — it's a PTAB inter partes review, so there is no plaintiff/defendant. The party alignment is:

Because you asked for counsel for the defendant(s), the answer below is the counsel of record for the Patent Owner, Innovative Display Technologies LLC. I've added the petitioner's team at the end for completeness, since the caption lists VIZIO first.

One further structural note: this IPR was instituted and joined to IPR2015-01867 (K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. IDT) on 2016-10-04, and IPR2016-00914 was terminated under 37 C.F.R. § 42.72; all further filings went into the '1867 record. So the operative docket sheet for the joined proceeding is IPR2015-01867, and counsel appearing "for IDT" after joinder appear in that file.

---

Counsel of record for Patent Owner Innovative Display Technologies LLC

Source of record: Patent Owner's Power of Attorney under 37 C.F.R. § 42.10(b), dated May 9, 2016, appointing practitioners "at Bragalone Conroy P.C., 2200 Ross Ave., Suite 4500 West, Dallas, TX 75201" for IPR2016-00910 and IPR2016-00914; corroborated by the Board's Institution Decision (Paper 8, Oct. 4, 2016) and the Jan. 10, 2017 oral hearing transcript in the joined proceedings.

No local counsel or in-house counsel appear in this IPR. All five are from the single Dallas boutique (Bragalone Conroy P.C., since reorganized as Bragalone Olejko Saad PC). IDT is an Acacia Research affiliate; its real parties-in-interest in this patent family were identified elsewhere as Acacia Research Group LLC and Acacia Research Corporation (see IDT's Mandatory Notices, IPR2014-01357), but no Acacia in-house attorney signed papers in IPR2016-00914.

Caveats on the record

• Pro hac vice status is partly unverified. The May 9, 2016 POA lists Bragalone and Kennedy as "pro hac vice to be filed." I found contemporaneous pro hac vice motions for both in the companion cases (IPR2015-01866/-01867/-01868, filed Dec. 15, 2016), but I did not locate a grant order specific to IPR2016-00914 — plausible, since the case was terminated and consolidated into the '1867 record before much independent activity occurred. Treat their admission in this file as not independently confirmed.
• The Board's own caption for Patent Owner (Institution Decision, Paper 8) listed only Kimble, Saad, and Kliewer — the standard three-attorney caption format — while the POA and hearing transcript show the broader five-attorney team. Both are consistent; the caption is not exhaustive.
• PTAB filings are not on PACER; the authoritative source is PTAB E2E / PTAB-CTS (ptacts.uspto.gov) and the IPR2015-01867 docket, since filings were consolidated there post-joinder. Note that RPX's landing page for this docket is mislabeled as "K.J. Pretech v. Innovative Display Technologies" — the petitioner in IPR2016-00914 is VIZIO.

---

Petitioner's counsel (context, not the "defendant" side)

Because VIZIO is the named first party, its team appears in the same record:

• Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP — Brian Buroker (bburoker@gibsondunn.com) and Blair Silver; Jason C. Lo also appeared at the Jan. 10, 2017 hearing. (Washington, D.C. office for the IPR team.)
• Mayer Brown LLP, Chicago (71 S. Wacker Dr.) — Robert G. Pluta, Amanda K. Streff, Baldine B. Paul, Anita Y. Lam, and Saqib J. Siddiqui. Mayer Brown was lead petitioner counsel in the joined Pretech IPRs on the same light-emitting-panel patent family.

---

Sources

• IDT Power of Attorney (May 9, 2016), IPR2016-00910 & -00914 — PTAB-CTS document.
• PTAB Institution Decision, VIZIO, Inc. v. Innovative Display Techs. LLC, IPR2016-00914, Paper 8 (Oct. 4, 2016) (Giannetti, APJ) — grants institution and joinder with IPR2015-01867.
• Record of Oral Hearing, IPR2015-01866/-01867/-01868 (Jan. 10, 2017), Detroit — counsel appearances for both sides.
• PTAB E2E dockets: IPR2016-00914 and IPR2015-01867; Docket Alarm entries for the companion IDT IPRs.
• Firm bios: Nelbum (Justin B. Kimble); Super Lawyers (Jeffrey R. Bragalone, Terry A. Saad — Bragalone Olejko Saad PC); Fed. Cir. Form 8A, In re Motorola Solutions, No. 25-134 (Aug. 11, 2025) (Bragalone/Olejko/Saad for Acacia Research Group).
• Delaware Display Group LLC v. VIZIO, Inc., No. 1:13-cv-02112 (D. Del.) docket (Justia) — parallel district-court counsel roster for the same patent family.