Wildseed Mobile LLC v. Google LLC et al.

Case Overview & Background

Parties. Wildseed Mobile LLC is a Texas LLC with a Waco place of business (510 Austin Avenue) and is categorized as a non-practicing entity (NPE) in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database. The asserted patents trace to early-2000s mobile-device R&D by inventors G. Eric Engstrom, Peter Zatloukal, and Tyrol Graham (the '414 patent's family claims priority to a 2001 provisional application), and Wildseed's ownership derives from an assignment from Varia Holdings LLC recorded November 8, 2021 — weeks before suit — suggesting an acquired-patent monetization play (assignment recorded in the '040/'169 file history; complaint, Dkt. 1; Stanford NPE database case 258192). Defendants Google LLC and YouTube, LLC are operating companies: Google develops the Android/Google Pixel ecosystem and operates ad-serving and video platforms; YouTube (a Google subsidiary) operates the YouTube app/website and its subscription-notification and advertising systems. Wildseed sued both on December 1, 2021 in Waco, before Judge Alan D. Albright (6:21-cv-01245-ADA).

Asserted patents, accused technology, and claims. The case-level metadata designates U.S. Patent No. 10,869,169 (the '169 patent) as the patent at issue, and the operative First Amended Complaint (Dkt. 45, filed Feb. 28, 2022) asserted a family of five Wildseed patents: (1) '414 (7,376,414) — "inserting advertisements into broadcast content": a cellular device autonomously sends to a server user information "taken from a message" so the server can select/play targeted content and advertisements, with playback-state recording; (2) '960 (9,141,960) — "Venue and Event Recommendations for a User of a Portable Media Player Device": a server infers entertainment preferences from media on a user's device plus location and recommends nearby venues/events; (3) '021 (10,251,021) and (4) '040 (10,959,040) — later continuations in the same venue/event-recommendation family; and (5) '169 (10,869,169) — "generating and sending a hot link associated with a user interface to a device": generating a message (e.g., SMS/IM/email) embedding a hot link/action that instructs the receiving device to perform an activity when the UI element is selected (Fed. Cir. 24-2178, 2/13/2026). Per the complaints, Wildseed accused Google Pixel smartphones and Google/YouTube servers that deliver video content and video advertisements to mobile devices through the YouTube app, YouTube website, and Chrome, including YouTube subscriber-notification messages whose video IDs/URLs function as hot links (original complaint Count I, Ex. 1012/1014 in IPR2023-00245/00248; FAC Dkt. 45).

Procedural posture and venue. The case was assigned to Judge Albright in the Waco Division — at the time the nation's most-frequented patent venue for NPE filings — with Wildseed pleading venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) based on Google's regular and established offices in Austin and San Antonio and personal jurisdiction over Google's substantial Texas operations. Before any answer, Wildseed filed a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice on April 4, 2022 (Dkt. 50) and refiled the same day as 6:22-cv-00357-ADA asserting the same five patents (AO 120 in IPR2023-00245 record). By agreed order dated August 29, 2022, Judge Albright transferred the refiled case to the Northern District of California (docketed 3:22-cv-04928) — the case that continues today.

Why it matters. This is a textbook NPE/Google encounter with layered defense outcomes. In the transferred N.D. Cal. case, Judge Orrick granted partial judgment on the pleadings, holding the '960, '021, and '040 venue/event-recommendation claims invalid under § 101 as directed to abstract ideas (Casetext/Studicata summaries of Wildseed Mobile LLC v. Google LLC, N.D. Cal. 2023). Meanwhile, Google filed coordinated IPR petitions on November 30, 2022 — including IPR2023-00246 ('960), IPR2023-00247 ('169), and IPR2023-00248 ('414), with companion petitions covering the other family members — and the PTAB issued 2024 final written decisions invalidating essentially all challenged claims as obvious, a pair of rulings Law360 described as "Divided PTAB Sinks Wildseed Mobile IP," including a rare dissent-in-part (IPR2023-00248 FWD, Apr. 9, 2024; IPR2023-00247 FWD, June 3, 2024, 2024 WL 2819590; Fenwick "What's Trending" blog, June 5, 2024). The resulting Federal Circuit appeals show the litigation's broader significance: the court affirmed the Board's '414 invalidation on April 30, 2026 (No. 24-1846) and, on February 13, 2026, vacated and remanded the Board's decision sparing '169 claim 15 because the Board never addressed the claim's instant-messaging (as opposed to SMS) limitation (No. 24-2178). One caveat: I found no well-sourced explanation of why Wildseed dismissed and same-day refiled in April 2022, and the case metadata's single-patent listing ('169) understates the five-patent scope of the actual pleadings.

Wildseed Mobile LLC v. Google LLC et al., No. 6:21-cv-01245-ADA (W.D. Tex., Waco Div.)

Preliminary note on scope

The case metadata lists only U.S. Patent No. 10,869,169 (the '169 patent), but the operative pleading in this case actually asserted five Wildseed patents — 7,376,414; 9,141,960; 10,251,021; 10,959,040; and 10,869,169 — all directed to mobile advertising, targeted recommendations, and "hot link" messaging, with YouTube's ad-insertion practices at the center of the allegations (First Amended Complaint, Dkt. 45, 2022-02-28, copy at Ex. 1013 in IPR2023-00245; complaint analysis on file). I flag where the record only supports a narrower statement.

---

Chronological developments

1. Filing and initial pleadings

• 2021-12-01 — Complaint filed (Dkt. 1). Wildseed Mobile LLC sued Google LLC and YouTube, LLC in W.D. Tex. before Judge Alan D. Albright, alleging infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271 with a jury demand. Case assigned to Judge Albright the same day; AO-120 patent notice filed (Dkt. 2); Rule 7 disclosure (Dkt. 3); summons issued (Dkts. 6–7) (Justia docket; Unicourt docket).
• 2021-12-08 — Returns of service (Dkts. 14–15). Both defendants were served on 2021-12-01, making answers initially due 2021-12-22.
• 2021-12-02 through 12-09 — Pro hac vice admissions. The court (Judge Albright) granted PHV motions for Wildseed's out-of-state counsel (Dacus firm as local counsel; Kramer Day Alberti Lim Tonkovich & Belloli attorneys including Robert Kramer, M. Elizabeth Day, David Alberti, Marc Belloli, Sal Lim, Zachariah Higgins) (Dkts. 8–13 and text orders).
• 2021-12-10 — Agreed extension of answer deadline (Dkt. 17). Google/YouTube appeared through Barry K. Shelton (Dkt. 16) and jointly extended the answer deadline to 2022-02-07.
• 2021-12-28/2022-01-03 — Defense counsel change. Paige Arnette Amstutz appeared for both defendants (Dkt. 18); Shelton's unopposed withdrawal was granted (Dkt. 19; text order 2022-01-03).
• 2022-02-28 — First Amended Complaint (Dkt. 45). Wildseed amended as of right, formally asserting the five patents (including the '169 patent listed in the case metadata) against Google and YouTube and expanding the accused instrumentalities (YouTube mid-roll ad insertion; Google Search/activity-based venue-event recommendations; Google Photos/Meet/Docs "hot link" sharing) (Patexia docket; Ex. 1013 in IPR2023-00245).
• No answer, no counterclaims, and no FRCP 12 motion were ever filed. The dismissal notice affirmatively states it was filed "before service by Defendants of any answer or motion for summary judgment" (Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, Dkt. 50).

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

• None. The action lasted roughly four months and was voluntarily dismissed before any motion to dismiss, transfer, stay pending IPR, summary-judgment motion, or Markman proceeding was filed. The only substantive motion practice was ministerial (PHV admissions; agreed extension; defense counsel withdrawal). Consequently there was no claim-construction (Markman) ruling and no discovery of strategic significance in this case — the case never reached scheduling/claim-construction stages typical of Albright's patent docket.

3. Final disposition in this case

• 2022-04-04 — Voluntary dismissal without prejudice (Dkt. 50). Wildseed filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal under FRCP 41(a)(1)(A)(i), dismissing the entire action without prejudice. The notice was signed by Wildseed's Kramer Day Alberti counsel and Dacus local counsel and certified service on all counsel (copy of Dkt. 50 is Ex. 1014 in IPR2023-00248). Case terminated the same day. No fees, sanctions, or post-dismissal motions followed.

4. Same-day refiling (strategic context for the dismissal)

• 2022-04-04 — Refiled in W.D. Tex. as No. 6:22-cv-00357-ADA, later transferred by stipulation to the Northern District of California, where it became No. 3:22-cv-04928-WHO (docketed 2022-08-29). Operative First Amended Complaint filed 2022-05-09 (N.D. Cal. Dkt. 46). The IPR institution decision in IPR2023-00246 confirms the relationship among the cases (W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-01245 voluntarily dismissed; W.D. Tex. 6:22-cv-00357 = original filing of N.D. Cal. 3:22-cv-04928).
• 2023 — § 101 dismissal of three patent counts in the refiled case. Judge William H. Orrick granted Google's motion for partial judgment on the pleadings (Rule 12(c)), holding the '960, '021, and '040 patent claims directed to abstract ideas (Alice step two: no inventive concept) and dismissing Claims II, III, and IV with prejudice (order granting defendants' motion for partial judgment on the pleadings, N.D. Cal. 3:22-cv-04928, Dkt. 110; reported at Casetext/CourtListener; summary in Studicata). This left only the '414 and '169 counts alive in the refiled litigation. (The precise order date in 2023 was not confirmed in the sources retrieved.)

5. Parallel PTAB IPR proceedings — and their effect

Google filed five IPR petitions on 2022-11-30, after the dismissal/refiling, covering each asserted patent, with Google and YouTube identified as real parties in interest (Patent Owner mandatory notices; IPR2023-00246 institution decision):

Federal Circuit outcomes (both nonprecedential, as of the current date):

• 2026-02-13 — Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile, LLC, No. 24-2178 (Fed. Cir.) (appeal from IPR2023-00247 on the '169 patent): Google appealed the Board's preservation of claim 15 (SMS vs. IM disjunctive limitations). The Federal Circuit agreed the Board violated the APA by analyzing only the SMS limitation and ignoring the IM limitation, vacated the claim-15 determination, and remanded for the Board to address the IM limitation (Prost, Hughes, Stark).
• 2026-04-30 — Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC, No. 24-1846 (Fed. Cir.) (appeal from IPR2023-00248 on the '414 patent): Wildseed challenged the Board's constructions of "taken ... from a message" and "provided information additionally includes." The Federal Circuit (Stark, J.) rejected Wildseed's narrow "verbatim extraction" construction, found no APA violation, and affirmed the Board's unpatentability of claims 1–7 and 9–14 of the '414 patent.

Effect on the litigation: Because the W.D. Tex. case had already been voluntarily dismissed before the IPRs were filed, the IPRs never produced a stay motion in this case. Their practical effect was on the refiled N.D. Cal. case: the '960/'021 cancellations eliminated those counts (independent of the § 101 dismissal), and the PTAB's '414 invalidation (affirmed 2026-04-30) plus the near-total '169 invalidation eviscerated the remaining asserted patents. As of the latest retrieved authority (2026-04-30), the '169 patent's claim 15 remained on remand before the PTAB; the final overall disposition of the refiled N.D. Cal. case was not confirmed in the sources available.

---

Bottom line

This W.D. Tex. case was a short-lived, five-patent infringement suit (metadata notwithstanding, it was not limited to the '169 patent) that ended without any substantive rulings: no answer, no Markman order, no discovery disputes, no trial, and no IPR-based stay — just a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) voluntary dismissal without prejudice on 2022-04-04 (Dkt. 50), four months after filing. The substantive war moved to (a) the refiled, transferred N.D. Cal. action (where the '960/'021/'040 counts were dismissed with prejudice under § 101) and (b) Google's five parallel IPRs, where Google prevailed almost entirely: all '960 claims, all '414 claims (affirmed by the Federal Circuit on 2026-04-30), and all but claim 15 of the '169 patent were held unpatentable, with only claim 15 currently on remand to the PTAB after the Federal Circuit's 2026-02-13 vacatur.

Sourcing caveat: Docket-entry specifics (numbers, dates through 2022-01-03) come from Justia and Unicourt docket records; the dismissal document and amended complaint were verified via PTAB exhibits (Ex. 1014 in IPR2023-00248; Ex. 1013 in IPR2023-00245); IPR institution/FWD dates come from PTAB documents and DocketAlarm/Law360 reporting; Federal Circuit rulings were verified from the slip opinions on Justia/CourtListener. The exact date of Judge Orrick's § 101 order and the certificate-of-cancellation dates for IPR2023-00244/245 were not directly confirmed in retrieved sources and are described accordingly.

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

Good starting points. Let me search for more specific press coverage angles.

Let me dig for additional coverage and specific article headlines.

Press coverage summary

Press coverage of this litigation is thin and almost entirely concentrated in the PTAB/Federal Circuit phase; I found essentially no mainstream or trade reporting on the 2021–2022 W.D. Tex. action itself (no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, or EFF Deeplinks article surfaced in my searches that discusses this case). The one outlet with sustained coverage is Law360, whose case-tracker page, Law360, frames the dispute as one brought by "a litigation outfit targeting the way that ads work on YouTube." Law360's IP newsletter of May 30, 2024 (headline: "Divided PTAB Sinks Wildseed Mobile IP In Wins For Google," carried in its Intellectual Property and Texas feeds) reported that the PTAB "issu[ed] a pair of rulings wiping out claims in two patents" and highlighted "a rare dissent-in-part from an administrative judge who disagreed on how a 2005 Sony patent application fit into the dispute" — i.e., the Board's divided treatment of the Sony/Rothschild prior-art reference that is central to the '169 patent appeal. That same summary is the body text on the Law360 case page, and no damages figure, settlement amount, or market-impact number appears anywhere in the coverage I found — consistent with the fact that the W.D. Tex. case ended in a no-strings voluntary dismissal and the substantive fight moved to the IPRs.

The appellate phase generated more targeted legal-trade coverage. Law360's IP and telecom feeds for April 30, 2026 (law360.co.uk/ip) summarized the Federal Circuit's ruling as a refusal "to undo Google's successful invalidation of claims in a targeted advertising patent owned by tech company Wildseed Mobile LLC, backing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's finding that they were obvious." More analytic treatment came from Thomson Reuters' VitalLaw / IP Law Daily, where Steven Melendez's May 4, 2026 article, VitalLaw, walked through the '414 patent's claim-construction fight over "taken by the cellular device from a message," Google's "Let's play Pebble Beach today"→"golf" derivation hypothetical, and the court's rejection of Wildseed's claim-differentiation and hindsight arguments. This is the only piece I found that goes beyond a headline blurb into the merits of the obviousness and APA analysis.

A few items go somewhat beyond the bare court record. Law360's use of the phrase "litigation outfit" is an editorial characterization (the Stanford NPE database independently classifies Wildseed Mobile as a non-practicing entity), and Patsnap's litigation-blog page, Patsnap, adds datapoint-style framing — duration of the appeal (708 days), "basis of termination: unpatentable," and an estimated patent expiry — rather than reporting new facts. Legal-research summaries on Casetext/vLex and Studicata digest Judge Orrick's § 101 dismissal of the '960/'021/'040 counts but are secondary case-law databases, not news reporting, and I did not find any executive statement, analyst take, or industry-reaction quote from Google, YouTube, or Wildseed in the press.

Caveat on duplication: the Federal Circuit opinions themselves (24-1846, 24-2178) and the CAFC opinion pages are primary sources, not press, and the detailed reasoning quoted in outlet coverage matches those opinions. Given the volume of search results that were court documents and analytics pages rather than journalism, the honest bottom line is that this case has received only modest trade-press attention (primarily Law360 and Thomson Reuters/VitalLaw), with no mainstream or tech-press coverage of the Waco filing, the dismissal, or the refiled N.D. Cal. action.

Sources

• NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential
• PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Federal Circuit allows obviousness finding to stand in Wildseed’s patent dispute with Google
• Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC – CourtListener.com - Combined Opinion
• Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile, LLC – CourtListener.com - 🚀 CourtListener is now available in ChatGPT
• WILDSEED MOBILE, LLC, Appellant v. GOOGLE LLC, Appellee
• NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential
• 25005pwpadmin, Author at U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit - Page 81 of 3623
• 24-2178: GOOGLE LLC v. WILDSEED MOBILE, LLC OPINION, Nonprecedential - U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Technology : Law360 : Legal News & Analysis - Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
• UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS WACO DIVISION
• IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS WACO DIVISION

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff Wildseed Mobile LLC — No. 6:21-cv-01245-ADA (W.D. Tex.)

The plaintiff-side record is straightforward and entirely outside counsel: a Burlingame, California patent-litigation boutique (Kramer Day Alberti Lim Tonkovich & Belloli LLP) served as lead/pro hac vice counsel, with a Tyler, Texas firm (The Dacus Firm, PC) as the only Texas-licensed local counsel of record. No in-house attorney appeared, and nothing was sealed. The roster below is verified primarily from the dismissal notice's signature block (Dkt. 50, copy at Ex. 1014 in IPR2023-00248), the PHV motion docket (Dkts. 8–13, all granted by text orders on Dec. 9, 2021, per Justia/Unicourt), and later PTAB/Federal Circuit records.

Lead / pro hac vice counsel — Kramer Day Alberti Lim Tonkovich & Belloli LLP

(577 Airport Boulevard, Suite 250, Burlingame, CA 94010 — as stated in Dkt. 50. The firm has since renamed to Kramer Alberti Lim & Tonkovich LLP, per Wildseed's April 20, 2023 Updated Mandatory Notices in IPR2023-00246.)

• Robert F. Kramer — lead attorney / name partner (PHV admitted Dec. 9, 2021, Dkt. 11 text order). He is the first signatory of the Rule 41 dismissal (Dkt. 50). Veteran patent trial lawyer (formerly Cooley), known for ITC work including EchoStar's defense against Gemstar-TV Guide; his client roster includes Wildseed Mobile Technologies, LLC, and he later appeared for Wildseed before the Federal Circuit in No. 24-1846 (April 2026 affirmance of the '414 invalidation).
• M. Elizabeth (Margaret Elizabeth) Day — name partner / co-lead signatory (PHV admitted Dec. 9, 2021, Dkt. 10 text order). Second-listed attorney on the dismissal notice; no detailed bio surfaced in the retrieved records, and she is no longer with the renamed firm.
• David L. Alberti — name partner (PHV admitted Dec. 9, 2021, Dkt. 8 text order). Longtime NPE-side patent litigator; continued as Wildseed's counsel in the PTAB IPRs and on the Federal Circuit appeals (No. 24-2178 and 24-1846).
• Sal Lim — name partner (PHV admitted Dec. 9, 2021, Dkt. 12 text order). EE-degree trial lawyer with 25+ years in patent litigation; named a Patexia top-50 most-active patent litigator (2023) and Best Lawyers (2025); later designated lead counsel for Wildseed in the IPRs (IPR2023-00246 mandatory notices).
• Russell Tonkovich — name partner (PHV per Dkt. 50 signature block). Note: the retrieved Justia docket excerpts show PHV text orders only for Dkts. 8–13 (Alberti, Belloli, Day, Kramer, Lim, Higgins); Tonkovich nonetheless signed the dismissal as "pro hac vice," so he was on the record by April 2022, but I could not confirm his individual PHV text order in the sources retrieved.
• Marc Belloli — name partner (PHV admitted Dec. 9, 2021, Dkt. 9 text order).
• Zachariah A. Higgins — associate-level patent litigator (PHV admitted Dec. 9, 2021, Dkt. 13 text order). Went on to be Wildseed's lead appellate advocate: he argued the February 13, 2026 Federal Circuit appeal in Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile, LLC, No. 24-2178, on Wildseed's behalf (then with Kramer Alberti Lim & Tonkovich LLP, Foster City, CA).
• Andrew G. Hamill — attorney (PHV per Dkt. 50 signature block; PHV admission later granted before the PTAB in IPR2023-00246, Aug. 9, 2023, Paper 17). As with Tonkovich, no individual district-court PHV text order appeared in the retrieved excerpts, but he is listed as pro hac vice counsel on the operative dismissal notice.

Local counsel

• Deron R. Dacus — local counsel, The Dacus Firm, PC (821 ESE Loop 323, Suite 430, Tyler, TX 75701; ddacus@dacusfirm.com). He filed the complaint, summons requests, and Rule 7 disclosure (Dkts. 1–7), filed all six PHV motions on behalf of the out-of-state attorneys (Dkts. 8–13), accepted service returns, and co-signed the dismissal (Dkt. 50). Dacus is a prolific East Texas/Waco local counsel for patent plaintiffs appearing before Judge Albright; no substantive role beyond local-counsel duties was needed in this four-month case.

Sourcing caveats

• Because the case was dismissed before any scheduling order, the docket contains no formal "lead counsel" designation; role characterizations are inferred from signature-block order (Kramer first), PHV practice, and later PTAB/Fed. Cir. appearances.
• The PHV text orders I verified cover only six Kramer Day attorneys (Dkts. 8–13). Tonkovich's and Hamill's district-court PHV orders were not visible in the retrieved docket excerpts, though both signed Dkt. 50 as pro hac vice; Hamill's later PTAB PHV grant (IPR2023-00246, Paper 17) corroborates his involvement in the Wildseed campaign.
• Defense counsel (Barry K. Shelton, succeeded by Paige Arnette Amstutz of Scott Douglass & McConnico, Austin) appeared for Google/YouTube, but are outside the scope of this plaintiff-counsel question.

Defense counsel of record — Wildseed Mobile LLC v. Google LLC et al., No. 6:21-cv-01245-ADA (W.D. Tex., Waco Div.)

Because the case was voluntarily dismissed ~4 months after filing and before any answer or substantive motion, only two attorneys ever appeared of record for the defendants, and both appeared jointly for Google LLC and YouTube, LLC (no separate counsel for YouTube, and no in-house counsel of record). Docket entries 16–19 establish the complete defense appearance record:

• Dkt. 16 (Dec. 10, 2021) — Notice of Appearance by Barry K. Shelton for Google and YouTube.
• Dkt. 17 (Dec. 10, 2021) — Joint agreed extension of answer deadline (filed by Shelton).
• Dkt. 18 (Dec. 28, 2021) — Notice of Appearance by Paige Arnette Amstutz for Google and YouTube.
• Dkt. 19 (Dec. 29, 2021) — Google/YouTube's unopposed motion to withdraw Shelton; granted by text order Jan. 3, 2022 (ECF notifications to Shelton terminated).
• Dkt. 50 (Apr. 4, 2022) — Plaintiff's Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) voluntary dismissal, served on counsel of record via CM/ECF; case terminated same day.

1. Paige Arnette Amstutz — defense/Texas local counsel (appeared through dismissal)

• Firm: Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP, 303 Colorado Street, Suite 2400, Austin, TX 78701 (per firm bio and FindLaw/Chambers listings).
• Role: Of-record defense counsel for both Google and YouTube from Dec. 28, 2021 (Dkt. 18) through the Apr. 4, 2022 dismissal — the only defense attorney still on the docket when the case ended. In W.D. Tex. matters she functions as Texas counsel/local counsel for out-of-state lead counsel (she is listed in the same role for Google in the related N.D. Cal. action, alongside Keker, Van Nest & Peters attorneys, per vLex case reports).
• Experience note: A Chambers-ranked Austin IP/commercial litigator named to Patexia's 50 Most Active Patent Litigators (2023); per her firm bio she defended Google LLC in a W.D. Tex. (Waco, Judge Albright) patent case over its Nest products, trying it to a complete defense verdict of non-infringement and invalidity with O'Melveny and Farella Braun + Martel co-counsel. She also appears extensively for Google in other W.D. Tex. patent cases (e.g., Flypsi, Inc. v. Google, LLC, 6:22-cv-00031-ADA).

2. Barry K. Shelton — lead/defense counsel of record (appeared briefly, then withdrew)

• Firm: Austin-based IP trial partner. At the time of his appearance he was a partner whose affiliations have included Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP (where he headed the Austin IP group after joining from Bracewell & Giuliani in 2015) and later Winston & Strawn LLP before forming Shelton IP Law PC / Shelton Coburn LLP. Caveat: the docket entries (Justia/Unicourt) do not state his firm affiliation at the time of appearance, and I could not confirm from retrieved sources which firm he was with in Dec. 2021 – Jan. 2022; flag as unverified.
• Role: Initial of-record defense counsel for both defendants — filed the appearance (Dkt. 16) and the only substantive defense filing (agreed answer extension, Dkt. 17) — then withdrew at defendants' request Jan. 3, 2022 (Dkt. 19; text order), less than a month after the suit was filed.
• Experience note: Registered patent attorney and former electrical engineer; trial and appellate patent lawyer (ITC § 337 investigations, district-court trials, Federal Circuit appeals); his own bio states he has "appeared for defendants in over 160 patent cases in the Waco division of the Western District of Texas," making him one of the most frequent defense counsel before Judge Albright (Shelton Coburn bio).

Notable absences and sourcing notes

• No other defense attorneys appeared of record. The Justia and Unicourt dockets for 6:21-cv-01245 list only Shelton and Amstutz as added party counsel for Google/YouTube; no Google in-house counsel, no Keker Van Nest attorneys (who represent Google in the later N.D. Cal. phase), and no additional firm attorneys appear. Nothing was sealed — the case simply never progressed far enough to generate a fuller counsel signature block (no answer, no Rule 12 motion, no Markman papers).
• No lead-trial designation exists because the case never went to trial or even to answer; Amstutz was the only defense attorney of record at termination, with Shelton's brief early appearance noted above.
• Sources: Docket entries 16–19 and text order of Jan. 3, 2022 (Justia docket, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/6:2021cv01245/[1154978](/patent/1154978); Unicourt, https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-wildseed-mobile-llc-v-google-llc-et-al-[1088981](/patent/1088981)); Dkt. 50 dismissal notice reproduced as Ex. 1014 in IPR2023-00248 (DocketAlarm); Amstutz firm bio (scottdoug.com); Shelton bio (sheltoncoburn.com; Sedona Conference bio; Martindale); Chambers/FindLaw listings for Amstutz.