XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. Cisco Systems, Inc. et al.

I'll research this case across multiple sources.

Case Overview — XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. Cisco Systems, Inc. & Meraki LLC, No. 6:21-cv-00623-ADA (W.D. Tex.)

Parties and their business. Plaintiff XR Communications, LLC, doing business as Vivato Technologies, is a Delaware LLC with its principal place of business at 2809 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, California (Compl., Dkt. 1 ¶ 10, reproduced at RPX Insight). It is a patent-assertion entity, not an operating company: the original Vivato was founded in 2000 as an $80M+ venture-backed Wi-Fi infrastructure startup (phased-array/beamforming base stations, investors' engineers including Ken Biba and Skip Crilly), and it ceased operations around 2005. Its patent assets were purchased for roughly $1.4M through Global Solutions Engineering → Wayout Wireless → Vivato Networks, and the portfolio now asserts through a Venice, California address with no product business (see RPX/Mondaq campaign analysis, "Stays Lifted, Wireless Networking Campaign Roars To Life"; RPX docket labels the plaintiff "NPE (L)" in case trackers). Defendants are Cisco Systems, Inc. (San Jose, CA), the networking and wireless-infrastructure market leader, and Meraki LLC (San Francisco), its cloud-managed networking subsidiary — together the makers of the Catalyst/Aironet/Meraki access-point and wireless-controller lines. Plaintiff-side counsel is Reza Mirzaie of Russ August & Kabat (Los Angeles), with James N. Pickens admitted pro hac vice (Dkt. 5); Cisco/Meraki are represented by Sarah E. Piepmeier of Perkins Coie with Peter M. Kohlhepp of Carlson Caspers in Texas (appearances at Dkts. 12; deposition transcript identifying Kohlhepp in the coordinated W.D. Tex. cases).

Accused technology. The complaint targets Cisco's and Meraki's enterprise Wi-Fi gear that implements MIMO/multi-user MIMO ("MU-MIMO") beamforming — primarily 802.11ac Wave 2 and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) access points and controllers. The infringement contentions identify the Cisco Catalyst 9100 and 9800 series (9105, 9115, 9117, 9120, 9124, 9130, 9800-L/CL/30/80, embedded wireless), Meraki MR36/44/45/46/46E/55/56/76/86, and the older Aironet 1562/1810/1815/1830/1850/2800/3800/4800 families plus the 8540 controller (product list reproduced in later claim-construction materials filed in the related E.D. Tex. case, Dkt. 172-31, and Compl. at 31). Separately, the complaint maps Meraki's "Auto RF"/Auto Channel and Cisco RRM channel-planning features onto the access-point-coordination claims (Compl. ¶ 67, discussing Meraki "High Density Wi-Fi Deployments" and "Meraki Auto RF" documentation). This is not a discrete "product" case so much as a standards-implementation case: the theory is that compliance with 802.11ac/ax MU-MIMO and enterprise RF-management features practices the claims. That framing drew a vigorous § 112 indefiniteness defense and a PTAB attack on essentially the whole specification family.

Patents, posture, and why it matters. Although the case metadata lists only U.S. Patent No. 10,594,376, the complaint and the parties' claim-construction papers in this very case addressed four patents: the '376 patent ("Directed wireless communication," issued Mar. 17, 2020, earliest priority Nov. 3, 2003) — a networking apparatus whose processor/transceiver/smart-antenna combination sends a probing signal to multiple clients, collects feedback, and places "transmission peaks" and "transmission nulls" in spatially distributed patterns so two data streams reach two clients simultaneously; the '235 patent (10,715,235), a same-specification sibling claiming feedback-based weighting values for beam-formed transmissions; the '939 patent (8,289,939, "Signal communication coordination"), which claims multi-access-point coordination (ascertaining one AP is receiving a signal and restraining others from transmitting — the Meraki Auto RF theory); and the '728 patent (7,729,728), an earlier member of the same beamforming family (see Plaintiff's Opening Claim Construction Brief, Case No. 6:21-cv-623-ADA, reproduced at PTABCTS; joint claim-construction statement language at Dkt. 76). The case was filed in the Waco Division and assigned to Judge Alan D. Albright, the highest-volume patent judge in the country; venue rested on Cisco's Austin and San Antonio campuses (Compl. ¶ 16), and Cisco did not (on the public record I located) move to transfer. A Markman hearing was held September 1, 2022, and the Claim Construction Order issued September 30, 2022 (Dkt. 56 — the order text appears at Dkt. 81-8), construing (among others) "transmission peaks" and "transmission nulls," "802.11," and the processor/transceiver/smart-antenna limitations contested under § 112(6); later filings confirm at least some terms were given plain-and-ordinary meaning without invoking § 112(6). In parallel, Samsung, Samsung Electronics America, Google, and Cisco filed the IPR2022-00613 petition against claims 1–34 of the '376 on March 3, 2022; the Board instituted on October 20, 2022, and terminated the proceeding on October 3, 2023 on the parties' joint motion after settlement — a termination that triggered a failed collateral attack by Ubiquiti (IPR2024-00148 and motion to reopen/join, denied; see PTAB decision).

The case matters for three reasons. First, it is the tail end of a decade-long, unusually well-documented NPE campaign: XR/Vivato launched in April 2017 against Aruba, ASUS, Belkin, Cisco, D-Link, NETGEAR, Ruckus, and Ubiquiti; the PTAB cancelled all asserted claims of the '296 and '728 patents in IPR2018-00725/726/763/764/1017/1018; the '231 patent was held indefinite in N.D. Cal. and that judgment was affirmed (including as to Cisco) by the Federal Circuit on May 18, 2023, No. 2022-1785 (nonprecedential, opinion), ending Cisco's C.D. Cal. case, 2:17-cv-02951, by final judgment on April 15, 2022 (Dkt. 42). The '376 ('613 IPR) and '235 were the surviving re-assertion vehicles — patents from the same family, issuing years later, aimed at the 802.11ax generation. Second, the '613 termination illustrates the current NPE/PTAB dynamic precisely: petitioner-defendants (including Cisco) settled out from under a fully instituted IPR shortly before the final written decision, and the Board refused to let a non-settling defendant (Ubiquiti) use joinder to resurrect the challenge — leaving the '376's validity formally untested by the PTAB. Third, the campaign spread the same patents across forums, producing a body of claim-construction law on "transmission peaks/nulls" and § 112(6) for antenna-control limitations that later cases (e.g., the '376 count against AT&T/Verizon in E.D. Tex., No. 2:23-cv-00202, dismissed with prejudice as to the '376 on February 23, 2024, Dkt. 73) continued to litigate.

Sourcing caveats. (1) The metadata in this assignment lists only the '376, but the complaint, claim-construction briefing, and IPR mandatory notices place four patents ('939, '376, '235, '728) in this case; I have described all four and flagged the discrepancy rather than silently resolving it. (2) The metadata describes the case as "active," but public trackers show it closed: RPX records closure on 07/12/2023 and Ex Parte's tracker shows 05/22/2023 — the two dates conflict, no public order or dismissal terms are visible to me, and I have not pulled the PACER docket directly, so the precise closing entry and whether dismissal was with prejudice (versus a confidential settlement) are unverified. (3) I could not retrieve the full text of the September 30, 2022 Claim Construction Order; the characterization of the Court's § 112(6) rulings rests on how later filings describe that order, not on the order itself. (4) Accused-product lists come from contentions as quoted in later case filings and should be confirmed against Dkt. 1 and the Preliminary Infringement Contentions if precision matters.

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and PTAB proceedings.

XR Communications (Vivato) v. Cisco Systems / Meraki, No. 6:21-cv-00623-ADA (W.D. Tex.)

Bottom line: This case never reached trial. It was one of seven parallel W.D. Tex. suits XR filed the same day in June 2021, it got through claim construction before Judge Albright (Markman hearing 2022-09-01; order 2022-09-30), and then it went away in mid‑2023 while a joint IPR on the '376 patent (IPR2022-00613) was pending. The docket closed in spring/summer 2023, and Cisco was formally terminated out of the IPR on 2023-07-13 — i.e., the district court case and Cisco's IPR participation ended together, consistent with a confidential settlement. No verdict, no JMOL/new-trial/fee motion, no Federal Circuit appeal.

A caveat up front: I was able to pull the complaint, docket excerpts (through roughly the first year), the Markman-related filings, and PTAB docket metadata, but I could not retrieve the full PACER docket sheet for 2022–2023. Items I could not verify from a source are flagged [unverified] rather than asserted.

---

1. Filing and initial pleadings (2021)

The complaint framed the case as a beamforming/MU‑MIMO story: Vivato (founded 2000, Venice, CA; inventors including Alamouti, Biba, Crilly, Brennan, Casas, Tarokh) asserted patents on "adaptively steered antenna technology and beam switching technology" against Cisco's and Meraki's Wi‑Fi access point line. RPX records three patents-in-suit and 92 accused products; the case metadata you supplied centers on the '376 patent (10,594,376, "Directed wireless communication," issued 2020-03-17). The related-case filings confirm the campaign docket numbers: 6:21-cv-619 (Amazon), -622 (ASUSTeK), -623 (Cisco/Meraki), -625 (Google), -626 (Samsung), -695 (Microsoft).

Note the earlier, separate Cisco history: XR had sued Cisco in C.D. Cal. in 2017 (XR Commc'ns v. Cisco Sys., 2:17-cv-02951, consolidated into 8:17-cv-00596), which produced IPR2018-00762 (Cisco v. XR, on the '231 patent) — a different patent family track from the '376.

2. Claim construction (2022) — the substantive center of gravity

• 2022-03-03 — IPR2022-00613 petition filed against the '376 patent by Samsung/Google with Cisco (see §6).
• D.I. 44 — XR's Opening Claim Construction Brief. XR's stated strategy was plain meaning plus narrow clarification, accusing defendants of "importing artificial and extraneous baggage, often from extrinsic evidence that they have cherry-picked."
• The court issued preliminary claim constructions in advance of the hearing (Judge Albright's practice; the preliminary constructions are cited as an exhibit in later PTAB papers).
• 2022-09-01 — Markman hearing; transcript later cited across the campaign.
• 2022-09-30 — Claim Construction Order (Dkt. 56). This order became the reference construction for the whole XR campaign: later claim-construction disclosures in the related ASUSTeK/Microsoft/Samsung cases expressly incorporate "the Sept. 30, 2022 Markman Order" and D.I. 44 from this Cisco case. One concrete outcome carried forward: "transmission nulls" was given its plain and ordinary meaning, i.e., "portions of one or more spatially distributed patterns of electromagnetic signals where transmissions of no or insignificant energy are selectively directed."

So Markman was a mixed/plain-meaning-driven result rather than a sweeping defense win — which matters, because it meant the case's fate turned on validity (the IPR) rather than on a dispositive construction.

3. Pre-trial motions of substance

• Motion to dismiss: none appears to have been filed; defendants answered. [unverified beyond the July–August 2021 docket]
• Motion to transfer (§1404(a)): I found no evidence Cisco moved to transfer this case. That is notable in context: Google did move to transfer in its companion case (6:21-cv-625, motion filed 2021-11-24, denied by Judge Albright), and that line of cases produced the Federal Circuit's November 2022 mandamus decisions faulting Judge Albright for deferring venue rulings until after fact discovery (precedential opinion in In re Aire Technology, Nos. 2022-0162/-0163/-0164, 2022-11-08). XR's Cisco case was not one of the three mandamus vehicles.
• Motion to stay pending IPR: [unverified] — I could not confirm a stay motion or ruling on the retrievable docket. Because IPR2022-00613 was not instituted until 2022-10-20 (after Markman), any stay request would have come late; W.D. Tex. practice at the time rarely stayed post-institution.
• Summary judgment: none — the case resolved before dispositive motions. [unverified]

4. Discovery milestones of strategic significance

• Infringement contentions (P.R. 3-1/3-2) were served in 2021 and became exhibits across the campaign; XR's preliminary contentions from the Cisco, Google, and Samsung cases were all submitted into IPR2022-00613 as Patent Owner exhibits 2006–2008 — i.e., XR used its district-court contentions as IPR evidence of the scope of the prior art dispute.
• Expert discovery: Cisco's IPR-side expert was Dr. Zhi Ding (deposed 2022-01-30, transcript later an IPR exhibit); XR's experts included Dr. Branimir Vojcic (validity) and James A. Proctor, Jr. (invalidity, in the ASUSTeK case).
• Third-party/related-party discovery: a 2022-12-19 deposition transcript in the record bears the Cisco/Meraki caption alongside Microsoft, reflecting coordinated discovery across XR's Wi‑Fi defendants on common invalidity and damages themes.
• The practically significant discovery event was venue/coverage discovery on the accused Catalyst 9100/9800 access point line (the products named across the campaign's contentions), which is where the case's damages exposure sat.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial date was reached, no verdict, no JMOL / new-trial / §285 fee motion. Trial-setting in this case was overtaken by the IPR and then by settlement.

6. Parallel PTAB proceedings on the '376 patent — and their effect

IPR2022-00613 (the operative one):

• Filed 2022-03-03 by Samsung Electronics Co. and Samsung Electronics America, with Google and Cisco in the petitioner group; all claims 1–34 of the '376 challenged on obviousness grounds (Gerlach in view of Barratt; Okamoto as secondary reference for dependent claims 10, 19, 21).
• Instituted 2022-10-20.
• XR's Patent Owner Response (Ex. 2006–2018, incl. its district-court contentions from the Cisco, Google, and Samsung cases, the 2022-09-01 Markman transcript, and the Dkt. 56 Markman order) argued that the primary reference Gerlach discloses neither the claimed "processor" nor the "transceiver" coupled to the smart antenna, and attacked the petition's

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

No mainstream press yet. Let me search news-specific angles.

Still no press coverage. Let me try more targeted news searches.

Press and analyst coverage of XR Communications v. Cisco Systems/Meraki, No. 6:21-cv-00623-ADA

Short answer: this case generated essentially no case-specific press. Across searches keyed to the caption, the party names ("XR Communications" / "Vivato" / Cisco / Meraki), the '376 patent number and the IPR2022-00613 proceeding, I did not find a single article from Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, JD Supra or any mainstream or trade outlet that reports on this docket as such. What the searches returned instead were court filings (hosted on CourtListener, PTABCTS and RPX Insight document pages), free docket mirrors (Justia, Unified Patents, Ex Parte, RPX Insight), and PTAB papers — not journalism. Given that the case settled quietly in mid-2023 without a trial, verdict, or public injunction fight, that silence is itself consistent with the record summarized in the earlier sections. I flag that I exhausted my search budget before running every possible angle (e.g., a direct Law360 site search or a Bloomberg Law terminal search), so I can only say no coverage was findable by open search, not that none exists behind paywalls.

The campaign, rather than this case, drew the commentary. The one piece of genuine analysis I located that treats Cisco as part of the Vivato story is an RPX-authored piece syndicated on Mondaq ("Stays Lifted, Wireless Networking Campaign Roars To Life Against Both Existing And New Defendants"), which frames the campaign as relaunched after the 2018–19 PTAB stays were lifted and lists Cisco among the April 2017 original defendants alongside Aruba, ASUSTek, Belkin, D-Link, NETGEAR, Ruckus and Ubiquiti, while noting the 2021 shift of new filings into West Texas (XR sued Ruckus in N.D. Cal. and ARRIS in W.D. Tex.). In the portion of the article I could retrieve it does not discuss No. 6:21-cv-00623 specifically, so it should be cited for campaign context and for the analyst characterization of Vivato as a serial filer, not as reporting on this docket.

The closest thing to press on the underlying dispute is about a different case. VitalLaw / IP Law Daily (Robert Margolis, J.D.) reported on 2023-05-18 that the Federal Circuit affirmed the N.D. Cal. and C.D. Cal. holdings that claims 1–9 and 12 of Vivato's U.S. Patent No. 6,611,231 were invalid as indefinite, with "search receiver logic" construed as means-plus-function and no adequate corresponding structure disclosed — a piece whose party list includes Cisco Systems and Perkins Coie but which concerns XR Communications v. Dris/D-Link (the 2017 California wave), not the '376 case here. It is the only lawyer-facing trade write-up I found in the Vivato campaign, and it explains the legal significance of the § 112 indefiniteness theme that later resurfaced in this case's claim-construction fight, but it says nothing about Cisco's W.D. Tex. docket.

No reported numbers exist — and the record explains why. No outlet I found reported a damages demand, a settlement figure, or any market impact for this case, and the PTAB's own order terminating Cisco's co-petition alongside the settled petitioners kept the money confidential: in Paper 34 of IPR2022-00613 (July 6, 2023), the Board granted the parties' joint request to treat the settlement agreements (Exs. 2019–2022) as business confidential information under 35 U.S.C. § 317 and 37 C.F.R. § 42.74, while reciting the parties' statement that they had jointly moved to dismiss the pending district-court litigation on the '376 and "do not contemplate any future litigation or proceeding involving the [’376 patent] in the foreseeable future." That order is also the best public corroboration of the settlement that ended this case — a fact the press never reported. The only public "disclosures" of the litigation I found are defendant-side SEC filings (e.g., NETGEAR's 10-Q and Ubiquiti's 10-Q discussing the Vivato suits), which are primary-source corporate statements rather than press coverage and concern the earlier California cases. Anyone needing a public narrative of this specific case will have to rely on the docket, the PTAB papers, and the CourtListener exhibits already cited in the earlier sections rather than on published reporting.

Sources

• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS WACO DIVISION
• Exhibit 11 – #81, Att. #12 in XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. AT&T Inc. (E.D. Tex., 2:23-cv-00202) – CourtListener.com - XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. AT&T Inc.
• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS WACO DIVISION XR COMMUNICATIONS, LLC, S dba VIVATO TECHNOLOGIES, ...

• DOCKET NO

• Case 6:21-cv-00623-ADA Document 1 Filed 06/16/21 Page 1 of 87
• Cisco Systems, Inc
• Cisco Catalyst 9100 Series and Catalyst 9800 Series products, including Cisco Catalyst 9100, 9105w, 9105i, 9115, 9117, 9120, 912...
• XR Communications LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. et al
• Cisco Federal Litigation Filings
• 6:21-cv-00623 | XR Communications LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. et al | RPX Insight
• Case 2:23-cv-00202-JRG-RSP Document 81-8 Filed 07/15/24 Page 1 of 10 PageID #: 1841
• Cases

I'll research plaintiff's counsel of record from the docket and related filings.

Plaintiff's counsel of record — XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. Cisco Systems, Inc. & Meraki LLC, No. 6:21-cv-00623-ADA (W.D. Tex.)

Bottom line: Plaintiff is represented exclusively by the Los Angeles patent boutique Russ August & Kabat ("RAK"). Every plaintiff-side filing I can see on the docket (Dkts. 1–4, 7, 9–11) is signed by Reza Mirzaie; one additional RAK lawyer (James N. Pickens) was the subject of a pro hac vice notice at Dkt. 5, and Minna Y. Chan appears on the record as XR's counsel at a December 2022 deposition in the coordinated W.D. Tex. cases. I found no Texas local counsel, and no in-house counsel, appearing for XR in this case.

Counsel identified

Additional RAK attorneys whose names appear in Vivato signature blocks in the cognate W.D. Tex./E.D. Tex. cases — Paul A. Kroeger (CA SBN 229074), Neil A. Rubin (CA SBN 250761), Adam Hoffman (CA SBN 218740), Jacob Buczko, and RAK founding partner Marc A. Fenster (CA SBN 181067) — I could not individually confirm as appearances in No. 6:21-cv-00623, and I do not list them as counsel of record here.

Key negatives / things I could not verify

• No local counsel. Nothing in the docket text I retrieved shows a Texas firm appearing for XR in this case; all plaintiff papers were filed from RAK's Los Angeles office. (By contrast, in the 2023–25 E.D. Tex. cases XR added Andrea L. Fair of Miller Fair Henry PLLC, Longview, TX, as Texas counsel — that appearance belongs to those cases, not this one.)
• No in-house counsel. XR is a non-practicing entity with no litigation counsel of record other than RAK.
• PHV orders not confirmed. Because the free docket snapshots stop in mid-2021 (Justia's last retrieval is July 8, 2021) and I could not pull the PACER docket directly, I cannot confirm the order granting Pickens's (or anyone else's) pro hac vice admission, nor whether any RAK lawyer withdrew before the case closed.

Corrections to the earlier case summary

1. Dkt. 5 is not an admission. The prior section describes Dkt. 5 as Pickens being "admitted pro hac vice." The docket text reads "Pro Hac Vice Letter to James N. Pickens" — in W.D. Tex. practice a Clerk-issued letter flagging that a PHV motion is required. Treat his admission as likely but unverified.
2. Timestamp caveat on the case's status. As noted previously, public trackers show this case closed (RPX: 07/12/2023; Ex Parte: 05/22/2023) while the assignment metadata says "active." That affects only whether counsel remain "of record" today — it does not change who represented XR while the case was live.

Sourcing. Justia docket for No. 6:21-cv-00623 (entries through July 8, 2021) — https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/6:2021cv00623/[1137856](/patent/1137856); Unified Patents litigation portal docket text — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6:21-cv-00623; Dec. 19, 2022 deposition transcript (appearances page listing Minna Chan for XR and the 6:21-cv-00623 caption) — https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.[222063](/patent/222063)/gov.uscourts.txed.222063.170.34.pdf; RAK signature blocks and PTAB mandatory notices (Philip Wang lead, Mirzaie/Conkle backup) — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00209/Netflix_Inc._v._Realtime_Adaptive_Streaming_LLC/docs/05-04-2023-Patent_Owner/Notice__Updated_Mandatory_Notice-37-Patent_Owner_Updated_Mandatory_Notices.pdf and https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555050](/patent/1555050)/download-documents?artifactId=UvtXzg_UgikUXK7SfKs9JSQo21QtAvi5wsmdg2c2wD3xZx3HvE8O4Iw; RAK letterhead appearances in the 2017 C.D. Cal. wave — https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/14485064.

I'll research defense counsel of record for Cisco and Meraki in this case.

Defense counsel of record — Cisco Systems, Inc. & Meraki LLC, No. 6:21-cv-00623-ADA

What the record actually shows. Cisco and Meraki have been jointly represented and have filed every defense paper through a single team. The ECF docket confirms one appearance as counsel of record (Perkins Coie), while the later deposition transcript in the coordinated W.D. Tex. proceedings confirms a second, Minneapolis-based trial lawyer (Carlson Caspers) appearing for the same two defendants. Below I separate what is docket-verified from what rests on later transcripts.

Confirmed on the docket of 6:21-cv-00623

That appearance notice is the only defense appearance visible on the public docket extracts I could reach: the Justia docket sheet is truncated at July 8, 2021, and the Unified Patents text docket is likewise a partial (through late 2021) rendering. Because the case ran to a 2022 Markman order (Dkt. 56, Sept. 30, 2022) and closed in 2023, additional appearances by other Perkins Coie and Carlson Caspers attorneys almost certainly exist on the docket but are not captured in the free extracts — these should be confirmed against the PACER docket sheet.

Confirmed by court transcript (appearance, not necessarily ECF appearance)

Not identified

• No in-house counsel (Cisco or Meraki legal department) appears in any filing, transcript, or docket extract I located; Cisco typically litigates through outside counsel with in-house oversight that does not enter an appearance.
• I was not able to verify the counsel who handled IPR2022-00613 for Cisco before the PTAB within my search budget; that team may differ from the district-court team and should be pulled from the PTAB mandatory notices in that proceeding rather than assumed.
• No sealed-defense-counsel issue is indicated — the appearances here are public — but the post-July-2021 docket (including whatever appearances accompanied the 2022 claim-construction briefing and the 2023 dismissal/settlement) was not visible to me.

Consistency flags with the existing summary

1. Prior section vs. my findings — consistent, but understated. The prior summary described "Sarah E. Piepmeier of Perkins Coie with Peter M. Kohlhepp of Carlson Caspers in Texas." The refined picture: Piepmeier is the ECF counsel of record (San Francisco), Kohlhepp is the Minneapolis lead trial lawyer (not Texas-based), and Kanetzky is the Austin-based Texas counsel. Kohlhepp's firm is Minnesota-headquartered and he is admitted pro hac vice, so "in Texas" should be read as appearing in the Texas case, not Texas office.
2. Case status. As flagged in the prior section: RPX shows closed 07/12/2023 and Ex Parte shows closed 05/22/2023, both inconsistent with the "active" metadata. That matters for counsel identification because any 2023 withdrawal notices of appearance (or a substitution accompanying settlement) would be on the docket I could not reach — so a currently "correct" counsel list should be pulled from the final docket sheet, not from 2021 appearances.
3. Party caption varies across filings ("Meraki, LLC," "Meraki LLC," "Cisco Systems, Inc. et al."); no separate counsel appears for Meraki — it is jointly represented throughout.

Recommended verification step: pull the PACER docket for 6:21-cv-00623 and search for "Notice of Attorney Appearance," "Pro Hac Vice," and "Withdrawal" between Dkt. 16 (Answer, Aug. 2021) and the closing entry; the Answer and Dkt. 76 signature blocks will list the full defense roster.