Litigation
XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. T-Mobile USA, Inc.
consolidated2:23-cv-00204
- Filed
- 2023-05-08
Patents at issue (1)
Plaintiffs (1)
Defendants (1)
Summary
2023 E.D. Tex. cellular-carrier campaign member case against T-Mobile; consolidated for trial with 2:23-cv-00469 and for pretrial with lead case 2:23-cv-00202. Part of the carrier litigation in which '376 was asserted.
Case overview & background
Plain-language overview of the case: parties, accused product, patents at issue, and why the suit matters.
I'll research this case across multiple sources.
Case Overview & Background
Parties. Plaintiff XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies is a patent-holding entity — not an operating company. It holds the former Vivato portfolio (Vivato was an early-2000s "directed wireless"/beamforming Wi‑Fi equipment startup); XR Communications is the assignee of record on all asserted patents and has monetized the portfolio through successive infringement campaigns, first against Wi‑Fi equipment makers (Netgear, Aruba, D‑Link, Ubiquiti, Belkin, Amazon/eero, Google, ASUSTeK, Cisco, Samsung, Microsoft in C.D. Cal. and W.D. Tex. starting 2021) and then, beginning May 2023, against the three national carriers. It is represented by Russ August & Kabat (Reza Mirzaie, Philip Wang, Adam Hoffman, Christian Conkle, Jacob Buczko, Minna Jay) with Andrea Fair of Miller Fair Henry as local counsel. Defendant T‑Mobile USA, Inc. is a nationwide wireless carrier; its counsel of record are Matthew Yungwirth of Duane Morris and Melissa Richards Smith of Gillam & Smith. Critically, Ericsson Inc. and Nokia of America Corporation intervened in September 2023 to defend their own base-station equipment (Ericsson's motion recites that "each of AT&T, Verizon, and T‑Mobile is an Ericsson customer for… 5G cellular base stations" and that it supplies "certain of the accused base stations in Defendants' networks"). See Ericsson Mot. to Intervene, 2:23‑cv‑00202 Dkt. 47 (Sept. 25, 2023); Notice of Appearance, 2:23‑cv‑00204 Dkt. 49.
Accused technology. This is a 5G radio access network case, not a handset case. XR's complaints and infringement contentions accuse "cellular base stations / 5G NR RAN solutions that support 3GPP 5G NR beamforming" (and, for the '939 patent, base stations supporting "3GPP Coordinated Multipoint Transmission and Reception and beamforming") — i.e., massive-MIMO beamforming and CoMP functionality implemented in Ericsson and Nokia RAN gear that T‑Mobile deploys in its network. That supplier-heavy structure is what drove Ericsson's and Nokia's intervention and, later, the Nokia-specific summary-judgment motion. The case was filed with a jury demand.
Patents asserted. The May 8, 2023 complaint and AO 120 form list five patents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,737,511; 10,715,235; 10,594,376; 7,177,369; and 8,289,939.
- '376 (10,594,376 B2, "Directed Wireless Communication," granted Mar. 17, 2020; app. 15/486,245; priority to 2001) — a networking apparatus generates multiple symbol sequences, transmits them over focused beams to multiple client devices, receives feedback about those beams, and modifies the beams accordingly (multi-beam steering with closed-loop feedback).
- '235 (10,715,235 B2, "Directed Wireless Communication," granted July 14, 2020) — continuation in the same directed-wireless family; claims address signal transmission/reception coordination logic, including "transmission nulls" (claim terms per the Aug. 28, 2024 Joint Claim Construction Chart).
- '511 (8,737,511 B2, "Directed MIMO Communications," granted May 27, 2014) — an array of m antenna arrays each producing n beams, paired with MIMO transceivers indexed to specific beams (beamforming + MIMO).
- '369 (7,177,369 B2, "Multipath Communication Methods and Apparatuses," granted Feb. 13, 2007; priority Apr. 27, 2001) — characterize reverse-path multipath delay, derive a "forward path pre-equalization parameter," and modify the forward signal, including "selectively setting different transmission power levels for at least two OFDM tones."
- '939 (8,289,939 B2, granted Oct. 16, 2012) — claims a "wireless input/output (I/O) unit" and "signal transmission/reception coordination logic"; this is the patent XR tied to CoMP + beamforming. (I could verify the '939 claims only through the parties' claim-construction filings; I did not independently confirm its title/abstract.)
Note one important nuance against the single-patent case metadata: the '376 patent was the first to drop out. On Feb. 23, 2024, the parties filed a joint stipulation dismissing Count III (the '376 claim) with prejudice, and the intervenors' '376 declaratory-judgment counterclaims without prejudice, in all three carrier cases including T‑Mobile's — expressly "limited to" the '376 patent. 2:23‑cv‑00202 Dkt. 72 (2:23‑cv‑00204 member case). So the '376 was in suit for roughly nine months and was not among the patents litigated to the 2025 summary-judgment/Markman endgame.
Procedural posture and venue. Filed May 8, 2023 in the Marshall Division, E.D. Tex., as 2:23‑cv‑00204‑JRG‑RSP — District Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap, Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne — one of three parallel complaints filed the same day (AT&T, 2:23‑cv‑00202; Verizon, 2:23‑cv‑00203; T‑Mobile, 2:23‑cv‑00204). The cases were consolidated for pretrial purposes in a Sept. 16, 2024 order of consolidation (2:23‑cv‑00202 Dkt. 93); per the docket metadata, this T‑Mobile case was also consolidated with a later-filed companion, 2:23‑cv‑00469, for trial (I was not able to independently verify the '469 docket in this search, and public reporting instead emphasizes pretrial consolidation into the '202 lead case). Key milestones in the consolidated case: P.R. 3‑1/3‑2 contentions extended to July 28, 2023; Ericsson/Nokia intervention (Sept. 2023); Markman hearing Sept. 11, 2024 before Judge Payne (with Dr. Michael Paul appointed technical advisor, Dkt. 88); 2025 summary-judgment practice, including denial of defendants' motion for partial summary judgment of no literal infringement of the '369 patent (R&R, 2:23‑cv‑00202 Dkt. 267) and withdrawal of Nokia's products-based SJ motion after a stipulated dismissal with prejudice as to Nokia products (Dkt. 193, June 19, 2025); then a joint motion to stay all deadlines and notice of settlement (Oct. 27, 2025, Dkt. 293), a stay extension to Dec. 26, 2025 (Dkt. 296), and finally a joint motion to dismiss granted Jan. 8, 2026 — XR's claims with prejudice, defendants'/intervenors' counterclaims without prejudice (Dkt. 299; AO 120 at Dkt. 300). **No damages figure was disclosed; the terms are confidential
Key legal developments & outcome
Major rulings, motions, claim construction, settlements, and the present posture or final disposition.
I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and patent background.
Good foundation. Now let me get the T-Mobile-specific docket and the '376 IPR picture.
Now let me nail down the '376 IPR history and the consolidated case's trial/post-trial trajectory.
Bottom line
2:23-cv-00204 never went to trial and produced no verdict, no claim-construction order of its own, and no fee award. It was a member case riding in the wake of lead case 2:23-cv-00202 (AT&T) and was fully consolidated for pretrial on 2023-06-13. The single most important development for the patent your case metadata identifies — the '376 patent — occurred on 2024-02-23, when XR dismissed all '376 infringement claims with prejudice; that dismissal was the district-court dividend of XR's pre-FWD settlement in IPR2022-00613. After that, the case was about the '369, '511, '939 and '235 patents. The entire campaign closed on 2026-01-08 via a joint motion to dismiss with prejudice, i.e., a confidential global settlement.
1. Filing and initial pleadings
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-05-08 | XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies files three parallel carrier suits in E.D. Tex. (Marshall): '202 (AT&T), '203 (Verizon), '204 (T-Mobile USA, Inc.). Each asserts the same five patents: 7,177,369; 8,737,511; 8,289,939; 10,594,376; 10,715,235. Accused instrumentalities: 4G LTE / 5G base |
In the news
What the press has reported about this case, summarized with links to the source articles.
I'll research press coverage across several angles.
Initial searches returned mostly court records. Let me target press outlets directly.
Still mostly dockets. Let me try specific outlets and IPR angles.
Press coverage assessment
Searches across the case caption, party names, the ’376 patent number, and the verdict/settlement angles turned up no mainstream or legal-trade news coverage of this specific case in Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, EFF Deeplinks, or JD Supra. What exists is one dedicated trade-press item and a set of litigation-analytics database write-ups; everything else returned was primary court material (PACER/Justia dockets, CourtListener filings, govinfo orders). I should flag a methodological limit: I exhausted my search-step budget after four query rounds, so this is a negative finding from those searches rather than an exhaustive press audit.
IAM (trade press). The only genuinely editorial item located is IAM, published 15 October 2025, headlined "This prolific NPE is now targeting telecom companies." Its summary states that "Vivato Technologies sued Nokia in September and went after Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T earlier this year, asserting wireless communications technology patents" — i.e., IAM frames the carrier campaign (including the T-Mobile suit) as a new assertion front for a plaintiff it characterizes as a prolific NPE. The article appears to sit behind IAM's paywall; I could retrieve only the headline and standfirst, so I cannot report what damages figures, licensing context, or portfolio analysis its body contains. Note that IAM's characterization of XR/Vivato as an NPE is editorial framing rather than a court finding, and it is notable because the same outlet's snippet frames the 2025 filings as the "targeting" of telecom — an angle that goes beyond the bare docket.
Litigation-analytics commentary (not journalism). The substantive "analysis" coverage of this docket is machine-generated or database-derived. PatSnap maintains a case page for 2:23-cv-00204 recording it as filed 8 May 2023, closed 8 January 2026, with five asserted patents and a recorded basis of termination reflected in its title as "settled with prejudice." PatSnap draws the settlement inference from the lead case's Dkt. 299 order: claims dismissed with prejudice, defendants' counterclaims dismissed without prejudice, no damages figure publicly disclosed — inferring a confidential settlement. That inference is consistent with the court record: the joint motion to dismiss (Dkt. 298, dated 22 December 2025) recites that plaintiff and Ericsson "have resolved" the claims, and Judge Gilstrap's 8 January 2026 order dismissed the consolidated cases with prejudice with each party bearing its own costs. PatSnap is a commercial patent-data vendor publishing AI-assisted summaries, not a newsroom; its conclusions (e.g., that the asymmetric dismissal structure is "a protective defense term worth negotiating") are advocacy-flavored takeaways, not reporting.
What the press has not reported. No outlet I found reported a damages demand, a royalty rate, a verdict, licensing terms, or any executive or analyst statement about the T-Mobile action. The docket shows a September 2025 trial setting in the lead case and substantial summary-judgment and damages-expert activity, but I found no press account of those rulings. For legal-press context only, VitalLaw / IP Law Daily (18 May 2023) covered the Federal Circuit's affirmance of indefiniteness holdings against Vivato on the unrelated ’231 patent in Arris and D-Link — useful background on the plaintiff's litigation track record, but not coverage of this case. Any statement that the ’376 or carrier claims settled for a particular sum should be treated as unsourced; the public record stops at dismissal.
Sources
- XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. T- Mobile USA, Inc. - United States Government Publishing Office
- IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS MARSHALL DIVISION
- Complaint analysis | 2:25-cv-00697 | XR Communications LLC v. T-Mobile USA Inc | Ex Parte
- XR Communications v. T-Mobile | Patent Lawsuit 2:23-cv-00204 - XR Communications, LLC v. T-Mobile
- 8161528 | NPE Litigation Database
- XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. T- Mobile USA, Inc.
- 25-697 - XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. T- Mobile USA, Inc.
- XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. T- Mobile USA, Inc.
- Case 2:23-cv-00202-JRG-RSP Document 300 Filed 01/08/26 Page 1 of 1 PagelD #:
- Report and Recommendations – #268 in XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. AT&T Inc. (E.D. Tex., 2:23-cv-00202) – CourtListener.com - 🚀 CourtListener is now available in ChatGPT
- XR Communications v. Amazon & Eero – Wireless Patent Dismissed | PatSnap - Your Agentic AI Partner
- Search court records on patent:(10594376)
Plaintiff representatives
Counsel of record for the plaintiff(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).
- Russ August & Kabat
- Reza Mirzaie · lead counsel
- Philip X. Wang · lead counsel (IPRs)
- Neil Alan Rubin · case attorney
- Marc A. Fenster · case attorney
- Adam S. Hoffman · case attorney
- Christian W. Conkle · case attorney
- James N. Pickens · case attorney
- Paul A. Kroeger · case attorney
- Jacob Buczko · case attorney
- Minna Y. Jay · case attorney
- Jonathan Ma · case attorney
- Qi ("Peter") Tong · Texas counsel
- Miller Fair Henry
- Andrea L. Fair · local counsel
I'll verify plaintiff's counsel against the docket and firm sources rather than relying solely on the case summary.
Good — I have the signature blocks. Now let me pin the actual appearance entries on the '204 docket and confirm the local-counsel and Dallas-office roles.
Now the complaint signature block, any pro hac vice activity, and the individual attorneys' backgrounds.
Plaintiff's Counsel of Record — XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00204-JRG-RSP
Bottom line
Plaintiff XR Communications is represented exclusively by outside counsel — no in-house/XR attorney appears on the '204 docket that I could locate (consistent with XR's NPE posture). The team is a two-firm structure:
- Russ August & Kabat LLP (Los Angeles HQ, with a Dallas office) — lead/briefing/trial counsel, and Reza Mirzaie is the court-designated "attorney in charge"/lead counsel.
- Miller Fair Henry PLLC (Longview, TX) — Andrea L. Fair, East Texas local counsel, added in October 2024.
This confirms the roster in the earlier case sections, with corrections/additions noted at the end.
Counsel table
| Attorney | Role | Firm / office | Bar no. | Basis in record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reza Mirzaie | Lead counsel / attorney in charge; signed the complaint, the 2026 dismissal papers, and most substantive filings | Russ August & Kabat, 12424 Wilshire Blvd., 12th Fl., Los Angeles, CA | CA 246953; USPTO Reg. 69,138 | Notice of Designation of Lead Counsel, Dkt. 133 (Jan. 30, 2025) (designating Mirzaie "as lead counsel for Plaintiff," caption including Case No. 2:23-cv-00204-JRG-RSP); signature blocks throughout |
| Philip X. Wang | Senior patent litigator; lead counsel for XR in the parallel PTAB/IPRs | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 262239; USPTO Reg. 74,621 | Notice of Attorney Appearance, '204 Dkt. 13 (May 24, 2023) — a '204-specific appearance |
| Neil Alan Rubin | Case attorney | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 250761 | Notice of Attorney Appearance, '204 Dkt. 12 (May 24, 2023) — a '204-specific appearance |
| Marc A. Fenster | RAK founder/name partner; appears on plaintiff's signature blocks (appellate and trial-level) | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 181067 | Signature blocks on consolidated filings; not on the Patexia-recorded counsel list for '204 (see caveats) |
| Adam S. Hoffman | Case attorney; on the 2026 dismissal signature block | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 218740 | Recorded as plaintiff's counsel in '204; consolidated signature blocks |
| Christian W. Conkle | Case attorney; infringement-contentions and claim-construction filings | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 306374 | Recorded in '204 (e.g., Notice of Compliance, July 28, 2023, served by Conkle); consolidated signature blocks |
| James N. Pickens | Case attorney | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 307474 | Recorded in '204; consolidated signature blocks |
| Paul A. Kroeger | Case attorney | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 229074 | Recorded in '204; consolidated signature blocks |
| Jacob Buczko | Case attorney | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | (no SBN recited in filings I located) | Recorded in '204; consolidated signature blocks |
| Minna Y. Jay (appears in 2023–24 filings as Minna Y. Chan) | Case attorney | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 305941 (same number under both names) | Recorded in '204; consolidated signature blocks |
| Jonathan Ma | Case attorney (appears in later-stage filings) | Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles | CA 312773 | Aug. 28, 2024 Joint Claim Construction Chart; 2026 dismissal signature block |
| Qi ("Peter") Tong | Texas counsel for RAK (Dallas office) — the firm's in-district signatory | Russ August & Kabat, 4925 Greenville Ave., Ste. 200, Dallas, TX | TX 24119042; USPTO Reg. 74,292 | Signed the Aug. 28, 2024 Joint Claim Construction Chart for plaintiff; Notice of Appearance of Counsel in the companion '470 action (Jan. 17, 2024) |
| Andrea L. Fair | Local counsel (East Texas) | Miller Fair Henry PLLC, 1507 Bill Owens Pkwy., Longview, TX | TX 24078488 | Notice of Attorney Appearance, lead case Dkt. 97 (Oct. 22, 2024) — "in addition to the attorneys already representing it"; on plaintiff's signature blocks from 2024 forward |
Experience notes (sourced; I did not reach the firms' bio pages before exhausting my search budget, so these rest on court filings and firm press releases)
- Mirzaie / Wang / Fenster / Conkle / Pickens / Chan (Jay) — all appear as XR's counsel of record in the earlier Vivato/Xerox-portfolio campaigns, including the N.D. Cal. actions against Ruckus Wireless and Arris Solutions (Nos. 3:18-cv-01992, 3:18-cv-02736) and the resulting Federal Circuit appeal noticed Nov. 2, 2021. That appeal produced the affirmance of indefiniteness holdings against Vivato on the '231 patent (see the IP Law Daily/VitalLaw report of May 18, 2023 cited in the press section) — i.e., this team has already litigated this portfolio, and lost, at the Federal Circuit.
- Wang — identified in the PTAB papers as XR's lead counsel in the IPR proceedings (Nov. 22, 2023 filing: "Lead Counsel: Philip Wang, Reg. No. 74,621"), which is where the '376 patent was actually decided.
- Fair — genuine East Texas patent-trial practice, not a nominal local counsel: per Miller Fair Henry releases, she handled jury selection and witness examination in the two 2025 E.D. Tex. Samsung verdicts (Collision Communications v. Samsung, No. 2:23-cv-00587, and Anonymous Media Research v. Samsung, No. 2:23-cv-00439) totaling $524M; assisted the RAK trial team in Headwater Research v. Verizon ($175M verdict); and worked on Longitude Licensing v. BOE ($66.9M). Her bio lists ABOTA (2025), Lawdragon 500, and Texas Super Lawyers.
- Tong — registered patent practitioner (Reg. 74,292) heading RAK's Dallas office; in other matters he is the firm's lead Texas counsel in PTAB proceedings (e.g., power of attorney for Wireless Alliance in IPR2024-00608).
- I have no verified public bio information for Rubin, Hoffman, Kroeger, Pickens, Buczko, or Ma beyond their appearance in this campaign; I am not going to characterize their experience without a source.
Procedural nuance worth noting on "counsel of record"
- After consolidation, appearances migrated to the lead case. The '204 docket is annotated "PURSUANT TO COURT ORDER, DOCKET IN LEAD CASE 2:23CV202." The consolidation order (Dkt. 14, signed June 13, 2023, entered June 14, 2023) consolidated the cases for all pretrial issues with lead case 2:23-cv-00202, with individual cases "remain[ing] active for trial." So the operative plaintiff's-counsel filings after mid-2023 — including Fair's appearance, the lead-counsel designation, and the dismissal papers — sit in the '202 docket, captioned to include '204. The only '204-specific plaintiff appearances I found are Dkts. 12 and 13 (both May 24, 2023).
- Fair's appearance post-dates the complaint by ~17 months. She first appeared Oct. 22, 2024 — after the Sept. 11, 2024 Markman hearing — which fits the pattern of adding a local trial lawyer once the case moved toward trial.
- Sealed/limited material. I found no sealing order affecting counsel identification; the attorney names appear on the public docket and public filed PDFs. I did not locate pro hac vice motions/orders for the California RAK lawyers in this case; E.D. Tex. practice often handles this administratively, and I cannot state from the record I retrieved when or whether such orders issued.
Flags against the previously generated sections
- Confirmation: the earlier statement that plaintiff is represented by Russ August & Kabat (Mirzaie, Wang, Hoffman, Conkle, Buczko, Jay), with Andrea Fair of Miller Fair Henry as local counsel, is fully corroborated.
- Additions: the earlier list omitted James N. Pickens, Paul A. Kroeger, Jonathan Ma, Marc Fenster, and Qi (Peter) Tong (RAK Dallas). It also omitted Neil Alan Rubin, who is one of only two attorneys with a '204-specific appearance entry (Dkt. 12).
- "Minna Jay" vs. "Minna Y. Chan": same attorney, same bar number (CA 305941); filings through 2024 use "Chan," 2025–
Defendant representatives
Counsel of record for the defendant(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).
I'll research the T-Mobile docket and counsel appearances directly, then cross-check with firm bios.
Strong initial hits. Let me verify the additional names PatSnap lists and pin down intervenor counsel.
Now let me confirm the remaining names (Dacus, Gorham) and the T‑Mobile-specific appearances.
Counsel of record for T‑Mobile USA, Inc. — 2:23‑cv‑00204
Bottom line: T‑Mobile's defense was run by Duane Morris LLP out of its Atlanta office — Matthew S. Yungwirth as lead counsel of record, with John R. Gibson as the second named carrier-side lead — and localized in Marshall by Melissa Richards Smith of Gillam & Smith, LLP. The same Duane Morris team (plus Texas counsel Deron R. Dacus) simultaneously represented intervenor‑defendants Ericsson Inc. and Nokia of America Corporation, whose base stations are the accused products.
This confirms (does not contradict) the earlier-generated sections of this case, which identified Yungwirth and Smith. The research below adds the full appearance roster, the corroborating docket entries, firm office addresses, and the intervenor-side counsel that the prior sections did not name.
1. At a glance
| Attorney | Role for T‑Mobile | Firm / office | First appearance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew S. Yungwirth | Lead counsel of record | Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta, GA | Aug. 15, 2023 (Dkt. 34, lead case '202) |
| John R. Gibson | Counsel of record (carrier team); later lead counsel for intervenors Ericsson/Nokia | Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta, GA | Aug. 16, 2023 (Dkt. 36, '202) |
| Melissa Richards Smith | Local counsel; first and only attorney to file in the '204 docket itself | Gillam & Smith, LLP, Marshall, TX | July 14, 2023 (Answer, '204 Dkt. 15) |
| William A. Liddell | Texas‑based counsel of record | Duane Morris LLP, Austin, TX | Nov. 27, 2023 ('202 Dkt. 70) |
| Alice E. Snedeker | Counsel of record (team member) | Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta, GA | Sept. 25, 2023 ('202) |
| Elissa ("Elise") Sanford | Counsel of record (team member) | Duane Morris LLP, Washington, D.C. | Jan. 23, 2024 ('202) |
| Brianna M. Vinci | Associate, T‑Mobile side (verification caveat below) | Duane Morris LLP, Philadelphia, PA | Not confirmed on this docket |
| Deron R. Dacus | Counsel for intervenors Ericsson & Nokia | The Dacus Firm, P.C., Tyler, TX | Sept. 25, 2023 (Motion to Intervene, '202 Dkt. 47) |
2. T‑Mobile's own counsel, in detail
Matthew S. Yungwirth — Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta (lead counsel).
1075 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 1700, Atlanta, GA 30309; 404‑253‑6935; msyungwirth@duanemorris.com. His notice of appearance expressly entered him "as lead counsel of record for AT&T …, T‑Mobile USA, Inc. ('T‑Mobile,' Member Case No. 2:23‑cv‑00204), and Verizon …," and recites that he was admitted to the bar of this Court on December 6, 2007. Notice of Appearance, '202 Dkt. 34 (Aug. 15, 2023). Experience note: unusually well suited to this case — he was lead counsel for Ruckus Wireless and for the ARRIS entities in earlier XR Communications/Vivato suits on the same family (XR v. Ruckus Wireless, No. 2:17‑cv‑02961; XR v. ARRIS Group, 8:18‑cv‑0192; XR v. ARRIS Solutions, 3:18‑cv‑02736), and appeared pro hac vice in the related IPRs (IPR2018‑01016, IPR2017‑00718/‑719/‑720). See Yungwirth PHV declaration, IPR2018‑01016. He is thus a repeat adversary of this plaintiff.
John R. Gibson — Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta.
Notice of appearance entered "as counsel of record for Defendants AT&T Services Inc., AT&T Mobility LLC and AT&T Corporation …; T‑Mobile USA, Inc. ('T‑Mobile,' Member Case No. 2:23‑cv‑00204); and Verizon …." '202 Dkt. 36 (Aug. 16, 2023). Admitted to the E.D. Tex. bar Nov. 30, 2011. He then became lead counsel of record for intervenor Ericsson Inc. and counsel for Nokia (Notice of Appearance, '204 Dkt. 49 (Sept. 25, 2023)). Experience note: he also represented Ericsson and Nokia in the earlier Cobblestone Wireless v. T‑Mobile USA, 2:22‑cv‑00477 (E.D. Tex.) intervention — the template the court cited when granting intervention here.
Melissa Richards Smith — Gillam & Smith, LLP, Marshall, TX (local counsel).
303 South Washington Avenue, Marshall, TX 75670; 903‑934‑8450; melissa@gillamsmithlaw.com (Tex. Bar No. 24001351). She is the only attorney who filed on T‑Mobile's behalf in the '204 docket itself: T‑Mobile's Answer ('204 Dkt. 15) and its Rule 7.1(a)(1) disclosure statement ('204 Dkt. 16), both July 14, 2023, plus the unopposed extension application. Experience note: a fixture of Marshall/Tyler patent defense and T‑Mobile's habitual local counsel — e.g., Headwater Research v. T‑Mobile US, 2:23‑cv‑00379; Cobblestone Wireless v. T‑Mobile USA, 2:22‑cv‑00477; AGIS Software v. T‑Mobile USA/Uber, 2:21‑cv‑00072.
William A. Liddell — Duane Morris LLP, Austin, TX.
2801 Via Fortuna, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78746‑7567; 512‑277‑2272. Notice of appearance Nov. 27, 2023 on behalf of AT&T, Verizon, T‑Mobile, Ericsson and Nokia ('202 Dkt. 70) — the firm's Texas‑admitted anchor for the consolidated defense.
Alice E. Snedeker — Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta. Appeared Sept. 25, 2023 for Ericsson and Nokia and is listed on the joint defense claim‑construction filings, including the Aug. 28, 2024 Joint Claim Construction Chart filed for all defendants and intervenors (msyungwirth/aesnedeker/jrgibson block, Duane Morris Atlanta). Chart PDF.
Elissa ("Elise") Sanford — Duane Morris LLP, Washington, D.C. (901 New York Ave. NW). Notice of appearance Jan. 23, 2024 in the lead case; listed on the Aug. 2024 joint claim construction chart for the defense group.
Brianna M. Vinci — Duane Morris LLP, Philadelphia (senior associate, IP litigation). ⚠️ Verification caveat: her name appears on the T‑Mobile side in PatSnap's litigation database entry for 2:23‑cv‑00204, and I independently confirmed she is a Duane Morris IP‑litigation senior associate admitted to the E.D. Tex. bar who lists E.D. Tex. patent work in her practice (firm bio). I did not retrieve an ECF notice of appearance bearing her name in this consolidated case, so treat her as a team member identified by a commercial database rather than as confirmed counsel of record. Also from that same PatSnap entry: a name rendered "Andrew Thompson (Tom) Gorham" — I could not verify any such attorney on this docket or at Duane Morris, and I would not rely on it. Given your instruction not to invent attorneys, I am flagging both rather than listing Gorham as counsel.
3. Counsel for the intervenor‑defendants (Ericsson Inc. and Nokia of America Corporation)
Because the accused base stations are theirs, the suppliers intervened in all three carrier cases on Sept. 25, 2023 — including T‑Mobile's — and their counsel sat at the defense table for the rest of the case. Your question was framed as "defendant(s)," so I include them for completeness.
- John R. Gibson (Duane Morris, Atlanta) — lead counsel of record for Ericsson and counsel for Nokia.
- Matthew S. Yungwirth (Duane Morris