Litigation

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

consolidated

2:23-cv-00203

Filed
2023-05-08

Patents at issue (1)

10594376

Summary

2023 E.D. Tex. cellular-carrier campaign member case against Verizon; consolidated for trial with 2:23-cv-00470 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 thoroughly using web search.

Case Overview: XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. Verizon Communications Inc. et al., No. 2:23-cv-00203-JRG-RSP (E.D. Tex.)

Parties and their roles. The plaintiff is XR Communications, LLC, a Los Angeles–based patent-holding entity that does business as "Vivato Technologies" but does not itself sell wireless equipment. The "Vivato" name and the asserted patents trace to Vivato, Inc., the original assignee on the face of the patents — a Spokane, Washington startup that developed multi-beam, phased-array Wi-Fi base stations in the early 2000s and did not survive as an operating business. Stanford's NPE Litigation Database tags XR's assertion activity as "acquired patents" derived from a "failed startup," which is the cleanest public characterization of its status; I did not find a public filing disclosing XR's ultimate funder or corporate parent, so treat that gap as unresolved. XR is represented by Russ August & Kabat LLP (Marc A. Fenster, Reza Mirzaie, Philip Wang, Neil Rubin, Adam Hoffman), the firm that has run this portfolio since the 2017 C.D. Cal. Wi-Fi cases. The defendants are Verizon Communications Inc. and Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless — i.e., the carrier itself, not its infrastructure vendors. Defense was led by Duane Morris (Matthew Yungwirth). Critically, the equipment makers whose gear is actually accused — Ericsson Inc. and Nokia of America Corporation — intervened in the consolidated proceeding to defend their own base stations, a structural feature

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 initial data. Now let me pull the actual docket and key orders.

Let me dig into the docket chronology and the '376 dismissal rationale.

In the news

What the press has reported about this case, summarized with links to the source articles.

I'll search for press coverage across multiple angles.

Let me search specifically for press and trade coverage.

Press coverage summary

Coverage of this specific member case is essentially nonexistent. After searching the case caption, party names, the '376 patent number, and verdict/settlement angles, I found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, Ars Technica, The Verge, IPWatchdog, Patently-O, EFF Deeplinks, or JD Supra article addressing XR Communications v. Verizon (2:23-cv-00203) or the consolidated E.D. Tex. carrier campaign. The closest thing to trade-press coverage is a paywalled IAM item dated 15 October 2025 headlined "This prolific NPE is now targeting telecom companies," whose standfirst 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 could only retrieve IAM's index-page headline and standfirst, not the article body, so I cannot report what analysis (if any) the piece offers on the merits, the asserted patents, or damages. Law360's coverage database does contain XR Communications matters, but the items I located are for different defendants — e.g., a 2 June 2023 Law360 report that "Apple, Vivato Technologies Bury Hatchet In Wi-Fi Patent Fight," and a Law360 PTAB page for Aruba Networks v. XR Communications — not the Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile litigation.

The only substantive published write-ups are vendor analytics, not journalism. PatSnap Eureka and a companion PatSnap post on the AT&T lead case describe the campaign as ending in a confidential settlement, reporting that on 8 January 2026 Judge Rodney Gilstrap granted the joint motion to dismiss (Dkt. 299), dismissing XR's claims with prejudice and defendants' counterclaims without prejudice, with "no damages figure publicly disclosed." That tracks the docket — the Dkt. 299 order likewise directs each party to bear its own costs and fees — but PatSnap frames the campaign as a "landmark case" involving five patents (the '369, '511, '939, '376, and '235) and infers a confidential settlement and "downstream licensing activity targeting wireless infrastructure vendors and OEMs." Those characterizations and inferences are PatSnap's own; they are not sourced to any party statement, and PatSnap's pages carry an AI-generated content disclaimer. No outlet reported any damages demand, royalty rate, or settlement figure for the Verizon case.

Where the coverage diverges from this case's record. Two points are worth flagging for anyone relying on the press summaries. First, PatSnap aggregates all five campaign patents, but the patent this member case is captioned on — the '376 — was dismissed with prejudice from the campaign very early: the parties' joint stipulation of 23 February 2024 (Dkt. 73, filed in the lead case 2:23-cv-00202 and expressly covering the Verizon defendants and Nokia/Ericsson intervenors) dropped the '376, with each side bearing its own costs. So the '376 never reached claim construction, trial, or any IPR on the merits as to Verizon, and press accounts describing a five-patent Verizon case are inaccurate as to this docket. Second, the trial that actually approached was on the '369 and '511: XR's Final Election of Asserted Claims (Dkt. 258, 5 September 2025) elected claims 1, 32, 36, and 41 of the '369 and claim 20 of the '511 for a 22 September 2025 trial, and the case was resolved instead of tried. None of the journalistic or vendor coverage I found reports the September 2025 mediation (Dkt. 277, report of mediator David Folsom, result "suspended" as to Ericsson) or the summary-judgment recommendation at Dkt. 269.

Bottom line for the file: there is no meaningful press record here to corroborate or contradict the docket. IAM's October 2025 piece is the sole trade-press acknowledgment I could verify, and only at the headline level; the substantive published accounts are PatSnap's algorithmic case summaries, which should be cited (if at all) as secondary commentary rather than reporting. I would not characterize any damages, settlement terms, or market impact as "reported," because nothing in the press has reported them.

Sources

Plaintiff representatives

Counsel of record for the plaintiff(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

I'll research the counsel of record for XR Communications in this matter.

Let me pull the docket sheets and firm profiles to confirm each appearance and role.

Counsel of Record — Plaintiff XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies

Important structural point first: this member case was consolidated for all pretrial purposes into lead case 2:23-cv-00202 by Order of Judge Gilstrap dated 6/13/2023 (Dkt. 17 in 2:23-cv-00203), which expressly directed that only lead and local counsel be carried over and that additional counsel re-file appearances in the lead case. So the operative roster of record is the one filed in 2:23-cv-00202, even though most of the core appearances originated in this case on May 23–24, 2023 (Dkts. 8–16).

A second caveat up front: I could not reach PACER directly; the roster below is reconstructed from RECAP/CourtListener docket text and PDFs, Patexia and RPX docket mirrors, and the signature blocks on documents filed in the consolidated action. Individual pro hac vice orders and any withdrawal notices are the one category I could not fully verify — treat the "current as of dismissal" characterization as sourced to the last substantive filings (Sept.–Oct. 2025), not to a fresh docket pull.

Lead counsel (national trial team — Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles)

Attorney Role Firm / Office Note
Reza Mirzaie Lead counsel; the attorney who actually signed and served the infringement contentions and the substantive motions Russ August & Kabat, 12424 Wilshire Blvd., 12th Fl., Los Angeles, CA 90025 Reg. No. 69,138. The constant signatory for Vivato across this campaign — signed the Preliminary Disclosure of Asserted Claims and Infringement Contentions in January 2024 in the consolidated Verizon cases, filed the motions to compel and the stay/settlement papers, and is RAK's designated lead counsel in its other E.D. Tex. matters.
Marc A. Fenster Of counsel / senior trial partner (listed first in later signature blocks) Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles RAK founding partner; listed on the September 2025 consolidated filings in this action, indicating he remained on the trial team through the eve of the September 2025 trial setting.
Philip X. Wang Of counsel; PTAB lead counsel for the '376 patent Russ August & Kabat, Los Angeles Reg. No. 74,621. Signed the Patent Owner's Power of Attorney (Nov. 22, 2023) designating himself lead counsel in the IPR on U.S. Patent No. 10,594,376 — i.e., he owned the parallel PTAB defense of the very patent at issue here, with Mirzaie as back-up.

Russ August & Kabat associates / of counsel appearing in this case

All appeared by Notice of Appearance in 2:23-cv-00203 on May 23–24, 2023 (Dkts. 8–16), and appear in the consolidated signature blocks:

Attorney Docket entry Note
Paul A. Kroeger Dkt. 15 (5/24/2023) CA SBN 229074; co-signed the infringement-contentions notice and later consolidated filings.
James N. Pickens Dkt. 11 (5/23/2023) CA SBN 307474; presented for plaintiff at pretrial conferences per the transcript entries in the lead case.
Christian W. Conkle Dkt. 9 (5/23/2023) Named as Vivato back-up PTAB counsel alongside Mirzaie; handled discovery-motion briefing.
Jacob Buczko Dkt. 10 (5/23/2023) CA SBN 269408.
Neil Alan Rubin Dkt. 14 (5/24/2023) Appeared on the infringement contentions service notice.
Minna Y. Chan Dkt. 12 (5/23/2023) (Appears as "Minna Jay" in some litigation-data aggregators; the docket name is Minna Y. Chan.)
Adam S. Hoffman Dkt. 8 (5/23/2023) —
Jonathan Ma Notice of appearance filed in companion case 2:23-cv-00470 and in lead-case filings CA SBN 312773.
Jason M. Wietholter Listed in the Sept. 5, 2025 consolidated signature block CA SBN 337139.
Ryan Lundquist Notice of Appearance, 2/25/2025, in lead case 2:23-cv-00202 Firm affiliation not confirmed in the sources I could access — I am not asserting he is RAK without a primary source.
Qi (Peter) Tong Notice of Appearance, 1/17/2024, in companion case 2:23-cv-00470, not in 203 itself TX SBN 24119042; Russ August & Kabat's Dallas office, 4925 Greenville Ave., Suite 200, Dallas, TX 75206 — the firm's Texas-based (non-local-counsel) presence. Flagging that this appearance is in the sister Verizon case, so his role in 203 proper is indirect.

Local counsel (E.D. Tex.)

Attorney Role Firm / Office Note
Andrea L. Fair Local counsel for the trial phase Miller Fair Henry, PLLC, 1507 Bill Owens Parkway, Longview, TX 75604 Notice of Appearance filed 10/22/2024 in the lead case (Dkt. 97), stating she appears "in addition to the attorneys already representing it." She announced ready and introduced co-counsel at the consolidated pretrial conference (Dkt. 254 transcript) and is listed as plaintiff's local counsel on the Sept. 2025 filings. Deep E.D. Tex. patent trial practice: local counsel in the $175M Headwater v. Verizon verdict, the $278.8M Headwater v. Samsung verdict, the $847M General Access Solutions v. Verizon verdict, and AlmondNet v. Amazon (~$122M); ABOTA and International Society of Barristers member.
Melissa R. Smith Earlier local counsel of record (2023 phase) Gillam & Smith, LLP, 303 South Washington Avenue, Marshall, TX 75670 TX SBN 24001351. Signed as "Counsel for Plaintiff XR Communications LLC dba Vivato Technologies" on the consolidated-case filings in July 2023 (the scheduling/readiness and infringement-contentions notices captioned under 2:23-cv-00203). She is a fixture of Marshall patent practice; note that by October 2024 the local-counsel signature slot had passed to Andrea Fair, so treat Smith as the initial local counsel rather than the trial-phase one. I did not locate a withdrawal notice — she may simply have been superseded in the signature blocks.

In-house / client-side

  • Kai Hansen, Manager, XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies — executed the '376 IPR power of attorney (Nov. 22, 2023). He is a client representative, not an attorney of record; no in-house counsel appears on the docket. XR/Vivato is a licensing entity (Solana Beach, CA address per PTAB filings), so there is no in-house litigation group reflected in the record.

Practical notes for your purposes

  1. Who to call: Mirzaie is the operative lead counsel and the only plaintiff-side name consistently on the substantive papers; Fair is the E.D. Tex. courtroom presence who handled the pretrial conference and was positioned to try the case; Wang owns the '376 PTAB track.
  2. Staffing pattern: RAK ran a ~9-attorney pod out of Los Angeles against four carrier/Ericsson defendants in the consolidated action, with a single Texas local-counsel slot that rotated from Gillam & Smith (2023) to Miller Fair Henry (2024–2025).
  3. Posture affecting the roster: the parties filed a Joint Motion to Stay All Deadlines and Notice of Settlement on October 27, 2025 (Dkt. 293 in the lead case), and the consolidated actions were dismissed with prejudice on January 8, 2026 (Dkt. 21 in 2:23-cv-00203, granting the joint motion at Dkt. 298). So this roster is effectively the counsel of record as the case closed — no trial occurred, and no verdict or claim-construction opinion issued in this member case.
  4. Unverified items I will not guess at: the exact pro hac vice admission dates for the RAK Los Angeles attorneys in 2:23-cv-00203; whether any RAK attorney formally withdrew after the October 2025 stay; and Ryan Lundquist's firm. A PACER docket pull of the 2:23-cv-00202 lead docket (attorney filter) would settle all three.

Defendant representatives

Counsel of record for the defendant(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

I'll research the docket and firm records for defense counsel in this member case.

I found the core defense team. Now let me pull the docket sheet and verify lead counsel designations.

Let me verify the full team roster, local counsel arrangement, and any withdrawals or in-house appearances.

Counsel of Record — Defendants Verizon Communications, Inc. and Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless

Structural note for the file: because of the consolidation orders (Dkt. 17 in 2:23-cv-00203, 14 June 2023, consolidating for pretrial into lead case 2:23-cv-00202, and the 15 September 2024 order consolidating for pretrial with follow-on lead case 2:23-cv-00470 and providing that the two Verizon cases be tried together), the 00203 docket itself is thin — only the answer, disclosure statement, extension motion and a handful of appearances. Nearly all defense-side filings of record sit in 2:23-cv-00202 or 2:23-cv-00470. The roster below is drawn from both.

Lead / national counsel — Duane Morris LLP

Attorney Role Firm / office Note
Matthew S. Yungwirth Lead counsel of record for Verizon Communications, Inc. and Cellco Partnership Duane Morris LLP, 1075 Peachtree St. NE, Suite 1700, Atlanta, GA Entered appearance expressly "as lead counsel of record" for Verizon/Cellco (Dkt. 34 in 2:23-cv-00202, 15 Aug. 2023; Dkt. 14 in 2:23-cv-00470, 15 Nov. 2023). Long-running adversary history with this plaintiff: lead counsel for Ruckus Wireless in XR Communications v. Ruckus Wireless, No. 2:17-cv-02961, and for the ARRIS entities in XR v. ARRIS Group, No. 8:18-cv-0192 / 3:18-cv-02736 (per his 16 July 2018 declaration in IPR2018-01016). E.D. Tex. bar since 6 Dec. 2007.
John R. Gibson Counsel of record for Verizon/Cellco (and for AT&T and T-Mobile; also lead counsel for intervenors Ericsson and Nokia) Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta, GA Dkt. 36 in 2:23-cv-00202 (16 Aug. 2023) expressly covers "Verizon Communications, Inc. and Cellco Partnership dba Verizon Wireless (collectively 'Verizon,' Member Case No. 2:23-cv-00203)"; Dkt. 49 in 00202 (25 Sept. 2023) and Dkt. 23 in 00470 (12 Dec. 2023) added the Ericsson/Nokia intervenor role. GA Bar No. 454507; admitted E.D. Tex. 30 Nov. 2011.
Alice E. Snedeker Of counsel / additional defense counsel (appears on Verizon-Cellco signature blocks) Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta, GA Signed Verizon/Cellco filings in the consolidated action, e.g., Dkt. 98 (4 Nov. 2024) and Dkt. 231 (25 July 2025).
Elissa Sanford Of counsel / additional defense counsel Duane Morris LLP, 901 New York Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. On the Verizon/Cellco signature block in the consolidated action (Dkt. 98, 4 Nov. 2024).
William A. ("Bill") Liddell Of counsel / Texas-based defense counsel Duane Morris LLP, 2801 Via Fortuna, Suite 200, Austin, TX Entered appearance for Verizon and Cellco in 2:23-cv-00470 (Dec. 2023 docket entry) and appears on Verizon-Cellco signature blocks (Dkt. 98). Serves as the firm's Texas-admitted anchor for the defense alongside local counsel.

PTAB-side Duane Morris counsel (flag, not district-court appearances): Patrick D. McPherson and Kevin Anderson (Duane Morris, Washington, D.C.) are the petitioners' counsel of record in the Ericsson/Nokia IPRs against the '511 and related patents (e.g., IPR2024-00868), as shown by the Patent Owner's service certificate in that proceeding. I did not find district-court notices of appearance for either in 00203/00202, so treat them as IPR counsel rather than 00203 counsel of record.

Local counsel — The Dacus Firm, P.C. (Tyler)

Attorney Role Firm / office Note
Deron R. Dacus (TBN 00790553) Local counsel for Verizon and Cellco The Dacus Firm, P.C., 821 ESE Loop 323, Suite 430, Tyler, TX 75701 Filed Verizon/Cellco's unopposed first extension (Dkt. 7, 22 May 2023), their Rule 7.1(a)(1) disclosure (Dkt. 18) and their Answer (Dkt. 19), both 17 July 2023 — i.e., he was the first and initially the only attorney of record for these defendants in 00203. Also on defense signature blocks in the consolidated pretrial filings.

Local counsel — Gillam & Smith, LLP (Marshall / Longview)

Attorney Role Firm / office Note
Melissa R. Smith (TBN 24001351) Local counsel for the carrier defendants, incl. Verizon/Cellco Gillam & Smith, LLP, 303 South Washington Ave., Marshall, TX 75670 Appears on the defense signature blocks of the Joint Claim Construction and Prehearing Statement (Dkt. 76, 11 June 2024), the ED Tex Joint Claim Construction Chart (28 Aug. 2024) and Dkt. 231 (25 July 2025) — captioned as counsel for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless. Long-standing E.D. Tex. local-counsel practice (e.g., Pantech, LG Electronics).
Andrew Thompson ("Tom") Gorham (TBN 24012715) Local counsel Gillam & Smith, LLP, Longview, TX (secondary office; also Nacogdoches) Listed on the Aug. 2024 joint claim construction chart signature block for the carrier defendants.

In-house counsel

None of record. I found no Verizon in-house/legal-department attorney entering an appearance on the 00203 docket or the consolidated lead-case docket in the materials I could review. Verizon's interests appear to have been handled entirely through Duane Morris plus the two local firms. I cannot rule out an appearance by in-house counsel buried in the lead-case docket (2:23-cv-00202, 300+ entries) that I could not fully page through; that would need a PACER pull to confirm.

Two record issues worth flagging

  1. Gillam & Smith's side is ambiguous in mid-2023 lead-case filings. Dkt. 29 (26 July 2023) and Dkt. 37 in 2:23-cv-00202 carry a Melissa Smith / Gillam & Smith signature block labeled "Counsel for Plaintiff XR Communications LLC dba Vivato Technologies," while from 2024 onward the same firm signs defense-side blocks for AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon/Cellco (Dkt. 76, Dkt. 116, Aug. 2024 claim construction chart, Dkt. 231). The most likely explanation is a joint-filing artifact or a PDF-text-extraction mislabel, but I could not resolve it from the available records and I would not assert the firm ever represented the plaintiff in these cases without pulling the actual PDFs. Note that plaintiff's local counsel of record from at least 2025 is Andrea L. Fair, Miller Fair Henry PLLC (Longview), alongside Russ August & Kabat — so plaintiff did have separate local counsel.
  2. A "Brianna M. …" is listed by a third-party aggregator (PatSnap) as Verizon-side counsel, and RPX/PatSnap lists Duane Morris as Verizon's firm in 00203. I could not verify that individual as an attorney of record on any primary filing, so I have excluded her from the roster above; she is likely a Duane Morris associate on a signature block I did not retrieve.

Status as of the close

The docket reflects no withdrawals of defense counsel before the case was resolved: the joint motion to dismiss was granted 8 January 2026 (Dkt. 299/300 in the lead case), dismissing XR's claims with prejudice and defendants' counterclaims without prejudice, each party bearing its own costs and fees — which, consistent with the press summary above, ends the matter without any damages or settlement figure of record and without any further defense-side filings on the merits.