Northern District of California Magistrate Judge has set a hearing for this Wednesday in the third case filed by Ramey LLP-repped KOJI IP LLC, a Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP) plaintiff, against Renesas Electronics. That case has produced an order to show cause and two sanctions orders against the plaintiff and its counsel, in particular current Ramey LLP attorneys William P. Ramey III and Jeffrey E. Kubiak and former Ramey LLP attorney Susan S.Q. Kalra. The sanctioned parties here have asked for an emergency stay of certain aspects of the sanctions imposed, characterized as “potentially career ending”, and have “objected” to the court’s orders on various bases, including on the threshold basis that Judge Kang did not have authority to issue them because the parties never consummated consent to proceed before a magistrate. Related briefing from Renesas was filed on Friday, with yet more submissions from the sanctioned parties due today.

Last Monday and in the days following—in the KOJI IP LLC case against Renesas Electronics that led to two court orders imposing sanctions (on the plaintiff and/or its counsel, Ramey LLP, as well as on three Ramey LLP attorneys personally)—the sanctioned parties have filed (1) a (corrected) motion for relief from the first sanctions order, which focuses mostly on the unauthorized practice of law; (2) a motion for relief from the second sanctions order, which focuses mostly on a shift of attorney fees; (3) a notice of appeal to the Federal Circuit of both sanctions orders; (4) an “emergency” motion to stay enforcement of certain of those sanctions; and (5) a motion for relief from an interim order from presiding Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang setting a schedule for Renesas to brief only the propriety of the sanctioned parties’ request for expedited briefing. Renesas has done so, noting multiple ways in which the sanctioned parties’ motions do not comply with local rules. Renesas nevertheless suggests a two-tiered briefing schedule: a pair of dates for briefing concerning the threshold issue of whether the parties actually consented to proceed before Judge Kang and a pair of dates for briefing whether to stay enforcement of the court’s sanctions, the gravity of which Renesas acknowledges and which the sanctioned parties have characterized as “potentially career ending”.

Less than a week after sanctioning several Ramey LLP attorneys personally for, among other things, the unauthorized practice of law before the Northern District of California, Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang has granted the motion filed by Renesas Electronics seeking a shift of attorney fees against KOJI IP LLC, the Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP) plaintiff that those attorneys represent. William P. Ramey III, Jeffrey E. Kubiak, and Susan S.Q. Kalra are all three also sanctioned under the court’s inherent authority and 28 U.S.C. § 1927, each held jointly and severally liable for shifted fees and each required to complete four hours of continuing legal education, two as to federal court litigation, two as to patent litigation. The three attorneys are also responsible for distributing the sanctions order to presiding judges, professional governing bodies, and every attorney at Ramey LLP. Ramey and Kubiak have attested to compliance with the last mandate; it appears that Kalra no longer works at Ramey LLP.

Over the past several years, Ramey LLP has filed more than 300 patent cases for plaintiffs tied to Texas monetization firm Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP). As thoroughly covered above, Ramey LLP’s representation has caused a long list of federal judges to grant motions shifting fees or otherwise impose sanctions, including Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang in the Northern District of California. That district imposes heightened disclosure requirements on litigants, in response to which Susan S.Q. Kalra, a now-sanctioned attorney with Ramey LLP, signed a “Certification of Interested Entities or Persons” that appears at best to be incomplete, given the formation records for the plaintiff, KOJI IP LLC—and potentially also in light of sworn statements that Carlos O. Gorrichategui, DynaIP’s president, has made in declarations submitted to other federal courts.

Northern District of California Magistrate Judge Peter H. Kang has sanctioned three Ramey LLP attorneys as individuals: William P. Ramey III ($45,264) as well as Susan S.Q. Kalra ($8,364) and Jeffrey E. Kubiak ($10,496). Monetary penalties are in the amounts indicated, calculated against pro hac vice application fees avoided as part of a cost-cutting scheme that led Ramey and Kubiak, per the court, to engage in the unauthorized practice of law in California and Kalra to aid and abet that unauthorized practice. Among the court’s other sanctions, the three attorneys are required to distribute copies of the order outlining their behavior: (1) to the Standing Committees of Professional Conduct for the Central and Northern Districts of California; (2) to any judge presiding over a case currently pending in the Northern District of California in which one of their names appears on any filings (as pro hac vice pending or otherwise); and (3) “as an attachment to any motion for pro hac vice admission filed by or on behalf of any of these lawyers in any action filed in a California federal court during the next five years” (court’s emphasis). Meanwhile, last week, Southern District of Florida Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. shifted attorney fees against another Ramey LLP-repped plaintiff, Ramey, and local counsel, awarding $33,986.43 under 35 U.S.C. § 285 and $50,619.59 under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, adopting a magistrate judge’s report that admonishes Ramey for the unauthorized practice of law there as well.

Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge Valerie Figueredo has granted an Alphabet (Google) motion for attorney fees against EscapeX IP LLC, the third such grant in that single campaign. Meanwhile, Aero Global, a defendant in the litigation campaign of AML IP LLC, also sued in the Southern District of New York, has quickly brought that order to the attention of District Judge Dale E. Ho, in connection with a separate motion to shift fees there. The two plaintiffs both operate under the monetization approach of Texas monetization firm Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP), which manages the litigation campaigns of Pueblo Nuevo LLC, a Texas entity solely owned by a Panamanian citizen, through representation by Ramey LLP.

As RPX previously reported, the litigation operation associated with monetization firm Dynamic IP Deals, LLC (d/b/a DynaIP) created persistent confusion in its early days, as it moved from litigation by Illinois entities to litigation through Texas entities. Some of that confusion pervades a recently unsealed order from Western District of Texas Alan D. Albright shifting potentially $600K in attorney fees against plaintiff Silent Communication, LLC and its counsel Ramey LLP in a case filed against BlackBerry, at the same time that Fiserv has asked West Texas District Judge David Counts to clear away a cloud now hovering over the ownership of the patent family that AuthWallet, LLC, also repped by Ramey, has been litigating. The named inventor there has filed declarations with the USPTO suggesting that AuthWallet never actually owned that family.

In March 2024, AuthWallet, LLC filed a second set of suits—after an earlier round had been voluntarily dismissed without prejudice—against Amarillo National Bank, Cullen/Frost Bankers, and Fiserv, all in the Western District of Texas. This past week, District Judge David Counts dismissed the complaints because they failed to adequately plead direct, indirect, and willful infringement, relying on “mixing and matching different accused products in its claim charts”. The dismissal, though, is with leave to amend, and, in the Cullen/Frost Bankers case, the court denied a concurrent motion to sanction AuthWallet’s litigation counsel, Ramey LLP, under Rule 11.

Northern District of Texas Judges Ada Brown and Jane J. Boyle have recently denied motions to proceed without representation by local counsel, as local rules require, in cases filed last month by WirelessWERX IP LLC against Honda, Mitsubishi, and Nissan. After such a denial, the plaintiff has 14 days to get local counsel or face possible dismissal. Meanwhile, current counsel Ramey LLP has filed six additional cases in this campaign, one against each of Ford (2:25-cv-00241) and Subaru (2:25-cv-00225), in the Eastern District of Texas; Tesla (7:25-cv-00093) and Zebra Technologies (7:25-cv-00094), in the Western District of Texas; Blues (1:25-cv-10469) and HERE Technologies (1:25-cv-10418) in the District of Massachusetts; and OnStar (5:25-cv-00104), in the Eastern District of North Carolina.

After a December 2023 hearing on a Cisco motion for sanctions against Ramey LLP, Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright indicated on the docket that a written order was “forthcoming”. Cisco asked the court to impose a “prefiling injunction” against Ramey LLP, preventing that firm and its principal from filing any case against Cisco in that district without prior approval to do so from the chief judge and from filing any case against Cisco in any other district without “attaching a copy of the opinion and order issuing the injunction with” that filing. The docket of that case, filed by mCom IP, LLC, has been quiet for more than a year since Cisco’s motion was taken under advisement—but that is not the only thing that has been quiet over the past 14 months.