The Eastern District of Texas found that Samsung did not infringe claims 1, 8, 9, or 12 of US11405224B2. The court entered judgment that Headwater takes nothing, designated Samsung as the prevailing party, and ordered Headwater to pay Samsung’s taxable costs under Rule 54(d) and 28 U.S.C. § 1920.

Headwater asserted five patents: US11405224B2, US9277445B2, US9521578B2, US9137701B2, and US9271184B2. These patents cover device-assisted services for wireless network capacity protection, application-specific network access policy APIs, foreground/background traffic differentiation, and per-application data limit controls on wireless end-user devices.

A merits judgment for the defendant means the court substantively adjudicated the infringement question and found no infringement — as opposed to a procedural dismissal. It forecloses Headwater from re-asserting the adjudicated claims against Samsung on the same accused products and is the strongest form of defendant win available at district court level.

Yes. A final judgment from the Eastern District of Texas is appealable to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Headwater could challenge the district court’s claim construction, jury instructions, or legal conclusions on non-infringement. However, an 880-day litigation with a full merits record creates a challenging appellate posture for the losing plaintiff.

Samsung’s non-infringement finding is device-architecture-specific and does not create a general safe harbour. Other OEMs shipping wireless devices with background traffic management, per-application data limits, or device-level network access policy controls remain potentially exposed to Headwater’s portfolio. A tailored FTO analysis mapping product implementation against US11405224B2’s asserted claims is advisable, particularly given Headwater’s active multi-defendant assertion strategy.