IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

WACO DIVISION

WSOU INVESTMENTS, LLC d/b/a 

BRAZOS LICENSING AND 

DEVELOPMENT,

Plaintiff,

v.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION

Defendant.

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CIVIL ACTION NO. 6:20-cv-346

JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

ORIGINAL COMPLAINT FOR PATENT 

INFRINGEMENT

Plaintiff WSOU Investments, LLC d/b/a Brazos Licensing and Development (“Brazos” or 

“Plaintiff”), by and through its attorneys, files this Complaint for Patent Infringement against 

Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft” or “Defendant”) and alleges:

NATURE OF THE ACTION

1. This is a civil action for patent infringement arising under the Patent Laws of the 

United States, 35 U.S.C. §§ 1, et seq., including §§ 271, 281, 284, and 285.

THE PARTIES

2. Brazos is a limited liability corporation organized and existing under the laws of 

Delaware, with its principal place of business at 605 Austin Avenue, Suite 6, Waco, Texas 76701.

3. On information and belief, Defendant Microsoft Corporation is incorporated under 

the laws of Washington State with its principal place of business at 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, 

Washington 98052. Microsoft may be served with process through its registered agent Corporation 

Service Company, 211 East 7th Street, Suite 620, Austin, Texas 78701.

Case 6:20-cv-00346-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/29/20 Page 1 of 15
4. On information and belief, Microsoft has been registered to do business in the state 

of Texas under Texas SOS file number 0010404606 since about March 1987.

5. On information and belief, Microsoft has had regular and established places of 

business in this judicial district since at least 2002.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

6. This is an action for patent infringement which arises under the Patent Laws of the 

United States, in particular, 35 U.S.C. §§ 271, 281, 284, and 285.

7. This Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this action under 28 U.S.C. 

§§ 1331 and 1338(a).

8. This Court has specific and general personal jurisdiction over Microsoft pursuant 

to due process and/or the Texas Long Arm Statute, because Microsoft has committed acts giving 

rise to this action within Texas and within this judicial district. The Court’s exercise of jurisdiction 

over Microsoft would not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice because 

Microsoft has established minimum contacts with the forum. For example, on information and 

belief, Microsoft has committed acts of infringement in this judicial district, by among other things, 

selling and offering for sale products that infringe the asserted patent, directly or through 

intermediaries, as alleged herein.

9. Venue in the Western District of Texas is proper pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§1391 

and/or 1400(b). 

10. This district was deemed to be a proper venue for patent cases against Microsoft in 

actions bearing docket numbers: 6-19-cv-00572 (Zeroclick, LLC v. Microsoft Corporation ); 6-19-

cv-00687 (Exafer, Ltd. v. Microsoft Corporation.); and 6-19-cv-00399 (Neodron Ltd. v. Microsoft 

Corporation).

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11. On information and belief, Microsoft maintains a variety of regular and established 

business locations in the judicial district including its Corporate Sales Office Locations, Retail 

Store Locations, and Datacenter Locations.

12. On information and belief, Microsoft operates multiple corporate sales offices in 

the judicial district, and these offices constitute regular and establishedplaces of business.

13. On information and belief, Microsoft employs hundreds of employees within its 

corporate sales offices located in the judicial district.

14. On information and belief, Microsoft has an established place of business in this 

judicial district known as “Corporate Sales Office: Austin” located at 10900 Stonelake Boulevard, 

Suite 225, Austin, Texas 78759 and “Microsoft Retail Store: The Domain” located at 3309 

Esperanza Crossing, Suite 104 Austin, Texas 78758. 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about/officelocator?Location=78759

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15. On information and belief, Microsoft’s “Corporate Sales Office: Austin” and 

“Microsoft Retail Store: The Domain” locations were respectively assessed by the Travis County 

Appraisal District in 2019 to have market values of over $2.3 million dollars and $2.7 million 

dollars.

http://propaccess.traviscad.org/clientdb/SearchResults.aspx

16. On information and belief, Microsoft has another established place of business in 

this judicial district known as “Corporate Sales Office: San Antonio” located at Concord Park II, 

401 East Sonterra Boulevard, Suite 300, San Antonio, Texas 78258.

Source: Google Maps

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17. On information and belief, Microsoft owns and operates multiple datacenters in the 

judicial district, including without limitation data centers located at 5150 Rogers Road, San 

Antonio, Texas 78251; 5200 Rogers Road, San Antonio, Texas 78251; 3823 Weisman Boulevard, 

San Antonio, Texas 78251; and 15000 Lambda Drive, San Antonio, Texas 782245. 

18. On information and belief, Microsoft utilizes its datacenter locationsin this judicial 

district as regular and established places of business. As a non-limiting example, the data centers 

in San Antonio are referred to within Microsoft as “US Gov Texas.” 

19. On information and belief, thousands of customers who rely on the infringing 

datacenter infrastructure that Microsoft’s engineering and operations teams have built, reside in 

this judicial district.

COUNT ONE - INFRINGEMENT OF 

U.S. PATENT NO. 8,274,902

20. Brazos re-alleges and incorporates by reference the preceding paragraphs of this 

Complaint.

21. On September 25, 2012, the United States Patent and Trademark Office duly and 

legally issued U.S. Patent No. 8,274,902 (“the ’902 Patent”), entitled “Estimation Method for Loss 

Rates in a Packetized Network.” A true and correct copy of the ’902 Patent is attached as Exhibit 

A to this Complaint.

22. Brazos is the owner of all rights, title, and interest in and to the ’902 Patent, 

including the right to assert all causes of action arising under the ’902 Patent and the right to any 

remedies for the infringement of the ’902 Patent.

Case 6:20-cv-00346-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/29/20 Page 5 of 15
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23. Microsoft makes, uses, sells, offers for sale, imports, and/or distributes in the 

United States, including within this judicial district, products such as, but not limited to, network 

monitoring products, including Network Performance Monitor (NPM) in Azure (collectively, the 

“Accused Products”).

24. Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service for building, testing, deploying, and 

managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers. The Azure portal 

helps users to manage Azure services. 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/guides/developer/azure-developer-guide

25. The Accused Products offer a variety of solutions to monitor networking assets in 

Azure and in hybrid environments comprising Azure and on-premises equipment. The Accused 

Products have solutions and utilities to monitor network connectivity, the health of ExpressRoute 

circuits, and analyze network traffic in the cloud.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/networking/network-monitoring-overview

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/insights/network-performance-monitor-faq

Case 6:20-cv-00346-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/29/20 Page 6 of 15
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https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/networking/network-monitoring-overview

26. A user of the Accused Products can monitor network connectivity across cloud 

deployments and on-premises locations, multiple data centers, etc. and can determine the 

infrastructure in the path, such as intermediate branching nodes and response time of the service.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/insights/network-performancemonitor

Case 6:20-cv-00346-ADA Document 1 Filed 04/29/20 Page 7 of 15
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27. The Accused Products include Performance Monitor (PM). PM provides network 

monitoring for cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. A user can monitor network 

connectivity across remote branch and field offices, store locations, data centers, and clouds. 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/networking/network-monitoring-overview

28. A reference architecture of an implementation of a Hub-Spoke Network topology 

in Azure is shown below. Here, Virtual Machines (VMs) act as endpoints.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/reference-architectures/hybridnetworking/hub-spoke

29. The Accused Products are a cloud-based platform and thereby act as a collection 

point to collect the performance data to show network connectivity and report data to the user. 

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Therefore, the network branches from the Accused Product to a plurality of downstream end nodes 

(here, VMs, for example). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Arj5zlUPG4

30. Users of the Accused Products can monitor the connectivity, determine what 

infrastructure is in the path, and identify where network bottlenecks occur. Further, service 

connectivity helps to monitor end-to-end connectivity to applications and determines network 

latency and packet loss in the network. 

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https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/networking/network-monitoring-overview

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/insights/network-performance-monitor-faq

31. Azure virtual machines allow pinging to a port of the machine to confirm the 

connectivity between the collection point and the end node. See

https://dreamtechprojects.wordpress.com/tag/packet-loss/.

32. The Accused Products use synthetic transactions to monitor network performance 

between source and destination agents. A user can choose between TCP or ICMP as the protocol 

for monitoring the performance and service connectivity. 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/insights/network-performance-monitor

33. Based on the data collected (using TCP or ICMP Protocol), the Accused Products 

measure the parameters and compute latency and packet loss rates at various points in the network, 

allowing users to perform end-to-end diagnostics of the performance of the environment for the 

network, portions of the network, and/or nodes.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-mJd-PTo04, 0:38/3:07 (with closed captioning).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-mJd-PTo04, 0:44/3:07 (with closed captioning).

34. For example, an administrator can monitor network performance between two end 

nodes of a network. After selecting the nodes, one can obtain the packet loss rate (loss %) of the 

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test packets and latency between the selected two end nodes, which provides an estimate of packet 

loss for the network. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-mJd-PTo04, 2:40/3:07 (with closed captioning).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-mJd-PTo04 2:46/3:07 (with closed captioning).

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-mJd-PTo04, 2:49/3:07 (with closed captioning).

35. In view of preceding paragraphs, each and every element of at least claim 1 of the 

’902 Patent is found in the Accused Products.

36. Microsoft has and continues to directly infringe at least one claim of the ’902

Patent, literally or under the doctrine of equivalents, by making, using, selling, offering for sale, 

importing, and/or distributing the Accused Products in the United States, including within this 

judicial district, without the authority of Brazos.

37. Microsoft has received notice and actual or constructive knowledge of the ’902

Patent since at least the date of service of this Complaint.

38. Since at least the date of service of this Complaint, through its actions, 

Microsoft has actively induced product makers, distributors, retailers, and/or end users of the 

Accused Products to infringe the ’902 Patent throughout the United States, including within this 

judicial district, by, among other things, advertising and promoting the use of the Accused 

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Products in various websites, including providing and disseminating product descriptions, 

operating manuals, and other instructions on how to implement and configure the Accused 

Products. Examples of such advertising, promoting, and/or instructing include the documents 

at:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/guides/developer/azure-developer-guide

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/networking/network-monitoringoverview

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/insights/networkperformance-monitor

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/referencearchitectures/hybrid-networking/hub-spoke

39. Since at least the date of service of this Complaint, through its actions, 

Microsoft has contributed to the infringement of the ’902 Patent by having others sell, offer for 

sale, or use the Accused Products throughout the United States, including within this judicial

district, with knowledge that the Accused Products infringe the ’902 Patent. The Accused 

Products are especially made or adapted for infringing the ’902 Patent and have no substantial 

non-infringing use. For example, in view of the preceding paragraphs, the Accused Products 

contain functionality which is material to at least one claim of the ’902 Patent.

JURY DEMAND

Brazos hereby demands a jury on all issues so triable.

REQUEST FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Brazos respectfully requests that the Court:

(A) Enter judgment that Microsoft infringes one or more claims of the ’902 Patent 

literally and/or under the doctrine of equivalents;

(B) Enter judgment that Microsoft has induced infringement and continues to induce 

infringement of one or more claims of the ’902 Patent;

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(C) Enter judgment that Microsoft has contributed to and continues to contribute to 

the infringement of one or more claims of the ’902 Patent;

(D) Award Brazos damages, to be paid by Microsoft in an amount adequate to 

compensate Brazos for such damages, together with pre-judgment and post-judgment interest for 

the infringement by Microsoft of the ’902 Patent through the date such judgment is entered in 

accordance with 35 U.S.C. § 284, and increase such award by up to three times the amount found 

or assessed in accordance with 35 U.S.C. § 284;

(E) Declare this case exceptional pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 285; and

(F) Award Brazos its costs, disbursements, attorneys’ fees, and such further and 

additional relief as is deemed appropriate by this Court.

Dated: April 29, 2020 Respectfully submitted,

/s/ James L. Etheridge

James L. Etheridge

Texas State Bar No. 24059147 

Ryan S. Loveless

Texas State Bar No. 24036997 

Travis L. Richins

Texas State Bar No. 24061296

ETHERIDGE LAW GROUP, PLLC

2600 E. Southlake Blvd., Suite 120 / 324

Southlake, Texas 76092

Telephone: (817) 470-7249

Facsimile: (817) 887-5950

Jim@EtheridgeLaw.com

Ryan@EtheridgeLaw.com

Travis@EtheridgeLaw.com

COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFF

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