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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.

DELL TECHNOLOGIES INC., DELL 

INC., AND EMC CORPORATION,

Defendants.

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CIVIL ACTION NO. 6:20-cv-404

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 Dell 

Technologies Inc., Dell Inc., and EMC Corporation (collectively, “Defendants”) 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 Dell Technologies Inc. is a Delaware 

corporation with a principal place of business at One Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas 78682.

4. On information and belief, defendant Dell Inc. is a Delaware corporation with a 

principal place of business at One Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas 78682. Dell Inc. is wholly owned 

by its corporate parent, Dell Technologies Inc. 

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 1 of 11
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5. On information and belief, defendant EMC Corporation is a Massachusetts 

corporation with a principal place of business at One Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas 78682. EMC 

Corporation is wholly owned by its corporate parent, Dell Technologies Inc.

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 each defendant

pursuant to due process and/or the Texas Long Arm Statute, because each defendant has committed 

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

jurisdiction over each defendant would not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial 

justice because each defendant has established minimum contacts with the forum. For example, 

on information and belief, each defendant 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). Each defendant has established places of business in the Western District of Texas. 

Each defendant is registered to do business in Texas. Upon information and belief, each defendant 

has transacted business in this District and has committed acts of infringement in this District. 

COUNT ONE - INFRINGEMENT OF 

U.S. PATENT NO. 7,212,536

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

Complaint.

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 2 of 11
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11. On May 1, 2007, the United States Patent and Trademark Office duly and legally 

issued U.S. Patent No. 7,212,536 (“the ‘536 Patent”), entitled “User Priority Mapping in Bridged 

VLANs.” A true and correct copy of the ‘536 Patent is attached as Exhibit A to this Complaint.

12. Brazos is the owner of all rights, title, and interest in and to the ‘536 Patent, 

including the right to assert all causes of action arising under the ‘536 Patent and the right to any 

remedies for the infringement of the ‘536 Patent.

13. Defendants make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or distribute in the United 

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

switches, including but not limited to, the Dell PowerConnect 5500 Series switches (collectively, 

the “Accused Products”).

https://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BC%D1%83

%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_DELL_PowerConnect_5548_48_port_Gigabit

_USer_Guide_Servak.pdf

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 3 of 11
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https://www.dell.com/us/en/bsdr/networking/switch-powerconnect-5500/cp.aspx?refid=switchpowerconnect-5500&cs=04S2&s=bsdr

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 4 of 11
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14. The Accused Products support virtual LANs for logical network segmenting. For 

example, Voice VLAN is a feature on the Power Connect 5500 Series switches that utilize Class 

of Service (CoS) to prioritize VoIP traffic within the switch.

15.

https://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BC%D1%83

%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_DELL_PowerConnect_5548_48_port_Gigabit

_USer_Guide_Servak.pdf

Voice VLAN is a feature on the PowerConnect 55xx Series 

switches that utilizes Class of Service (CoS) to automatically 

prioritize VoIP traffic within the switch. This feature helps to 

prevent poor call quality when there is a mixed traffic environment 

and high bandwidth utilization on the switch. It also introduces 

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 5 of 11
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simplicity to adding VoIP phones to the network with little or no 

configuration.

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln292972/configuring-dell-powerconnect-5500-

series-switches-for-voice-vlan?lang=en

16. The Accused Products use policies to support per-flow QoS. A policy consists of 

one or more class maps that define a flow with one or more associated Access Control Lists 

(ACLs). An Access Control Element (ACE) may refer to a classification rule and its action.

Packets that match ACL rules in a class map with permit (forward) action, belong to the same 

flow, and are subject to the same quality of service action. A policy can contain one or more flows, 

each with a user-defined QoS action. 

https://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BC%D1%83

%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_DELL_PowerConnect_5548_48_port_Gigabit

_USer_Guide_Servak.pdf

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 6 of 11
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17. The Accused Products provide port profiles as a convenient way to save and share 

a port configuration. Port profiles can be applied to a specific interface, a range of interfaces, or 

globally. 

https://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BC%D1%83

%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_DELL_PowerConnect_5548_48_port_Gigabit

_USer_Guide_Servak.pdf

18. Once the policies are created, they may be bound to interfaces and activated on 

them. 

https://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BC%D1%83

%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_DELL_PowerConnect_5548_48_port_Gigabit

_USer_Guide_Servak.pdf

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 7 of 11
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19. Ports can support a trunk mode, which may belong to multiple VLANs. Trunk ports 

accept tagged and untagged frames. Untagged frames will be classified to the VLAN whose VLAN 

ID (VID) is configured as the port’s PVID. Frames, sent from the port in the VLAN, whose VID 

is the current PVID, are sent untagged. Frames sent in all other VLANs active on the port are sent 

tagged.

https://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BC%D1%83

%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_DELL_PowerConnect_5548_48_port_Gigabit

_USer_Guide_Servak.pdf

20. For example, it is possible to change the CoS settings for the Voice VLAN and remark traffic on the egress and set priorities to forward the data frames. Further, if an administrator 

wants to utilize Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) for prioritization, the default global 

switch setting of trust CoS can be changed to trust DSCP. This will allow the switch to trust a 

DSCP value already assigned in the layer 3 header of an incoming packet, and prioritize it based 

on the value assigned:

Outside of defaults, it is possible to change the CoS settings for the 

Voice VLAN and remark traffic on the egress, but not required. Be 

aware that CoS 6 is the highest priority recommended for VoIP 

traffic. CoS 7 is the highest priority assignable, but normally only 

used for control traffic and not recommended for most transit traffic. 

If the administrator wants to utilize Differentiated Services Code 

Point (DSCP) for prioritization the default global switch setting of 

trust CoS can be changed to trust DSCP. This will allow the switch 

to trust a DSCP value already assigned in the layer 3 header of an 

incoming packet, and prioritize it based on the value assigned. In 

most cases DSCP 46 or Expedited Forwarding is the value used for 

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 8 of 11
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VoIP prioritization. The switch already has a DSCP-to-queue 

mapping that allows it to map DSCP 46 to high priority queue 6. By 

default DSCP 46 is assigned to the same switching queue as CoS 6. 

This mapping table can be changed by an administrator in QoS 

Advanced Mode. Be aware that the trust DSCP setting affects the 

switch globally, and accounts for all traffic entering a switch port in 

trust mode. If other traffic entering the port has a higher DSCP value 

than the VoIP traffic the higher DSCP value wins, and that traffic 

will be prioritized first. For more information about QoS settings see 

the PowerConnect 55xx User Guide at 

https://support.dell.com/manuals.

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln292972/configuring-dell-powerconnect-5500-

series-switches-for-voice-vlan?lang=en

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

‘536 Patent is found in the Accused Products.

22. Defendants continue to directly infringe at least one claim of the ‘536 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.

23. Defendants have received notice and actual or constructive knowledge of the ‘536

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

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

have actively induced product makers, distributors, retailers, and/or end users of the Accused 

Products to infringe the ‘536 Patent throughout the United States, including within this judicial 

district, by, among other things, advertising and promoting the use of the Accused 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://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BC%

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 9 of 11
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D1%83%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_DELL_PowerConnect_5548_

48_port_Gigabit_USer_Guide_Servak.pdf

• https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln292972/configuring-dellpowerconnect-5500-series-switches-for-voice-vlan?lang=en

• https://www.dell.com/us/en/bsdr/networking/switch-powerconnect5500/cp.aspx?refid=switch-powerconnect-5500&cs=04S2&s=bsdr

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

have contributed to the infringement of the ‘536 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 ‘536 Patent. The Accused Products are 

especially made or adapted for infringing the ‘536 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 ‘536 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 Defendants infringe one or more claims of the ‘536 Patent

literally and/or under the doctrine of equivalents;

(B) Enter judgment that Defendants have induced infringement and continue to induce 

infringement of one or more claims of the ‘536 Patent;

(C) Enter judgment that Defendants have contributed to and continue to contribute to 

the infringement of one or more claims of the ‘536 Patent;

Case 6:20-cv-00404-ADA Document 1 Filed 05/19/20 Page 10 of 11
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(D) Award Brazos damages, to be paid by Defendants in an amount adequate to 

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

the infringement by Defendants of the ‘536 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: May 19, 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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