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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

MARSHALL DIVISION

SOCIAL POSITIONING INPUT 

SYSTEMS, LLC

Plaintiff,

v.

VALVE CORPORATION 

Defendant

Civil Action No. 2:23-cv-422-JRG-RSP

 JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

JOINT (OPPOSED) MOTION FOR ENTRY OF DOCKET CONTROL ORDER

Plaintiff Social Positioning Input Systems, LLC (“SPIS” or “Plaintiff”) and Defendant Valve 

Corporation (“Valve” or “Defendants”) file this Joint Motion for Entry of Docket Control Order. The 

parties have agreed on all deadlines contained in the attached Docket Control Order except for the 

deadline for Quantum to amend its venue allegations.

The parties have agreed to seek modification of the deadline for filing the Joint Claim 

Construction Chart pursuant to P.R. 4-5(d) from December 24, 2024 to December 20, 2024, which 

requires a showing of good cause for the modification. The parties propose moving this deadline 

earlier to avoid conflict with the surrounding holidays and moving this deadline earlier provides the 

Court with more, not less, time with the Joint Claim Construction Chart. No other deadlines are 

affected by this change. Accordingly, good cause exists for the modification.

Valve’s Position

Valve additionally seeks modification of certain deadlines that have been designated by the 

Court as requiring a showing of good cause for the modification. Specifically, good cause exists to 

change this Court’s standard Docket Control Order and require Quantum to seek leave of the Court 

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and show good cause before amending the venue allegations in the complaint filed on March 15, 

2024, at Dkt. 23.1

Quantum filed its Original Complaint September 18, 2023 (Dkt. 1) and a First Amended 

Complaint on September 19 (Dkt. 3). Valve moved to dismiss SPIS’s First Amended Complaint 

under Rule 12(b)(3) for improper venue. Dkt. 11. In response to Valve’s motion in this case and 

parallel cases brought by plaintiffs owned by the same individual, Leigh Rothschild, the parties 

agreed to “conduct limited, expedited venue discovery.” Case No. 23-419, Dkt. 24 at 1. The parties 

also agreed, and this Court ordered, that “Plaintiff’s Response, and any subsequent briefing be 

applied with equal force” to this case. Id. at 2; see also Dkt. 14 (“[T]he parties hereby stipulate that 

the venue discovery order in the Symbology case (Case No. 23-419, Dkt. No. 24) will be applied to 

all three cases. The parties further stipulate that the arguments made in Valve’s Motion to Dismiss in 

the first to proceed Symbology case (Case No. 23-419, Dkt. No. 11), Plaintiff’s Response, and any 

subsequent briefing be applied with equal force to all three cases.”). The Court ordered that 

Symbology’s “response to the Motion to Dismiss shall be filed” by March 11, 2024. Case No. 23-

419, Dkt. 24, ¶ 7. Valve agreed to extend this deadline to March 21. Case No. 23-419, Dkt. 48-49. 

The purpose of this stipulation was to “promote efficiency and conserve judicial resources” 

by allowing a single set of briefing in the Symbology case to govern all three cases. Dkt. 14 at 2. 

Plaintiffs, however, created a procedural morass by filing three amended complaints in Symbology

and an amended complaint in Quantum—all containing disparate venue allegations and all requiring 

different briefing. Not only have Plaintiffs’ actions extinguished any efficiency in resolving the 

threshold issue of whether venue is proper against Valve in this district, Plaintiffs have also used the 

amended complaints to delay resolution of Valve’s motion beyond the date ordered by the Court. 

1 If the Court adopts Defendants’ proposed Docket Control Order, any subsequently filed amended 

complaints that change Plaintiff’s venue allegations on or after April 15 should be stricken. 

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Instead of filing a response to Valve’s motion to dismiss as this Court ordered (Case No. 23-419, 

Dkt. 24, ¶ 7), Symbology filed a Third Amended Complaint in Symbology, alleging entirely new 

theories of venue based on public information available before it filed its original complaint. Case 

No. 23-419, Dkt. 52. Under the Court’s Order (Case No. 23-419, Dkt. 24), briefing on Valve’s motion 

to dismiss should have completed April 8, 2024. Instead, briefing restarted on that date. Moreover, 

SPIS has now indicated that it intends to file yet another amended complaint in this case, mooting all 

prior briefing and requiring Valve to file yet another renewed motion to dismiss—the eighth across 

all three cases(and possibly the ninth if Quantum files an amended complaint as it indicated it would). 

Importantly, there is no reason for Plaintiffs to continue to amend their complaints to change 

venue allegations. Plaintiffs can and should have simply raised new arguments and evidence in a 

response. Kranos IP Corp. v. Riddell, Inc., No. 2:17-CV-443-JRG, 2017 WL 3704762, at *2 (E.D. 

Tex. Aug. 28, 2017). Specifically, in resolving a motion under Rule 12(b)(3), this Court considers 

new “affidavits and evidence submitted...by [] plaintiff[s] in response” to Valve’s motion to dismiss. 

Id. Thus, Plaintiffs continual amending of the operative complaint can have no other purpose but to 

delay briefing and thus resolution of Valve’s motion to dismiss. 

Plaintiffs should not be permitted to further amend their venue allegations in any amended 

complaints. The parties engaged in over three months of venue discovery, and whether venue against 

Valve is proper in this District is ripe for briefing and adjudication. Therefore, there is good cause to

change this Court’s standard Docket Control Order and require SPIS to seek leave of the Court and 

show good cause before amending the venue allegations in the complaint filed on March 15, 2024, 

at Dkt. 23.

Plaintiff’s position contains numerous false and misleading statements which Valve corrects 

below. 

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Plaintiff states incorrectly that Valve did not produce documents until after Symbology’s the 

deadline for Plaintiff to file its response brief to Valve’s Motion to Dismiss. Not so. Valve completed 

the vast majority of its venue-related document production before or on February 16, 2024. Valve 

produced one agreement on each of February 26, March 4, and March 20 (5 documents total). 

Symbology’s response was due on March 21. Therefore, Symbology had all of the information it 

needed to file a response on March 21. 

Plaintiff’s position also contains numerous false and misleading statements regarding a prior 

agreement (the “Settlement Agreement”) between Valve and third parties irrelevant to the current 

lawsuit. This case involves SPIS who is not a party to the Settlement Agreement, patents not licensed 

in the Settlement Agreement, and claims that do not arise out of any dispute about the Settlement 

Agreement. The Court should thus disregard Plaintiff’s statements on this issue.

First, Plaintiff alleges that Valve filed a declaratory judgement action against Rothschild and 

Patent Asset Management (“PAM”) in response to an offer to license certain patents. As a preliminary 

issue, the patents Plaintiff references are unrelated to the Asserted Patents and are not owned by 

Symbology. Moreover, Plaintiff conspicuously omits that Valve already had a license to the patents

that Rothschild and PAM offered to license to Valve under the Settlement Agreement. Valve filed 

suit against Rothschild, PAM, and others for under the Washington Patent Anti-Troll Statute and

breach of the Settlement Agreement, in addition to other claims, including declaratory judgment

claims. 

Second, Plaintiff spends significant time discussing the forum selection clause of Settlement 

Agreement between Valve and third parties, but the Settlement Agreement does not govern venue in 

this lawsuit. The forum selection clause2 only applies to Parties to the Settlement Agreement, which is 

2 The forum selection clause is permissive, not mandatory.

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defined as Valve, Display Technologies, and Leigh Rothschild—not SPIS (nor Symbology nor QTI).

Plaintiff does not assert otherwise in its position. Because SPIS is not a Party to the Settlement Agreement, 

it cannot enforce the forum selection clause. Further, this lawsuit does not involve any dispute about the 

Settlement Agreement, and the Asserted Patents are not licensed to Valve in the Settlement Agreement. 

Plaintiff does not dispute this. See Case No. 23-419, Dkt. 52, ¶¶ 21, 58. 

Third, Plaintiff attempts to make much out of Valve’s statement that it would not waive its 

licensing defense for this case. Plaintiff, however, is attempting to use the Settlement Agreement as a 

sword to enforce the forum selection clause and as a shield from any defense of Valve’s that it has a 

license to the Asserted Patents. Indeed, Plaintiff attempts to manufacture a venue dispute out of an 

unrelated agreement based on a hypothetical licensing defense that Valve (1) has not asserted and (2) 

Symbology alleges cannot be asserted. This is improper.

Plaintiff’s Position

Plaintiff has proposed making the Court’s ruling in Symbology Innovations, LLC v. Valve 

Corporation binding in all three cases involving Valve Corporation. As background, Patent Asset 

Management, LLC is the parent company of Quantum Technology Innovations, LLC (QTI or 

Quantum), Social Positing Input Systems, LLC (SPIS) and Symbology Innovations, LLC. 

Valve Corporation was approached to obtain a license on patents and in response it filed a 

declaratory judgment action on Patent Asset Management, LLC, and its director Leigh Rothschild. 

In that case, a prior lawsuit involving Display Innovations, LLC, a Patent Asset Management, LLC, 

subsidiary, settled a case pending in the Eastern District of Texas with Valve Corporation. Now, 

about eight years later, a patent infringement allegation has emerged where Valve Corporation 

refuses to waive its licensing defense for these three patents infringement lawsuits presently pending 

in this District. The prior global license agreement Valve Corporation entered into had a provision 

that the laws of Texas controlled and that any objection to venue in Texas state or federal court would 

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be waived. Now, just in the last two weeks, Valve Corporation has confirmed that it will not agree 

to waive a potential licensing defense for its accused products as a result of the prior settlement 

agreement that involved Display Technologies, LLC, Patent Asset Management subsidiaries, and 

Leigh Rothschild. As such, now it appears Valve Corporation wants to forum shop away from the 

forum selection clause it previously entered into with Leigh Rothschild and some of the subsidiaries 

of Patent Asset Management, LLC, including Display Technologies, LLC.

Of the three pending PAM subsidiary case pending in this district, the first filed case was 

Symbology Innovations. The parties already agreed to stipulate venue discovery to be taken 

simultaneously in all three (3) cases. Symbology Innovations has amended several times as allowed 

under docket control order. Rather than stipulate that the Court’s order in the lead case, Symbology 

Innovations v. Valve Corporation, is controlling on the issue of venue being proper in this District. 

As such, Plaintiff opposes a material change that the DCO that allows for amendments to the 

pleadings to reduce motion practice at the pleading stage while parties perfect their respective 

pleadings. Plaintiff had offered Defendant an extension to file an revised motion to dismiss because 

Plaintiff was going to amend its complaint, if a stipulation could not be reached, but knowing Plaintiff 

was going to amend to harmonize the personal jurisdiction portions of the three (3) complaints 

Defendant Valve Corporation went forward with filings another motion to dismiss knowing that 

Plaintiff was planning to amend but had not done so yet. 

Defendant also does not mention that certain discovery documentation requested by Plaintiff 

was not produced by Defendant until after the date Defendant claims Plaintiff was supposed to 

respond to the Motion to Dismiss, causing Plaintiff to believe it must amend to ensure resolution on 

the merits, not a procedural defect.

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Dated: April 15, 2024 Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Randall Garteiser 

Christopher A. Honea

Texas Bar No. 24059967

chonea@ghiplaw.com

Randall Garteiser

Texas Bar No. 24038912

rgarteiser@ghiplaw.com

M. Scott Fuller

Texas Bar No. 24036607

rgarteiser@ghiplaw.com

GARTEISER HONEA, PLLC

119 W. Ferguson Street

Tyler, Texas 75702

Telephone: (903) 705-7420

Facsimile: (903) 405-3999

Attorneys for Plaintiff Symbology Innovations, LLC.

/s/ Shaun W. Hassett

Michael E. Jones

SBN: 10929400

Shaun W. Hassett

SBN: 24074372

Potter Minton

102 North College, Ste. 900

Tyler, Texas 75702

903-597-8311 (telephone)

mikejones@potterminton.com

shaunhassett@potterminton.com

Dario A. Machleidt

Kathleen R. Geyer

Christopher P. Damitio 

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton

1420 Fifth Avenue Suite 3700 

Seattle, WA 98101 

Telephone: (206) 467-9600 

Facsimile: (206) 623-6793 

DMachledit@ktslaw.com

KGeyer@ktslaw.com 

CDamitio@ktslaw.com 

Attorneys for Defendant Valve Corp.

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CERTIFICATE OF CONFERENCE

The undersigned hereby certifies that on April 15, 2024 counsel for Plaintiff and 

Defendants complied with the meet and confer requirement in Local Rule CV-7(i). This motion 

is being filed jointly.

/s/ Shaun W. Hassett

Shaun W. Hassett

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