Velocity Communication Technologies had sued Lenovo Group Limited and related entities over alleged infringement of eleven patents related to Wi-Fi 6 technology, seeking damages for both direct and indirect infringement dating back to before the lawsuit was filed in July 2025. The case is part of a broader litigation campaign by Velocity, which has filed similar suits against major technology companies including OnePlus, Acer, Cisco, HP, and others over the same patent portfolio covering IEEE 802.11ax wireless communication standards.
Judge Schroeder granted Lenovo's motion to dismiss the pre-suit indirect and willful infringement claims, finding that Velocity failed to adequately plead that Lenovo had the required knowledge of the patents before being sued. As the judge explained, proving willful blindness requires showing "(1) [t]he defendant must subjectively believe that there is a high probability that a fact exists and (2) the defendant must take deliberate actions to avoid learning of that fact." The court found Velocity's complaint failed at least the first prong of this test.
The court rejected Velocity's argument that Letters of Assurance submitted to the IEEE standards body should establish Lenovo's knowledge, writing that "courts have agreed that Letters of Assurance or similar documents to a standard body are insufficient to plausibly establish that an accused infringer had notice of the asserted patents." Judge Schroeder noted the letters weren't even addressed to Lenovo and only indicated patents that "may" be essential to implementing the 802.11ax standard.
Velocity had originally filed its lawsuit against Lenovo in July 2025 and amended its complaint in November. Lenovo filed its motion to dismiss on November 26, 2025, challenging not only the pre-suit infringement claims but also arguing that one patent was invalid under Section 101 and that there was no personal jurisdiction over Lenovo Group Limited. The personal jurisdiction issue became moot when the parties agreed to dismiss those claims in February 2026.
The court also found that a pre-suit licensing letter Velocity sent to Lenovo in April 2025 was insufficient to establish knowledge because it "did not identify the asserted patents... and did not claim or allege that [d]efendant was infringing." Judge Schroeder distinguished a case Velocity cited, noting it involved summary judgment rather than a motion to dismiss, and instead followed a more recent Eastern District of Texas ruling in Dialect LLC v. Bank of America that found similar allegations insufficient at the pleading stage.
The ruling continues a trend in the Eastern District of Texas of requiring more specific allegations to support pre-suit willful infringement claims. Judge Schroeder cited multiple recent decisions holding that "general knowledge of a patent portfolio without more is insufficient even to plausibly allege knowledge of a particular asserted patent," following the Federal Circuit's heightened standards for willfulness claims established in the Halo Electronics decision.
Despite dismissing the pre-suit claims, Judge Schroeder gave Velocity another chance, ruling that "leave to amend must 'be freely given when justice so requires.'" The court dismissed the claims without prejudice and gave Velocity 30 days to file an amended complaint with sufficient allegations to support pre-suit indirect and willful infringement claims, warning that any claims not properly amended by the deadline will be dismissed. The court also dismissed one patent entirely as invalid under Section 101, following its analysis in a related case.