Context: German supercomputer firm ParTec is enforcing patents against two of the largest companies in the world, NVIDIA (August 11, 2025 ip fray article) and Microsoft (June 10, 2024 ip fray article). In the Microsoft case in the Eastern District of Texas (over three patents), ParTec is being represented by Susman Godfrey’s Justin Nelson, the lead counsel of a book authors’ class action that reached a $1.5B+ agreement with AI provider Anthropic (October 28, 2025 ip fray interview). The patent assertions against NVIDIA (presently two different cases, each over one patent) were brought in the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Munich Local Division (LD).
What’s new: Yesterday, Magistrate Judge Roy S. Paine of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas denied a Microsoft motion to postpone the trial. He did not address the argument’s for continuance in detail: “The Court finds that Defendant has not shown sufficient diligence or unfair prejudice to justify a second continuance of the trial.”
Direct impact: There is now a significantly likelihood of settlements between ParTec and the two tech giants as the Texas trial date (June 15, 2026) appears rather firm and the UPC trial will go forward on February 13, 2026 (without a prior interim conference, which suggests that the court considers it a clear-cut case for one side or the other). The cases are connected as NVIDIA supplies the hardware used by Microsoft in its AI data centers, which includes the infrastructured used to operate the OpenAI Supercomputer. The primary threat in the UPC is a multi-country injunction, and in Texas there could be a large damages award.
Wider ramifications: Relative to the enormous amounts of money invested in AI in recent years, there hasn’t been much litigation yet. Last summer, a French company sued OpenAI, Adobe and others in the UPC’s Paris LD over content authentication, which is not an AI technology per se but used to help distinguish original content from deepfakes (August 2, 2025 ip fray article). It is fairly possible that there will be more AI hardware and software patent cases this year than in recent years.
Here’s Magistrate Judge Payne’s terse order:
The reference to a lack of “sufficient diligence” in connection with “unfair prejudice” must relate to Microsoft’s arguments that it needs more time now to defend the OpenAI Supercomputer (which runs on hardware operated by Microsoft) or to raise a license defense (over a license concluded six years before the Texas complaint and covering cellular standard-essential patents allegedly infringed by smartphones and held by different companies founded by ParTec’s CEO).
Here’s Microsoft’s unsuccessful motion, followed by ParTec’s opposition brief:
Court and counsel
United States District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III is presiding over the case, and Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne handles certain case management and discovery matters.
Counsel for ParTec: Susman Godfrey’s Justin A. Nelson, Jacob Brooks Levin, Alexander W. Aiken, Matthew R. Berry; Capshaw DeRieux’s S. Calvin Capshaw III and Elizabeth L. DeRieux; and Miller Fair Henry’s Claire Abernathy Henry.
Desmarais’s Betty Hong Chen, Caitrianne Feddeler, Jeffrey S. Seddon II, Lee Joseph Matalon, Michael A. Wueste, and Peter C. Magic; Klarquist Sparkman’s Kristin L. Cleveland; and Gillam & Smith’s Melissa Richards Smith.