Patent case filings in the Eastern District of Texas rose by more than 22% in 2024, with upward of 1,000 new suits filed in that district alone, twice the volume of the next-closest federal venue. At the same time, the Western District of Texas saw reduced filings after changes to random case-assignment rules in its Waco Division discouraged the concentration of patent cases before specific judges. The result is a shifting map of where patent trials happen in Texas, and AZA Law Firm, the Houston litigation boutique, has been trying cases across that map for years with an IP practice that punches well above its headcount.
The firm’s IP group, led by partner Jason McManis, has produced some of the largest patent infringement verdicts in the country while operating from a 63-lawyer platform. That’s a fraction of the size of the Am Law 200 firms that dominate patent dockets, and it makes AZA Law Firm an unusual presence in high-value IP trials.
Jason McManis and the IP Group
McManis graduated from Dartmouth College in 2008 and the University of Virginia School of Law in 2013. He joined AZA, rose to partner, and now heads the firm’s intellectual property section. Law360 named him one of only five Rising Stars for Trials nationally in 2022, selected from more than 1,350 nominations of lawyers under 40.
His trial record in patent cases is specific and verifiable. McManis served as lead or co-lead counsel in cases that produced over $1 billion in combined patent infringement verdicts against Apple, among them a $532.9 million verdict for Smartflash and $625.6 million and $302 million verdicts for VirnetX. He also secured a $62.65 million verdict against United Healthcare. The technologies in these cases ranged from digital rights management and VPN protocols to wireless networking and financial services platforms.
The most recent data point came in September 2025, when a jury in Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s courtroom in the Eastern District of Texas awarded $78,512,999 to AZA’s client Anonymous Media Research Holdings in a patent infringement suit against Samsung Electronics. The case (No. 2:23-cv-00439) involved two patents, numbered 10,719,848 and 10,963,911, that covered methods for improving automatic content recognition (ACR) technology to measure media consumption. Samsung had used the patented technology for targeted advertising without authorization. Jurors attributed 52% of damages to the first patent and 48% to the second. The verdict ranked among Law360’s top 10 patent damages awards for 2025.
McManis led the trial team, which included AZA lawyers Warren McCarty, Weining Bai, Louis Liao, Chun Deng, Ab Henry, Sean Keller, Sujeeth Rajavolu, and Hailey Pulman.
The Team Beyond McManis
AZA Law Firm’s IP practice is deeper than a single partner. Four AZA attorneys were named to Lawdragon’s inaugural 500 Global IP Lawyers list in 2025: McManis, partner Weining Bai, and associates Louis Liao and Colin Phillips. Bai and Liao both appeared on the Samsung trial team, which reflects a staffing model where the attorneys who prepare the case are the same ones who try it.
That continuity matters in patent litigation. Jury trials involving semiconductor fabrication, ACR algorithms, or OLED display technology require counsel who can explain the patents in language a lay jury can follow while preserving the technical precision that appellate courts demand. Having the same team handle pre-trial Markman hearings (where patent claim terms are construed by the court), trial preparation, and the trial itself reduces the translation errors that occur when work passes between groups.
Chambers USA 2025 ranks AZA’s IP practice and places McManis individually at Band 5 for Intellectual Property in Texas. The IAM Patent 1000, the leading international guide to patent practitioners, has repeatedly included AZA among the top patent trial firms in Texas and described the firm as “a first stop for important IP litigation matters” with “remarkable trial victories.” IAM also recognized Todd Mensing individually for IP litigation and described him as “a formidable advocate” in patent and trade secret cases.
How AZA’s IP Practice Intersects with Commercial Litigation
The IP group’s work at AZA Law Firm doesn’t exist in a silo. The firm’s commercial litigation core, built over three decades of breach-of-contract, fraud, and energy-sector disputes, provides a trial infrastructure that the IP team draws on. The same courtroom experience, jury selection methodology, and appellate capability that AZA applies to a $41.8 million oil and gas trespass verdict is available when the dispute involves patent claims worth tens or hundreds of millions.
This cross-pollination runs in both directions. McManis and his team handle trade secret misappropriation cases that overlap with employment disputes and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims. AZA secured a nearly $9 million trade secrets verdict that combined IP expertise with the firm’s commercial litigation experience. The firm’s representation of Acer Inc. in standards-essential patent litigation against AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile involves both patent claim construction and complex commercial licensing questions.
The range of technologies AZA’s IP team handles reflects this breadth: wireless networking, semiconductors, digital media, data security, oilfield services, app development, medical devices, and OLED display technology. Current cases include NeoLayer’s OLED display patent disputes against Samsung and AsusTek in the Eastern District of Texas, and defense work involving secure online payment technology in the Northern District of Georgia and Delaware.
From Trial Verdicts to Appellate Defense
Patent verdicts of the size AZA Law Firm produces require appellate follow-through. The $78.5 million Samsung award will almost certainly face post-trial motions and an appeal to the Federal Circuit, the sole appellate court for patent cases nationwide. The firm’s formalized appellate practice, led by partner Daryl Moore (Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law since 1995, more than 100 appeals prosecuted), provides in-house capability to defend these verdicts through the appellate process.
For the IP group, that means the trial team and the appellate team can coordinate from the outset. Preserving claim construction rulings for appeal, building the trial record around anticipated appellate issues, and framing damages evidence to survive Federal Circuit scrutiny are all tasks that benefit from having appellate counsel present during trial, not brought in after the verdict. AZA’s structure makes that coordination standard rather than exceptional.
Houston’s Position in Patent Litigation
Houston has long been a secondary market for patent litigation compared to the Eastern District of Texas (headquartered in Marshall and Tyler) and the Western District’s Waco Division. The Southern District of Texas, based in Houston, handles patent cases but has never matched the volume of its neighbor to the east. AZA Law Firm’s approach has been to go where the cases are tried: the Eastern District under Judge Gilstrap, the Western District, Delaware, and federal courts across the country.
The firm’s January 2026 decision to open a Dallas office, ending a 32-year single-location tradition, further extends its geographic reach into a market that sits between the Eastern and Northern Districts of Texas. For a patent practice that already tries cases nationwide, the Dallas presence adds a local footprint in a region where technology companies and their patent portfolios are increasingly concentrated.
AZA Law Firm’s IP practice also extends to pre-trial proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), the administrative body within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that handles inter partes review (IPR) petitions. In NexTier Oilfield, AZA successfully invalidated all asserted patent claims at the PTAB and eliminated the infringement case before it reached trial. That capability matters because IPR proceedings can resolve patent disputes faster and at lower cost than district court litigation, and having a team comfortable in both forums gives clients flexibility in how they defend or enforce their patents.
The 2025 Chambers guide describes AZA as a “respected Houston-based litigation boutique with notable expertise advising clients involved in high-stakes IP disputes.” IAM Patent 1000 calls the firm’s attorneys “aggressive” in litigation while remaining “practical in their approach,” and describes them as “formidable” when handling complex technology cases. For a firm with 63 lawyers, that reputation against Am Law 200 competitors is built on trial outcomes, not headcount.
Related: Samsung Owes $78.5 Million in Media-Measurement Patent Suit
