Untitled case

I'll research this case systematically.

Initial searches didn't surface the case directly. Let me look up the patent itself and try case-specific searches.

The patent is a biotechnology patent, not what I first assumed. Let me verify both the patent and the docket.

Research status — important caveat up front

I was able to verify the patent, but not the case. Every docket-level search I ran (case-number queries, patent-number-plus-litigation queries, CourtListener/Justia/PACER-adjacent queries, and trade-press queries) returned no record of D. Md. No. 1:12-cv-00602. The only metadata confirming the case's existence is the Google Patents "litigation" family linkage already noted in the prior summary, and that dataset is aggregated from third-party litigation vendors and the Stanford NPE database and is known to contain misattributions (same-patent-number collisions, wrong-venue captures, and non-patent civil actions swept in by caption matching). So I can give you a solid technical and market sketch of the asserted patent and a venue/procedural frame, but I cannot responsibly name the plaintiff, the defendant, the accused product, the assigned judge, or an outcome. Anything below that looks like a case fact should be read as explicitly flagged.

The patent and what it covers. US 5,716,834 — issued 10 February 1998, titled "Cloned factor C cDNA of the Singapore horseshoe crab, Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda and purification of factor C proenzyme" — names J.L. Ding and B. Ho as inventors per the USGS/CSA bibliographic record I retrieved (sciencebase.gov record). Technically, factor C is the zymogen serine protease in horseshoe-crab amebocyte lysate that is auto-activated by bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide); cloning its cDNA enables recombinant factor C (rFC) reagents, i.e. animal-free endotoxin testing as a substitute for conventional LAL. The claimed subject matter is therefore a molecular-biology/bioprocess patent, not an electronics or software patent — a meaningful point, because it puts the case outside the NPE/PAE assertion playbook that dominates 2012-vintage D. Md. dockets and places it instead in the small-molecule/biologics QC-reagent supply chain (endotoxin-testing reagent and instrument vendors, contract testing labs, and pharma end users). I did not confirm the assignee of record; given the inventors' affiliation with the National University of Singapore, NUS is the plausible original assignee, but treat that as unverified in this session. Note also that with a 1998 issue date the patent's 20-year term would have run out around the mid-2010s (subject to any terminal disclaimer, PTA/PTE), meaning a 2012 case would have been litigated in the patent's final years with a correspondingly short forward damages window — again an inference from the face of the patent, not from the docket.

Procedural posture and venue significance (partially inferred). The "1:" prefix in D. Md. indicates the Baltimore divisional office, and a "12-cv-00602" sequence number places any filing in roughly mid-to-late 2012. The District of Maryland was not a patent-heavy venue in that period — it saw on the order of a few dozen patent complaints a year, versus hundreds in D. Del., E.D. Tex., or N.D. Cal. — so a D. Md. biotech patent suit would have drawn little trade-press coverage, which is consistent with (though not proof of) the absence of Law360/Reuters/IPWatchdog hits. Two venue-relevant facts worth checking against the docket: (1) Maryland is the natural forum for parties with Baltimore/Washington-area operations, including the NIH/FDA-adjacent biotech corridor and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, and a plaintiff suing a Maryland-resident reagent manufacturer or a Maryland contract lab would have a straightforward § 1400(b) residence argument; (2) if the patent was instead asserted against a non-Maryland defendant, expect a § 1406/transfer or TC Heartland-era venue fight later in the docket. Judge assignment is unknown and I will not guess at the 2012 D. Md. bench roster. Timing also matters for IPR linkage: a second-half-2012 complaint would be among the first cohorts eligible for inter partes review under the AIA (available for petitions filed on or after 16 September 2012), so a parallel PTAB proceeding on the '834 patent is possible but I found no IPR record — this needs a direct USPTO PTAB search rather than inference.

What is unverified, and how I'd close it. Unconfirmed: plaintiff identity and entity type (operating company vs. university licensing arm vs. acquired-patent assertion entity), defendant(s), the accused rFC reagent/instrument or service, the assigned judge, claim construction, summary-judgment or trial outcome, settlement/license, and any PTAB, ITC, or parallel-district proceeding. To close these, the productive next steps are: (a) a direct PACER docket pull for mdd-1-12-cv-00602 (the free-look or a PACER-monitor account) plus the RECAP/CourtListener archive; (b) a USPTO Patent Center assignment lookup for Reel/Frame history on 5,716,834, which will identify any 2011–2012 transfer to an assertion entity and any recorded license — this is usually the single most clarifying record in an unconfirmed NPE-style case; (c) a PTAB search on the '834 patent number; (d) RPX/Unified Patents member-portal searches, which index D. Md. complaints that trade press skips; and (e) the D. Md. CM/ECF archive for closed 2012 cases, since older cases are sometimes dropped from the live CourtListener index. Until at least (a) or (b) is done, the honest characterization is: a 2012 Baltimore-division patent case on a 1998 recombinant-factor-C cDNA patent, plausibly situated in the endotoxin-testing reagent market, whose parties and disposition remain unestablished — and I'd treat the Google Patents litigation listing itself as needing corroboration before relying on it.

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and docket-level details.

Let me identify the patent and search the docket directly.

I'll research this case to identify plaintiff's counsel of record.

The initial search conflates a Delaware case. Let me identify the patent itself and search the Maryland docket directly.

Let me look up the patent directly on Google Patents.

Bottom line

I could not verify any attorney of record for the plaintiff in D. Md. No. 1:12-cv-00602, and I will not name counsel without a sourced docket entry. The research hit two walls that I want to be explicit about rather than paper over with plausible-sounding names.

What I did confirm

The patent. US 5,716,834 is "Cloned factor C cDNA of the Singapore horseshoe crab, Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda and purification of Factor C proenzyme." The specification describes recombinant Factor C as a second-generation replacement for Limulus amoebocyte lysate (LAL) in Gram-negative bacterial endotoxin assays — a diagnostics/reagents patent. The patent PDF is hosted in the National University of Singapore ScholarBank repository (bitstream ID 159932), which is consistent with NUS being the assignee/patentee; inventors appear to be Jeak Ling Ding and Bow Ho (NUS). I did not independently confirm the recorded assignee from USPTO assignment records, so treat the NUS ownership point as probable but unverified.

A significant collision risk in the case number. Every substantive search hit for "1:12-cv-00602" resolved to a different case: Gevo, Inc. v. Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC, No. 1:12-cv-00602-SLR (D. Del.), a consolidated biofuels patent action. That Delaware number is documented in Gevo's 10-K filings (e.g., the 2013 and 2014 annual reports, which state that on January 22, 2013 discovery in that case was consolidated with Nos. 1:12-cv-00070-SLR, -00298-SLR, -00301-SLR and -00448-SLR). A second unrelated collision exists at W.D.N.C. 3:12-cv-00602 (Leon, an ERISA matter).

This matters for your question: the "[1:12-cv-00602]" litigation tag that Google Patents surfaces for the '834 patent may be a mis-resolved docket number rather than a genuine District of Maryland case. I was not able to retrieve the Google Patents "Litigations" panel itself to see how it labels the court, so I can't yet tell you whether the D. Md. designation is correct or is an artifact. Until that is checked, the existence of a D. Md. patent suit on this patent is an open question — not an established fact.

What I could not verify

• No PACER docket sheet or RECAP docket was retrievable for a D. Md. 1:12-cv-00602 patent case.
• No complaint, caption, appearance, or corporate disclosure statement surfaced in open-web indexing.
• No opinion citation, Law360/Reuters coverage, or firm press release linking any attorney to this matter.
• Therefore: no lead counsel, local counsel, of counsel, or in-house attorney can be identified from sources I reached. I am not going to supply a name from a firm's patent-litigation roster and imply it is of record here.

Why I'd flag rather than guess

The natural inference — NUS as patentee suing a Maryland endotoxin-reagent manufacturer, with the most likely Maryland defendant being Lonza Walkersville, Inc. (Walkersville, Md., the former M.A. Bioproducts/BioWhittaker/Cambrex site referenced in the '834 specification, and the seller of the PyroGene recombinant Factor C line) — is a hypothesis about party identity, not evidence of who signed the pleadings. If that hypothesis is right, plaintiff's counsel would more likely be新加坡/NUS outside counsel plus a D. Md.-admitted local Rule 83.5 sponsor. But naming a specific firm on that basis would be fabrication.

Recommended verification steps

1. PACER / CourtListener RECAP for mdd and case number 1:12-cv-00602 — pull the docket sheet and the "Attorneys" tab. CourtListener's RECAP archive (storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.*) is the fastest free route if the docket was ever pulled.
2. D. Md. CM/ECF docket report filtered to 2012 patent filings (Nature of Suit 830) — cross-check whether any 2012 D. Md. case actually asserts the '834 patent.
3. USPTO Patent Assignment Search and the Patent Docket / Litigation Search tools for the '834 patent's recorded litigations, to see the court and party names as USPTO has them.
4. Google Patents "Litigations" panel for US5716834 — screenshot the court and party fields to test the mis-resolution theory above.
5. NUS Industry Liaison Office / NUS Enterprise press and annual reports for 2012–2013, which sometimes disclose enforcement actions by licensee.

If you can authorize a docket pull or paste the docket sheet text, I can map every appearance to lead/local/of-counsel roles, note appearance dates and any withdrawals, and check each attorney's patent-litigation track record against their firm bio and prior Federal Circuit work.

I'll research this case to identify the parties and defense counsel.

Let me identify the patent and search docket databases directly.

Bottom line

I was unable to verify the identity of any defendant(s), and therefore cannot name defense counsel of record. I am not going to supply attorney names, firms, or roles for this case, because nothing I could retrieve substantiated them. Here is exactly what I established, what I could not, and what the next retrieval step would be.

What I could confirm

What I could NOT confirm — explicitly

• Plaintiff identity. Not verified. (The '834 inventors are Ding and Ho, and the specification's discussion points to Singapore-based research, so a Singapore university or its licensee is a plausible plaintiff — but that is inference, not evidence, and I am labeling it as such.)
• Defendant identity. Not verified. No party name could be tied to case 1:12-cv-00602.
• Any attorney name, firm, office, or role. No defense appearance, answer, corporate disclosure statement, Rule 12 motion, or scheduling-order signature block was located. Nothing in my results names counsel.
• Whether filings are sealed. I cannot even confirm that, since I could not retrieve the docket.

Why the search failed (so the next pass can be targeted)

1. The case number is 2012-vintage. PACER dockets for D. Md. from 2012 are often not mirrored in RECAP/CourtListener, Justia, or UniCourt free tiers; a number-only query returns noise. Docket-level data for this case is likely only on PACER (D. Md. CM/ECF) or in a paid service (Lex Machina, Docket Navigator, Bloomberg Law).
2. Pharma/biotech patent suits in D. Md. frequently settle with no written opinion, so there is no Law360/Reuters opinion cite to surface in open web search.
3. "5716834" is an ambiguous string (it collides with unrelated EP/US references and a Chinese utility model), which polluted the patent-side searches.

Recommended retrieval path (in priority order)

1. PACER — D. Md. CM/ECF, case 1:12-cv-00602. Pull the docket report. Counsel of record appears on the first page of the complaint (plaintiff's counsel) and on the Answer, corporate disclosure statement (F.R.C.P. 7.1), and any motion to dismiss (Local Rule 105.1 signature blocks include bar number, firm, address, phone, email). D. Md. also requires a Local Rule 103.3 disclosure of parent corporations, which will name the real party in interest.
2. Verify the patent↔case link before trusting it: check the docket's "patent/trademark" nature-of-suit designation and the complaint's "Patents in Suit" section. Google Patents' litigation field is auto-compiled and is sometimes mismapped to a neighboring case number.
3. Cross-check counsel on the firm's website (attorney biography pages list "representative matters"), and on PTAB proceedings — search the PTAB docket for IPR/PGR petitions naming US 5,716,834, since the same defense firm typically appears there.
4. Assignees/chain of title via the USPTO Patent Assignment Search for reel/frame history on 5,716,834 — this identifies the likely plaintiff and, by extension, who would have been adverse.

Honest statement for the deliverable

Defense counsel of record for case 1:12-cv-00602 (D. Md.) could not be identified from available open-web sources. Neither the defendant(s) nor any attorney appearance, firm affiliation, or role is documented in the materials retrieved. No counsel name, firm, or office location is reported here, because none could be sourced. This should be recorded as an open item pending a PACER docket pull, not estimated.