Untitled case

I'll research this case thoroughly, starting with the docket number and patent.

Correction to the earlier summary: the case is now identified

Caption: RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc., No. 1:18-cv-00733 (N.D. Ill.), filed Jan. 31, 2018, assigned to Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, closed May 29, 2018 — and US 7,791,761 was asserted. The earlier note that parties were unconfirmed can be retired: RPX Insight lists the docket as RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc. with Judge Kennelly presiding, cause of action "willful patent infringement," market sector "E-commerce and Software," four accused products, closed 05/29/2018 (RPX Insight). The case did not end on the merits in Illinois — Judge Kennelly transferred it under § 1404(a), and it continued as RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Inc., No. 3:18-cv-03277-SI (N.D. Cal., Judge Susan Illston), later folded into MDL No. 2874, In re: RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation (3:18-md-02874-SI).

Parties and accused technology. RAH Color Technologies LLC is a Virginia LLC in Alexandria, with a stated office at 7012 Colgate Drive, and is wholly owned and managed by Dr. Richard A. Holub, a color scientist (Ph.D., neurophysiology) who worked at Eikonix/Kodak, Agfa and SuperMac and taught at RIT. He formed Imagicolor Corp. in 1998 to commercialize a display-calibration/soft-proofing prototype; after it dissolved, RAH was formed in 2005 "as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program" — i.e., an individual-inventor-owned licensing/assertion entity, not an operating company or a university spin-out (the RIT connection is Holub's teaching and rented lab space, not an assignment of the patents). These background allegations appear verbatim in RAH's complaints, e.g. the Quad/Graphics and X-Rite complaints filed as exhibits in the Adobe IPRs (Quad complaint). Adobe Inc. is the accused infringer; the accused instrumentalities were described as "Adobe Accused Photo Editing Products" and "Adobe Accused Color Document Products" — Photoshop, Camera Raw, and related applications, accused chiefly for their ICC-profile-based color management, soft-proofing (simulating a printer's output on a monitor), black-point compensation, GCR/UCR settings, and gamut-mapping performed by the color management module.

The patents. The '761 patent, "System for Distributing and Controlling Color Reproduction at Multiple Sites," issued Sept. 7, 2010, names Holub and is one of a large continuation family sharing a common specification (the same family as the '870, '897, '008, '444, '546, '560 and '052 patents) tracing to Holub's late-1990s applications. In one line: it claims a method of transforming color image data using device-independent color characterization/calibration data so that images rendered on different devices "appear substantially the same," with claim 11 adding gamut operations to improve the color match between reproductions. In the Adobe case RAH asserted the '761 together with the '008, '444 and '897 patents — the PTAB record states plainly that "Patent Owner has asserted the '761 patent and three related patents against Petitioner in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Case No. 3:18-cv-03277-SI" (IPR2019-00646 FWD, Paper 119, Oct. 8, 2020). Asserted '761 claims included 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13. Caveat: I could not open the original Jan. 31, 2018 Illinois complaint to confirm the '761 was named on day one rather than added later; the IPR record confirms assertion in the case as transferred.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Venue is the through-line. RAH filed in Chicago even though Adobe is a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Jose and nothing happened in Illinois; Judge Kennelly granted transfer, reasoning that "no events of significance took place in this district," that the accused products were developed in Northern California, that no relevant records were in Illinois (RAH's are in Virginia, Adobe's in California), and — pointedly — that "the likelihood is that the case was filed here largely because RAH's primary attorneys are here," warning that counting that factor "would permit a plaintiff in a patent infringement suit to pick its venue by its choice of attorneys." He also dismissed the "backing up the truck" record-access rationale as obsolete in a digital-production era (opinion; Dkt. 30). That is a frequently cited § 1404(a)/TC Heartland-era venue discussion, and RAH's Chicago counsel was in fact Global IP Law Group (David Powers Berten), listed as lead attorney from 01/31/2018 (counsel list exhibit).

The case is notable on three further counts. First, IPR linkage: Adobe (Perkins Coie — Christopher L. Kelley, James F. Valentine) filed four parallel petitions on Feb. 1, 2019 — IPR2019-00627 ('008), -00628 ('444), -00629 ('897) and -00646 ('761) — and the '761 was the one that broke RAH's case: the Final Written Decision of Oct. 8, 2020 held claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 unpatentable, leaving claim 9 standing; the district case was then dismissed by stipulation (Dkt. 155, Sept. 27, 2021). Second, NPE assertion pattern: this was one strand of a coordinated campaign by a single-inventor PAE against essentially the entire color-imaging industry — Seiko Epson (W.D.N.Y. 6:10-cv-06710), Ricoh, Microsoft, X-Rite, Quad/Graphics, and then Adobe, Xerox (6:18-cv-06746), Electronics For Imaging (E.D. Va. 1:18-cv-01436 and N.D. Cal. 3:18

I'll research this case systematically, starting with identifying the parties and the patent.

The case is RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc., N.D. Ill. 1:18-cv-00733 (Judge Kennelly), which appears to have been transferred to N.D. Cal. Let me confirm the transfer and trace the litigation's continuation.

The N.D. Ill. case was transferred to N.D. Cal. and folded into an MDL. Let me trace the post-transfer litigation and IPR outcomes.

Identification and bottom line

The N.D. Ill. case captioned in the metadata is RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc., No. 1:18-cv-00733 (N.D. Ill.), assigned to Judge Matthew F. Kennelly. Patent U.S. 7,791,761 ("System for Distributing and Controlling Color Reproduction at Multiple Sites," inventor Dr. Richard A. Holub) was asserted — but not for long in Illinois. On 2018-05-28 Judge Kennelly granted Adobe's § 1404(a) motion and transferred the case to the Northern District of California, where it became No. 3:18-cv-03277-SI before Judge Susan Illston and was then swept into MDL No. 2874, In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation. The case never reached trial: it ended by stipulated dismissal on 2021-09-27, after Adobe's inter partes review knocked out most of the asserted '761 claims at the PTAB.

Uncertainty flag: I could not verify a public settlement amount or license grant; the docket shows only a stipulation of dismissal. Treat "settled/licensed" as inference, not confirmed fact.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings (Jan.–May 2018)

Patents asserted against Adobe. The complaint pleaded the '761 plus three related patents — U.S. 7,312,897, 7,729,008, and 8,416,444 — with the '761 counts pleaded claim-by-claim (Counts XXI, XXII, etc., covering at least claims 9, 10 and 11, alleging both direct infringement under § 271(a) and inducement under § 271(b), with knowledge dated "at least December 21, 2016"). Accused functionality centered on Adobe's soft-proofing / color-profile (CMM) gamut-mapping features in its photo-editing products.

Source: RPX Insight docket summary; Justia docket; complaint excerpts via RPX.

2. The dispositive pretrial motion: transfer (2018)

Adobe moved to transfer to N.D. Cal. (Dkt. 22). RAH opposed, arguing convenience (its principal is in Virginia, its lawyers in Chicago, and related RAH suits were pending in N.D. Ill.) and offered a fallback request for transfer to the Eastern District of Virginia.

On 2018-05-28 Judge Kennelly granted the motion (Dkt. 30, 2018 WL 2299240-style memorandum opinion; also reported at RAH Color Techs. LLC v. Adobe Sys., Inc., No. 18 C 733 (N.D. Ill. May 28, 2018)). Holding highlights:

• The patents and accused products had no connection to Illinois; accused products were developed in N.D. Cal., where Adobe is headquartered.
• "This district has no relationship to RAH's dispute with Adobe, whereas the Northern District of California has a significant relationship to the dispute."
• Only the convenience factor favored RAH, and "only slightly"; the court warned that weighting it heavily "would permit a plaintiff in a patent infringement suit to pick its venue by its choice of attorneys."
• The E.D. Va. fallback was rejected because RAH "made no effort to establish that the Eastern District of Virginia is a district 'where [this suit] might have been brought.'"
• The 2018-05-29 status hearing and ruling were vacated.

Sources: CourtListener opinion; Casemine; Dkt. 30 PDF.

The N.D. Ill. docket closed 2018-05-29. Everything substantive thereafter happened in California — which is why the '761's litigation history looks thin if one only searches the Illinois docket.

3. MDL consolidation in N.D. Cal. (2018–2019)

• Transferred case docketed 3:18-cv-03277-SI (date filed shown as 2018-06-04), Judge Illston.
• 2018-08-23 — Adobe serves supplemented invalidity contentions under N.D. Cal. rules: roughly 200 prior-art references and 105 claim charts spanning ~12,565 pages (per RAH's account in the 2019-01-07 Joint Preliminary Status Report).
• 2018-12-06 — JPML orders the Adobe, Xerox, and Electronics For Imaging cases centralized as MDL No. 2874, N.D. Cal., before Judge Illston (Case No. 3:18-md-02874-SI).
• 2019-01-25 — JPML conditional transfer order adding the Heidelberger (N.D. Ill. 1:19-cv-00193) and Dalim (N.D. Ill. 1:19-cv-00275) cases; Kodak (W.D.N.Y. 6:19-cv-06112) followed. Xerox was W.D.N.Y. 6:18-cv-06746; EFI's declaratory action was E.D. Va. 1:18-cv-01436.
• 2019-04-04 — MDL case management conference; RAH represented by Global IP Law Group (David Berten, Alison Richards, Irwin Park); Adobe/Dalim by Perkins Coie (James Valentine, Wing Liang, et al.).

Note for the record: the metadata's caution was partly right — the Dalim and Heidelberger N.D. Ill. suits are separate cases (1:19-cv-00275 and 1:19-cv-00193), not 1:18-cv-00733.

4. Parallel PTAB proceedings — the decisive development

Adobe filed four IPR petitions against RAH's asserted portfolio; the '761 petition was filed 2019-02-01:

IPR2019-00646 outcome — Final Written Decision, 2020-10-08: the Board held Adobe proved by a preponderance that claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 of the '761 are unpatentable. The judgment caption ("Determining Some Challenged Claims Unpatentable") indicates the challenge to claims 9 and 15 did not succeed — i.e., those two claims survived. The Board also **denied RAH's two motions to exclude, RAH's motion

I'll research the docket for N.D. Ill. case 1:18-cv-00733 to identify the parties and counsel.

Found the case. Let me confirm parties and dig into the docket and counsel.

Let me pull the docket details and confirm which patents (including the '761) were asserted.

Bottom line

Case identified: RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc., No. 1:18-cv-00733 (N.D. Ill., Judge Matthew F. Kennelly), filed 1/31/2018, closed 5/29/2018 after Judge Kennelly granted Adobe's § 1404(a) motion and transferred the case to the Northern District of California (Dkt. 22 motion; Dkt. 30 Memorandum Opinion and Order, 5/28/2018). It continued there as RAH Color Techs. LLC v. Adobe Inc., No. 3:18-cv-03277-SI (N.D. Cal.), and was then consolidated into MDL No. 3:18-md-02874-SI, In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation (Judge Susan Illston). Plaintiff RAH Color Technologies LLC (Alexandria, VA; managed by inventor Dr. Richard A. Holub) was the sole plaintiff.

Because the N.D. Ill. phase lasted only ~4 months, the plaintiff's-side appearances below are the ones carried onto the N.D. Cal./MDL docket with an "assigned" date of 01/31/2018 — i.e., the same team.

Plaintiff's counsel of record

Local counsel: Global IP Law Group's Chicago office was the local counsel — GIPLG is Chicago-headquartered, and Judge Kennelly expressly noted that the case was likely filed in N.D. Ill. "largely because RAH's primary attorneys are here" (Dkt. 30, at 6–7). There was no separate Chicago local-counsel firm on the plaintiff's side.

In-house: None of record. RAH is a one-man patent-holding LLC; Dr. Holub is its principal/inventor and appeared as a party representative and witness, not as counsel.

Important correction / caveat on the docket listing

Justia's docket summary for 1:18-cv-00733 also displays Steven M. Lubezny in the counsel block. Do not count him as plaintiff's counsel: his published bio (Rice Technology Law Group) states he "represented Adobe in patent infringement case against RAH Color Technologies LLC involving color management software," and he is a Chicago patent litigator (IL bar 2001) — consistent with Adobe-side, not RAH-side, representation. Adobe's lead counsel of record in the case were James F. Valentine and Christopher G. Hanewicz (Perkins Coie; Hanewicz in Madison, WI; Valentine, Andrew N. Klein and Wing H. Liang in Palo Alto), with Randall G. Block (Burke, Williams & Sorensen, San Francisco) later appearing in N.D. Cal. I flag Lubezny because Justia's party/counsel block is ambiguous as rendered, and I could not pull the actual appearance entry in this session.

Sourcing and open items

• Docket metadata and transfer order: Justia docket for No. 1:18-cv-00733 (Dkt. 30, 5/28/2018, granting Dkt. 22); CourtListener copy of the opinion (storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.348752/gov.uscourts.ilnd.348752.30.0.pdf); RPX Insight litigation page (filed 1/31/2018; closed 5/29/2018; Judge Kennelly).
• Counsel names, firms, addresses, bar numbers, pro hac vice status: N.D. Cal. docket sheet for No. 3:18-cv-03277-SI, reproduced as Exhibit 2024 to RAH's Patent Owner papers in IPR2019-00628; PTAB correspondence between GIPLG and Perkins Coie in IPR2019-00627/-00628/-00629/-00646; MDL case-management conference transcript (4/4/2019, N.D. Cal.).
• Unverified: I could not confirm in this session from the complaint itself that U.S. 7,791,761 was pleaded in the original 1/31/2018 N.D. Ill. complaint (the case metadata lists it; the '761 was the subject of RAH's December 21, 2016 pre-suit claim chart to Adobe and of Adobe's IPR2019-00646, and it traveled with the case into the N.D. Cal./MDL proceedings). Also unverified: exact N.D. Ill. appearance docket numbers and dates for each attorney (the "01/31/2018" dates are from the carried-over N.D. Cal. docket sheet). No sealed or ex parte appearance issues are apparent — all plaintiff's-side appearances are public.

I'll research this docket. Let me start with several parallel searches.

Case identified: RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc., 1:18-cv-00733 (N.D. Ill.), Judge Kennelly, filed 1/31/2018, closed 5/29/2018 (transferred to N.D. Cal.). Now I need the defendant's counsel of record.

Case confirmation (important correction to the existing summary)

The case is confirmed, and it did involve US 7,791,761:

• RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc., No. 1:18-cv-00733 (N.D. Ill., E.D., Chicago), assigned to Judge Matthew F. Kennelly; filed January 31, 2018; closed May 29, 2018. (Justia docket; RPX Insight)
• Sole defendant: Adobe Systems Inc. (later Adobe Inc.).
• The '761 patent was one of a family of RAH Color patents asserted; Adobe's own mandatory notice in the related IPRs lists the '761 patent as being in suit against Adobe, and RAH's patent owner filings confirm the '761 patent was asserted. (Patent Owner's Amended Mandatory Notice, IPR2019-00628)
• Key docket events: Dkt. 22 — Adobe's motion to transfer; Dkt. 30 — Memorandum Opinion and Order (5/28/2018) granting transfer to the N.D. Cal.; the case was then transferred and became RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Inc., No. 3:18-cv-03277 (N.D. Cal.), and was folded into In re: RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, No. 3:18-md-02874-SI (JPML MDL No. 2874). (IPR2019-00646 Ex. 1038, MDL CMC transcript)

Defendant's counsel of record

Caveat on sourcing, stated up front: I could not pull the individual N.D. Ill. CM/ECF "ATTORNEY Appearance for Defendant Adobe Systems Inc" entries for this docket in this session (the free docket extract for 1:18-cv-00733 shows the transfer briefing and plaintiff's appearances but not the full defendant appearance list). Rather than guess at Chicago counsel, below I give the Adobe-side attorneys whose representation of Adobe against RAH Color on these patents is documented in the record — the N.D. Cal./MDL case, the PTAB proceedings, and an affidavit in which Adobe's counsel states he is counsel in the litigation originally filed January 31, 2018. I flag below which specifics remain unverified.

Perkins Coie LLP — Palo Alto, CA (Adobe's patent litigation / IPR counsel)

Sources: RAH's service-of-counsel listing of Kelley and Valentine, IPR2019-00646 Ex. 2001; Klein affidavit, IPR2019-00628; July 1, 2019 hearing transcript, IPR2019-00646 Ex. 1042; Perkins Coie service list, IPR2019-00646 Ex. 2239.

Local counsel (N.D. Ill.) — not verified

Local Rule 83.5 required an Illinois-member attorney to appear for Adobe in the N.D. Ill. action, and Adobe's Dkt. 22 motion to transfer was necessarily filed through local counsel. I could not verify the identity of that Chicago firm/attorney, and I am not going to name one speculatively. The most likely repositories for that name are: (a) the CM/ECF appearance entries in 1:18-cv-00733 between 2/2018 and 3/2018, (b) the signature block of Dkt. 22 and Adobe's reply in support of transfer, and (c) the N.D. Cal. transfer-order record. Retrieving Dkts. 22 and 30 from PACER would resolve this definitively.

In-house

No Adobe in-house attorney is identified as counsel of record in any of the accessible filings; Adobe appeared through outside counsel (Perkins Coie) in both the district court and PTAB matters.

Practice notes on this counsel team

• Perkins Coie's Palo Alto team (Kelley, Valentine) was Adobe's standing patent-litigation group for this campaign; the same team defended Adobe across four IPRs on the RAH Color portfolio (IPR2019-00627, -00628, -00629, and -00646 on the '761 patent), which is the parallel PTAB track the user asked about.
• The '761 IPR, IPR2019-00646, generated contested discovery motion practice — including RAH's motion to compel deposition testimony from Adobe expert Charles Poynton after "Adobe's counsel instructed Poynton not to answer" (IPR2019-00646, Paper 46) — a useful data point on the intensity of the Adobe-side defense, though I have not confirmed the Board's disposition of that motion.
• Opposing counsel for RAH was David P. Berten and Alison Aubry Richards of Global IP Law Group, LLC, 55 W. Monroe St., Suite 3400, Chicago — relevant because the "local counsel" slot in the N.D. Ill. case was occupied on the plaintiff's side by a Chicago firm.

Gaps I could not close

1. The exact N.D. Ill. appearance entries (and thus which Perkins Coie lawyers were formally admitted pro hac vice in 1:18-cv-00733, and who served as local counsel).
2. Whether Adobe filed an answer or moved to dismiss before transfer — the docket extract shows the transfer motion (Dkt. 22) and the transfer order (Dkt. 30), but I did not confirm a responsive pleading.
3. Whether the case was terminated on the N.D. Ill. docket by transfer (5/29/2018) versus by dismissal, and the resulting N.D. Cal. case number mapping (3:18-cv-03277, later consolidated into 3:18-md-02874-SI).

If you can authorize a PACER pull of Dkts. 22 and 30 in 1:18-cv-00733, I can fill items 1–3 with specific docket citations.