Untitled case

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

The '284 patent is a Hitachi/Maxell white-balance imaging patent. Let me pin down the specific docket.

Case overview and background

Parties — and an important caveat. I was unable to authenticate the caption for this docket. The case metadata supplied to me (D. Del. No. 1:18-cv-00310, patent US 8,130,284 B2) is consistent with a 2018 patent filing, but repeated searches of CourtListener/RECAP, Justia, PACER Monitor, Docket Alarm and PACER-indexed aggregators returned no matching District of Delaware docket under that number. The hits that did surface are different cases that share the number: TQ Delta, LLC v. CommScope Holding Co., No. 2:21-cv-00310-JRG (E.D. Tex.) — a DSL/impairment-noise campaign wholly unrelated to the '284 patent — and Meetrix IP LLC v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.), No. 1:18-cv-00310 (W.D. Tex.). The D. Del. number 1:18-cv-00310 also collides with non-patent matters in other districts (e.g., Eggl v. Chosen Healthcare, N.D. Ind.). I therefore cannot responsibly name the plaintiff, the defendant, or counsel of record for this Delaware docket, and I do not do so below.

What is well sourced is the asset side. US 8,130,284 B2, "Imaging apparatus and method for controlling white balance," issued March 6, 2012, naming Haruhiko Miyao and Takahiro Nakano as inventors and assigned to Hitachi (Google Patents; Patent Leaderboard). The '284 patent sits in the consumer-electronics imaging portfolio that moved from Hitachi to Maxell (Hitachi Maxell → Maxell Holdings → Maxell, Ltd.) during the 2013–2019 corporate reorganization, and Maxell subsequently ran a large U.S. assertion program over those former-Hitachi camera and smartphone patents. A Japanese practitioner commentary on a Maxell complaint against Apple lists "Patent No. 8,130,284 … entitled Imaging apparatus and method for controlling white balance" as Exhibit 7 (note.com), and AppleInsider reported a February 19, 2021 Maxell suit in W.D. Tex. (Waco) asserting 12 patents, including photographic-feature patents. That is strong circumstantial evidence that a Maxell entity is a likely plaintiff here, but it is inference, not a verified caption for 1:18-cv-00310.

Accused technology. The '284 patent is a comparatively narrow, single-family hardware patent, not a standards patent like the DSL portfolios that dominate Delaware's TQ Delta dockets. Claim 1 recites an imaging apparatus that detects an achromatic (white/gray) region from chrominance signals produced from an image sensor output, computes a white-balance deviation from that region, and then controls the gains applied to the chrominance signals — with the distinctive twist that the rate/amount of white-balance correction is adjusted using three inputs: object brightness, object distance, and zoom value. In dependent and specification embodiments, the patent builds an object-distance threshold from the brightness and zoom information, compares the detected distance against that threshold, and applies a binary, multi-value, or hysteresis-style adjustment to the WB control speed/gain so the camera does not "hunt" when subject distance, zoom and brightness are near threshold values (see the claim text and FIG. 1 description; PatentCut). Practically, an accused product would be a digital still camera, camcorder, or smartphone camera pipeline whose auto-white-balance module modulates convergence speed or gain as a function of autofocus distance and zoom — i.e., a firmware/ISP implementation question, which is why these cases are typically fought over claim construction of the distance-threshold and "adjustment value" limitations and over doctrine-of-equivalents rather than over standards compliance.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. On the supplied metadata the case is in the District of Delaware (Wilmington) — the country's busiest patent venue and, post-TC Heartland, the default forum for entities incorporated there and a magnet for defendants with Delaware subsidiaries. Judge assignment for this docket is not verified and should be confirmed on CM/ECF; in the 2018 timeframe the D. Del. patent bench was Judges Andrews, Stark, Robinson, Connolly and Noreika, and a Maxell-era case would most plausibly have landed with one of them. The case's significance is best framed conditionally: (i) if the plaintiff is Maxell, 1:18-cv-00310 fits a recognizable pattern — a Japanese operating company monetizing an acquired, non-practiced-in-the-U.S. consumer-electronics portfolio against handset and camera makers, i.e., an operating-company licensor behaving like a PAE in assertion tactics while retaining real manufacturing businesses in batteries and recording media; (ii) single-patent imaging suits of this kind were among the earliest wave of cases affected by Alice-adjacent § 101 challenges and by the Federal Circuit's tightening of § 101 and damages law, so the outcome often turned on early motion practice rather than trial; and (iii) the '284 patent's ~20-year term from its mid-2000s priority filing would have expired around the mid-2020s, making the 2018 filing a late-term assertion for back damages rather than injunctive leverage. I found no verified parallel PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR) on the '284 patent in my searches, so any IPR linkage should be treated as unconfirmed.

What remains unverified (and how to close it)

• Caption, filing date, and outcome of D. Del. 1:18-cv-00310 — the Google Patents "litigation" record for the '284 patent is the only link I could not corroborate; it may be a mis-indexed or conflated entry (possibly pointing to a Maxell v. Apple W.D. Tex. case).
• Judge, division, and any MDL/consolidation with other Maxell imaging-patent suits.
• Accused products and asserted claims — I could not confirm which claims were elected or which camera/phone models were named.
• IPR history for US 8,130,284.
• Counsel of record for either side.

These are all obtainable from the CM/ECF docket for 1:18-cv-00310 (PACER, $0.10/page) and from the patent's PTAB proceeding records; I have deliberately not guessed at them.

I'll research this docket and patent systematically. Let me start with parallel searches.

Let me identify the patent and the 2018 Delaware docket.

I'll start by identifying the case and its parties, then work toward counsel of record.

The initial searches surfaced unrelated cases. Let me identify the patent itself and search the Delaware docket directly.

Let me try the patent number in an alternate format and query CourtListener / RECAP for the Delaware docket.

A key lead: US 8,130,284 is "Imaging apparatus and method for controlling white balance," and a Japanese-language post references it in a complaint against Apple. Let me pin down the parties and docket.

I'll start by identifying the parties and docket for this case, since the existing summary leaves them unverified.

Bottom line: I cannot responsibly give you a counsel roster for this docket, because the docket itself does not check out — and inventing names would be worse than saying so.

The core problem: the metadata conflicts with the public record

The case metadata says D. Del. No. 1:18-cv-00310, patent US 8,130,284 B2. I searched for that docket number and for the patent, and could not corroborate either element:

1. Docket number collision (two other districts, not Delaware). Every "1:18-cv-00310" hit is in Texas, not Delaware:

   • Meetrix IP LLC v. Microsoft Corp., No. 1:18-cv-00310 (W.D. Tex.), patent infringement, filed 04/13/2018, status closed — per a third-party aggregator page (ai-lab.exparte.com), not PACER. Aggregator records are frequently mis-transcribed, so even this attribution is soft.
   • TQ Delta, LLC v. CommScope Holding Co., No. 2:21-cv-00310-JRG (E.D. Tex.) — a different year and district entirely, appearing in dozens of IPR exhibit lists. This one is real and well documented, but it is not a 2018 Delaware case and does not assert the '284 patent.

   No Delaware "1:18-cv-00310" appeared anywhere in the results.

2. The patent does not match a plausible 2018 Delaware campaign. US 8,130,284 B2 is titled "Imaging apparatus and method for controlling white balance" (App. No. 12/466,400, filed 2009-05-15, issued 2012-03-06; Google Patents status: expired – fee related). Its family includes JP4042432B2, i.e., it claims Japanese priority and concerns digital-camera white-balance control. That profile fits a Japanese camera/optics manufacturer asserting against a competitor — not the DSL/communications pattern of the Delaware NPE dockets that dominate D. Del. § 101/§ 285 activity in 2018. Nothing I found ties the '284 patent to any Delaware complaint, verdict, or appeal.

Why this blocks the actual question

Counsel of record is docket-specific and party-specific. To name lead counsel, local Delaware counsel, and any in-house lawyer, I need (a) the correct docket, (b) the named defendants, and (c) the appearances/answers. I have none of the three at a confidence level that would justify attribution. Naming a Delaware firm here would be pure guesswork dressed as research — precisely what you told me not to do. So: no attorney names, firms, or roles are provided, and none should be inferred from this memo.

What I did verify vs. did not

Recommended verification steps (in order)

1. Pull the docket directly. PACER for ded / 1:18-cv-00310, and if it returns "case not found," run the same number against txwd. A PACER docket sheet will resolve the party question in one step and list every appearance under the "Attorneys" tab.
2. Search the patent number, not the docket, in PACER's civil party search or via Docket Navigator / Lex Machina: query 8,130,284 as patent-in-suit across all districts. If the '284 patent has no infringement docket, the Google Patents litigation listing that seeded this case summary is likely an artifact (Google's litigation tab frequently mis-maps docket numbers to districts).
3. Check the patent's reassignment chain in USPTO Assignment Search. For an expired camera-imaging patent, the enforcing plaintiff is often a recorded assignee or an SPV — that will tell you who the likely plaintiff (and thus the likely defendant set) is.
4. Only after the docket is confirmed, pull the Rule 7.1 disclosure statement and the answer; in D. Del. the local-counsel requirement means at least one Delaware-bar firm will appear, usually alongside out-of-state lead counsel, and both will be on the docket within ~30 days of service.

If you can supply the correct docket number, the defendant names, or a complaint PDF, I can complete the full counsel table — name, role, firm, office, and patent-litigation track record — with citations to specific docket entries.