Litigation

Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Great Eyeglasses, LLC

unknown

0:09-cv-61467

Filed
2009-09-17

Patents at issue (1)

5737054

Summary

Patent infringement action filed September 17, 2009. The disposition is not confirmed.

Case overview & background

Plain-language overview of the case: parties, accused product, patents at issue, and why the suit matters.

I'll research this case using web search to verify the details.

Case Overview: Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Great Eyeglasses, LLC, No. 0:09-cv-61467 (S.D. Fla.)

The parties and their business models. The plaintiffs are an owner/operator pair, not a university or a classic litigation fund. Contour Optik, Inc. is a Taiwanese corporation (Chiayi, Taiwan) that is the record assignee of the "Chao" magnetic-eyewear patent family — inventors Richard Chao and David Chao assigned their interests to Contour, and contemporaneous complaints in the parallel Aspex suits identify Contour as record owner of the patents-in-suit. Aspex Eyewear, Inc. is a Delaware corporation headquartered at 2755 S.W. 32nd Avenue, Pembroke Park, Florida, and it is the exclusive U.S. licensee of the patents with the right to sue — i.e., a genuine operating company that makes and sells magnetic clip-on eyewear, not a shell. This owner-plus-exclusive-licensee structure is the same one Aspex/Contour used across two decades of enforcement (complaints and standing analysis in the E'Lite and Avalon actions describe it in detail: E'Lite Optik, 127 F. App'x 493 (Fed. Cir. 2005); Avalon complaint via RPX). The defendant, Great Eyeglasses, LLC, is a small online discount eyewear retailer operating greateyeglasses.com, selling prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses at low price points (business listing). I could not locate the complaint or an appearance in this docket, so I cannot confirm Great Eyeglasses' state of organization or the specific accused SKUs; the "resides in Broward County" data point on the docket cover sheet reflects the filing district, not necessarily the defendant's citizenship.

Patent asserted and accused technology. The asserted patent is U.S. Patent No. 5,737,054, "Auxiliary Lenses for Eyeglasses" (issued April 7, 1998, inventor Richard Chao, assigned to Contour Optik). Technical sketch: a magnetic clip-on system in which the primary spectacle frame carries a magnetic member in its middle bridge portion, and the auxiliary (sunglass) frame has a projection extending from its bridge over the primary frame's bridge carrying a second magnetic member — the claimed geometry lets a user attach the auxiliary frame "with only one hand." Claim 1 language is quoted in the Aspex v. Zenni Optical complaint (RPX litigation document) and construed in the Altair line of cases. The accused technology, based on the identically pleaded sister complaints Aspex filed against online sellers (Zenni Optical, Avalon), is magnetic eyeglass frames and magnetically attached clip-on sun lenses offered for sale through the defendant's website; Aspex pleaded willfulness, § 287 notice, and irreparable harm/no adequate remedy at law in those pleadings.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Filed September 17, 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division (Broward County), before District Judge Ursula Ungaro with Magistrate Judge Andrea M. Simonton; jury demand; plaintiff's counsel listed as Arie Mrejen (Justia docket; UniCourt). Venue mattered: S.D. Fla. is Aspex's home forum and the historical home of the Chao magnetic-eyewear campaign (e.g., Aspex Eyewear v. Concepts in Optics, No. 00-7067-CIV, before Magistrate Judge Dubé), giving the plaintiffs a familiar bench and their own base of operations. This case is best understood as one docket in a serial enforcement campaign against competitors and, increasingly, online/retail sellers — Revolution (which produced the $4M-plus judgment affirmed in Revolution Eyewear v. Aspex, 563 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2009)), E'Lite Optik, Miracle Optics, Concepts in Optics, Altair, Designers Eyewear Studio, Marchon, Avalon, and Zenni. Its legal significance comes from the family-wide rulings rather than this docket: the Federal Circuit held in Altair that "frame" in the '054 patent was not limited to rims (288 F. App'x 697 (Fed. Cir. 2008)), but on remand the sole asserted '054 claim was held invalid for obviousness and affirmed (484 F. App'x 565 (Fed. Cir. 2012)); Aspex v. Marchon, 672 F.3d 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2012), held res judicata does not bar suits on products that did not exist at the earlier filing; and collateral estoppel from Altair later ended the rimless-frame '811/'896 claims against Zenni. Because this suit predates the AIA, there is no IPR linkage — post-grant challenges to this family ran through ex parte reexamination (the related '545 patent was reexamined in 2008 at a third party's request, confirming some claims while rejecting others). Caveat on outcome: the case's disposition is not confirmed in any source I could access — the UniCourt record shows no docket entries and an unclassified status, and Justia shows no terminal entry, so I cannot state whether it ended by settlement, stipulated dismissal, default, or judgment. Given the later invalidity of the '054 claim and the case's disappearance from public records, a quiet dismissal is plausible, but that is inference, not sourced fact.

Key legal developments & outcome

Major rulings, motions, claim construction, settlements, and the present posture or final disposition.

I'll research this case through web searches.

Let me dig into the docket and related documents.

Key Legal Developments & Outcome — Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Great Eyeglasses, LLC, No. 0:09-cv-61467 (S.D. Fla.)

Important sourcing caveat up front: This is a low-visibility, short-lived docket. The S.D. Fla. docket for No. 0:09-cv-61467 was not retrievable in full text through the sources available to me, and no opinion, verdict, or judgment bearing this case name surfaced in searches. Much of what follows is (a) confirmed docket metadata, (b) confirmation that the complaint mirrors the contemporaneous Aspex/Contour pleading template, and (c) the closely parallel litigation that decisively shaped the '054 patent. Where a fact is not well sourced, I say so explicitly rather than filling the gap.

1. Filing & Initial Pleadings

Filed 2009-09-17. Confirmed metadata:

Asserted patent: U.S. Patent No. 5,737,054 ("Auxiliary Lenses for Eyeglasses"), issued 1998-04-07, naming Richard Chao as inventor. Contour Optik is the record owner; Aspex is the exclusive licensee with the right to sue. (Confirmed via the parallel Aspex/Contour pleadings and the Altair opinions cited below.)

Pleading content (inferred from the template, flagged as inference): The verified pleading template Aspex and Contour used in this 2009 wave — e.g., the First Amended Complaint in the companion case Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Zenni Optical, LLC, No. 09-61468-CIV-ZLOCH/ROSENBAUM (S.D. Fla.) — asserts (i) ownership by Contour, (ii) Aspex's exclusive U.S. license, (iii) infringement by offering for sale/selling magnetic eyeglass frames and clip-ons, (iv) willfulness and notice under 35 U.S.C. § 287, and (v) irreparable harm supporting injunctive relief. Source: RPX Insight document 2376367 (Zenni FAC), https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/2376367.

Answer / counterclaims: Not confirmed. No answer, counterclaim, or Rule 12 motion for this docket appeared in any indexed source.

2. Pre-Trial Motions of Substance

Not confirmed for this docket. No motion to dismiss, transfer, stay, or summary-judgment ruling bearing the Great Eyeglasses caption was found. Given the case's profile — a small internet/retail eyewear defendant in a multi-defendant enforcement wave — the realistic dispositions are a quick settlement/voluntary dismissal or a default judgment, but I could not verify which. I am not going to attribute a specific motion or ruling to this docket without a source.

3. Claim Construction (Markman)

No Markman ruling specific to this case is documented in any indexed source. However, the construction of the '054 patent was being litigated hard in parallel Aspex/Contour cases in 2009–2011, and that construction governed the family of suits:

  • Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc. (D. Mass.): Markman hearing held 2011-03-31; the court construed "secured in" as "embedded within," "extending over" as "extending above and partially covering the middle bridge of the primary frame," and "secured to" as "embedded within and attached to." 818 F. Supp. 2d 348 (D. Mass. 2011). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[8710234](/patent/8710234)/aspex-eyewear-inc-v-altair-eyewear-inc/
  • Earlier constructions of the same patent family: Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc., 386 F. Supp. 2d 526 (S.D.N.Y. 2005), and Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. E'Lite Optik, Inc., 2007 WL (N.D. Tex. Oct. 12, 2007), both construing "frame" and related terms.
  • Federal Circuit: Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc., 288 F. App'x 697 (Fed. Cir. 2008) — "retaining mechanisms" requires rims or equivalents for the '811/'896 patents, but a "frame" in the '054 patent is not limited to rimmed eyewear.

These constructions are the relevant substantive law for the Great Eyeglasses suit even though no Great Eyeglasses-specific Markman order is documented.

4. Discovery Milestones

No discovery events specific to this docket are documented. Treat as unverified.

5. Trial, Verdict, Post-Trial Motions

No trial, verdict, JMOL, new-trial, or fee motion is documented for this docket. Report as unverified. The case apparently did not generate a published opinion or docket entry that aggregators captured.

6. Disposition / Present Posture

Not confirmed. Aggregators show the case as closed/archived but without a coded outcome:

  • Justia and UniCourt list the case with no disposition and "Not Classified By Court"; UniCourt's docket feed states only "Please Update this case to get latest docket information," last refreshed 2018-04-03. https://unicourt.com/case/rc-js3-aspex-eyewear-inc-et-al-v-great-eyeglasses-llc-498770.
  • The originally generated case summary ("disposition is not confirmed") remains accurate. The most likely outcomes — voluntary dismissal after settlement, or dismissal for want of prosecution — are consistent with the pattern of the companion cases in this 2009 wave (e.g., Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Laczay, No. 0:09-cv-60488, in which Judge Zloch entered a Final Order of Dismissal without Prejudice on 2009-09-04), but I found no source confirming the Great Eyeglasses outcome specifically.
  • No appeal by any party is documented.

7. Parallel PTAB Proceedings

No IPR/PGR/CBM involving U.S. Patent No. 5,737,054 was identified. Note the timeframe: the AIA post-grant review mechanisms (IPR) did not exist until 2012-09-16, i.e., after this 2009 case. What did exist and mattered strategically was ex parte reexamination of Aspex/Contour patents — including reexamination of the related '545 patent (confirmed in the Federal Circuit's Revolution/Marchon line). I found no reexamination of the '054 patent tied to this docket; treat as unverified.

8. Strategic Context: Why the '054 Patent Was Doomed Regardless

Because the Great Eyeglasses case asserted the same patent that was collapsing elsewhere, the decisive "outcome" for the '054 patent came from parallel litigation, not from this docket:

  • Altair (D. Mass.): On summary judgment the court found Altair literally infringed '054 claim 1 but held claim 1 invalid for obviousness (KSR analysis). Reported at 818 F. Supp. 2d 348 (D. Mass. 2011).
  • Federal Circuit affirmance: Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc., 484 F. App'x 565 (Fed. Cir. 2012) — affirmed the invalidity of '054 claim 1.
  • Zenni collateral estoppel: In the companion case filed the same day as this one (Aspex v. Zenni Optical, No. 09-61468), the S.D. Fla. held the suit barred by collateral estoppel flowing from the Altair rulings; the Federal Circuit affirmed in Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Zenni Optical Inc., 713 F.3d 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2013).
  • Contour's cert. petition seeking review of the obviousness standard was denied by the Supreme Court (April 2013), per contemporaneous commentary (STPI/NARL case report). Treat the cert. detail as secondary-sourced.

The practical significance: by 2012–2013 the '054 patent's asserted claim had been invalidated and the Aspex/Contour enforcement wave — of which the Great Eyeglasses suit was one small piece — was foreclosed as a matter of preclusion. Any Great Eyeglasses outcome reached after that point would have been shaped by (or mooted in light of) those rulings.

Open Items / Suggested Next Verification Steps

To nail down the specific disposition, the following would be needed and were not available to me:

  1. PACER docket pull for 0:09-cv-61467 (full entry list, incl. any summons return, default, or dismissal order).
  2. RPX Insight litigation page for this case (https://insight.rpxcorp.com) — the Zenni document was indexed there, suggesting a Great Eyeglasses entry may also exist.
  3. Any S.D. Fla. closure order by Judge Ungaro.

Until then, the honest summary is: the case was filed 2009-09-17 against Great Eyeglasses on the '054 and related magnetic-eyewear patents, ran alongside the same-day Zenni and other Contour/Aspex suits, and its specific termination is unconfirmed — no Markman, trial, verdict, appeal, or PTAB proceeding is documented for this docket. The patents themselves were later invalidated/held non-infringing in the parallel Altair and Zenni litigation, which extinguished the value of this enforcement campaign.

Plaintiff representatives

Counsel of record for the plaintiff(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

I'll research the plaintiffs' counsel for this case. Let me run several searches.

Bottom line

Based on the available public records, the only attorney of record confirmed for the plaintiffs in Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Great Eyeglasses, LLC, No. 0:09-cv-61467 (S.D. Fla.) is Arie Mrejen, a solo/small-firm practitioner in Fort Lauderdale (later Aventura), Florida, appearing for both Aspex Eyewear, Inc. and Contour Optik, Inc. I could not verify a full PACER docket sheet for this specific case number, so I cannot rule out that additional counsel (e.g., Greenberg Traurig, which represented these same plaintiffs in a companion 2009 S.D. Fla. case) also appeared. No in-house counsel appears on the public record.

Plaintiffs' counsel

Attorney Role Firm / Office Notes
Arie Mrejen (Fla. Bar No. 907210; amrejen@mrejenlaw.com) Lead / sole counsel of record (filer of the complaint in the 2009 Aspex S.D. Fla. wave) Mrejen Blinderman, P.L. — One Cypress Place, 701 W. Cypress Creek Road, Suite 302, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 (tel. 954-771-3740). Firm later appears as Arie Mrejen, P.A., 18851 NE 29th Ave., Aventura, FL General commercial/business litigator (probate, real estate, business litigation per Martindale/FindLaw/Avvo) who served as outside filing counsel for Aspex in a series of S.D. Fla. patent suits in 2009. He appears as the listed plaintiff's attorney for this docket on UniCourt and on the Patexia entry for the companion Aspex v. Laczay case.

Sourcing for Mrejen:

Related counsel who represented these same plaintiffs in the parallel 2009 S.D. Fla. campaign (not confirmed for this docket)

Aspex and Contour Optik filed a cluster of magnetically-attached-eyewear infringement suits in the Southern District of Florida in 2009 (the '054 patent at issue here was part of that campaign). In at least one companion case — Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Hardy Life, LLC et al., No. 0:09-cv-61515-MGC (S.D. Fla.) — the plaintiffs were represented by Greenberg Traurig:

Attorney Role Firm / Office Notes
Jacqueline Becerra Local (Florida) counsel Greenberg Traurig, P.A., 1221 Brickell Ave., Miami, FL Longtime GT Miami litigator; later served as a U.S. District Judge, S.D. Fla. (confirmed 2014), since retired.
Michael A. Nicodema Lead patent counsel (pro hac vice) Greenberg Traurig, LLP, 200 Park Ave., Florham Park, NJ Longtime Aspex/Contour patent litigation counsel; argued Aspex Eyewear v. Concepts in Optics, 211 F. App'x 955 (Fed. Cir. 2007), and other Aspex appeals.
Barry J. Schindler Pro hac vice (patent) Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Florham Park, NJ Co-counsel on Aspex's Federal Circuit appeals.
Todd L. Schleifstein Pro hac vice (patent) Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Florham Park, NJ Co-counsel in the 2009 S.D. Fla. Aspex wave.

Source: plaintiffs' opposition/service papers in Aspex v. Hardy Life, 0:09-cv-61515-MGC (Dkt. 42, filed 12/24/2009), reproducing the GT signature blocks and service list — https://e.casetext.com/brief/aspex-eyewear-inc-et-al-v-hardy-life-llc-et-al_response-in-opposition-re-motion-to-dismiss-1-complaint-motion-to-dismiss

Caveat: I have no verified document placing Greenberg Traurig on the 61467 docket. UniCourt, the only aggregator with an attorney field for 61467, names only Mrejen. Treat the GT names as "related-case counsel who may also have appeared here," not as confirmed counsel of record in this case.

Gaps and things I could not verify

  1. No live PACER docket sheet retrieved for 0:09-cv-61467. The Justia docket page (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/florida/flsdce/0:2009cv61467/343212) lists only party/judge data (Judge Ursula Ungaro; referral Magistrate Andrea M. Simonton; Ft. Lauderdale office; Broward County; jury demand), with no attorney panel, and UniCourt's docket-entry section says "Please Update this case to get latest docket information." Docket-level confirmation of an appearance (Dkt. 1 signature, any Notice of Appearance, pro hac vice motions, or substitution/withdrawal) is therefore not established from the sources I could reach.
  2. No sealed filings identified or inferred. I found no indication of sealed complaints or sealed attorney appearances in this matter; the silence reflects the thinness of the public docket, not an affirmative finding of no sealing.
  3. No in-house counsel identified. Aspex/Contour Optik's principals (the Ifergan family) appear in the litigation record as witnesses/parties, not as counsel of record.
  4. Case disposition unconfirmed. Consistent with the existing case summary; no judgment, dismissal order, or settlement document for 61467 surfaced in the searchable sources.

Confidence: High that Arie Mrejen (Mrejen Blinderman, P.L.) was plaintiffs' counsel of record at filing and is the attorney listed for this docket. Moderate-to-low that Greenberg Traurig or any additional attorney appeared in this case; that inference rests on the parallel 2009 Aspex filings rather than on a 61467 document.

Defendant representatives

Counsel of record for the defendant(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

I'll research the docket and counsel for the defendant in this case.

Let me dig into the docket and try to find defendant's counsel specifically.

Let me look for the actual docket entries and any related filings that might name defendant's counsel.

Counsel of Record — Defendant Great Eyeglasses, LLC

Bottom line: I could not verify any attorney of record for the defendant. Based on the public docket abstracts I was able to retrieve, no defense counsel appears on this docket at all. Per your instructions, I am flagging this as unconfirmed rather than naming anyone.

What the docket abstracts show

Item Value Source
Case Aspex Eyewear, Inc. et al. v. Great Eyeglasses, LLC, No. 0:09-cv-61467 Justia docket
Court / office S.D. Fla., Ft. Lauderdale Division (Broward County) Justia
Filed Sept. 17, 2009 Justia
Judges Ursula Ungaro (presiding); Andrea M. Simonton (magistrate/referral) Justia / UniCourt
Cause 28 U.S.C. § 1338 – Patent Infringement Justia
Patent asserted U.S. 5,737,054 ("Auxiliary Lenses for Eyeglasses") Case metadata / related Aspex record

Attorney information available

  • Plaintiff side (for context only): Both the Justia and UniCourt abstracts list Arie Mrejen as the filing/plaintiff attorney for Aspex Eyewear, Inc. and Contour Optik, Inc. In the companion Aspex S.D. Fla. actions filed the same month, Aspex/Contour were also represented by Greenberg Traurig, LLP — Jacqueline Becerra (Miami), and Michael A. Nicodema, Barry J. Schindler, and Todd L. Schleifstein (Florham Park, NJ), admitted pro hac vice (see the service list in Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Hardy Life, LLC, No. 0:09-cv-61515-MGC, Dkt. 42, filed Dec. 24, 2009). Those names are plaintiff's counsel, not defendant's, and I have found no filing placing them on this specific docket.

  • Defendant side: No appearance, firm, or attorney is listed for Great Eyeglasses, LLC on either the Justia or UniCourt docket abstract. I did not locate any answer, notice of appearance, corporate disclosure, or motion filed on its behalf, and I found no opinion, Law360/Reuters item, or firm-website entry linking any lawyer to Great Eyeglasses as counsel in this action.

Why the record is thin — and what it likely means

  1. Docket abstracts are unpopulated for the defense. The free aggregators (Justia, UniCourt) frequently carry only the complaint-side metadata pulled from the initial filing; UniCourt's own page states "Please Update this case to get latest docket information."
  2. A short-lived or default case is plausible. A defendant that never retained/appeared in a 2009 magnetically-attached-eyewear patent suit against a small optical retailer would typically be resolved by default judgment or voluntary dismissal — either of which would leave no defense counsel of record. I could not confirm which of these occurred; the disposition remains unverified, matching the case summary's note that the outcome is not confirmed.

Recommendation to close the gap

To get a dispositive answer, the authoritative source is the PACER docket for 0:09-cv-61467 (S.D. Fla.). Look specifically for:

  • Docket entries for Summons Returned Executed / unexecuted,
  • Notice of Appearance / Answer / Motion to Dismiss (would name defense counsel),
  • Motion for Clerk's Entry of Default / Default Judgment or Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (would explain the absence of defense counsel).

The case has no meaningful RECAP/CourtListener footprint, so a direct PACER pull (or a paid docket service) is required.

Do not treat any attorney name above as counsel for Great Eyeglasses. The only attorneys I can source on this docket are plaintiff-side (Arie Mrejen), and I found zero evidence of a defense appearance. If filings naming defendant's counsel are sealed or the defendant never appeared, that would be consistent with everything found here — but I cannot state which without the PACER docket sheet.