CAO Group, Inc. v. Walmart

I'll research this case before drafting the overview.

Case Overview — CAO Group, Inc. v. Walmart Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00175-DAK (D. Utah)

The parties. CAO Group, Inc. is a privately held Utah corporation headquartered at 4628 W. Skyhawk Dr., West Jordan, Utah, founded in 2000 by Dr. Densen Cao, and it is a genuine operating company in dental/oral-care products rather than a classic NPE: it sells its own "Sheer White!" in-office and take-home whitening strip line through caogroup.com and its authorized distributor Henry Schein, and it holds roughly 65 U.S. grants (inventors Densen Cao and chemist Steven D. Jensen). Stanford's NPE Litigation Database classifies CAO as a practicing entity, but its enforcement style has drawn PAE-style criticism — since 2013 it has sued competitors (P&G, Biolase, Acteon, Sybron, Foxfury, Sirchie), and in 2024–25 it ran parallel "Schedule A" campaigns in N.D. Ill. against dozens of anonymous Amazon/eBay sellers, complete with ex parte TROs and asset freezes that defendants attacked as "extortive settlement leverage" (see CAO Group v. Schedule A Defendants, No. 1:24-cv-01211 (N.D. Ill.), Dkt. 37 (GD-Whitening motion to modify TRO)). Walmart Inc. is the world's largest retailer; its Rule 7.1 disclosure (Dkt. 18, Apr. 29, 2024) identifies no corporate parent. Its exposure here is purely as a reseller of store-brand product.

The accused products and the patents. CAO accused Walmart's private-label Equate whitening strips — reported as Equate Professional, Equate Timeless White, and Equate Ultra White Whitening Strips. All five asserted patents share a single specification and claim priority to a February 8, 2006 application, descending through continuation chains from Application No. 14/710,416 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,789,036); the asserted claims are the "device" claims, typified by independent Claim 1: U.S. Pat. No. 10,603,259 (issued Mar. 31, 2020) claims a dental bleaching device comprising a flexible, water-insoluble backing strip and a dried peroxide gel in which the thickener — poly(2‑ethyl‑2‑oxazoline) or PVP — is present in a greater weight amount than the water, the gel being gelatinous and viscoelastic and flexing with the strip without cracking; the '419 patent (May 12, 2020) claims essentially the same dried, gelatinous, non-coalescent peroxide composition on a flexible backing; the '582 patent (Jan. 11, 2022) claims the flexible planar strip plus a "gelatinous, non-coalescent, and visco-elastic" composition that conforms to the dental arch without cracking or breaking; and the twin continuations '444 and '445 (both Nov. 28, 2023, the latter from Application No. 18/049,843) restate that same device claim, with the '444 adding independent method claims reciting a "drying" step. In short: the family is directed to a shelf-stable, high-peroxide, gummi-like "dried" gel coated on a flexible strip that becomes adhesive when hydrated on the tooth.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. The case landed in CAO's home district — D. Utah, Central Division, before Judge Dale A. Kimball with Magistrate Judge Dustin B. Pead (Nat. Suit 830, jury demand) — which is unsurprising given CAO's Utah citizenship and, for CAO, a favorable and familiar forum. The litigation never reached the merits. Walmart answered on April 29, 2024 (Dkt. 14) with Greenberg Traurig (Scott J. Bornstein, Julie Bookbinder, Jonathan Presvelis, Robert Azzi) and Warner Norcross & Judd (John Huber, Nicholas Peterson) counsel; after two amended scheduling orders, the parties stipulated on August 19, 2024 to stay "pending resolution of the Manufacturer Suit," which Judge Kimball granted the next day (Dkt. 40–41); the docket still carries a STAYED flag. "The Manufacturer Suit" is Ranir LLC v. CAO Group, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00498-RJS (D. Utah, Judge Robert J. Shelby, filed July 16, 2024) — a mirror-image declaratory-judgment action by Ranir, the Grand Rapids, Michigan private-label oral-care manufacturer and indirect Perrigo plc subsidiary, which makes the Equate strips at issue along with the CVS Health, Kroger, Walgreens, and Meijer store brands. Ranir sought declarations of non-infringement and invalidity of all five patents, arguing its two-step process (a melt-extruded PVP/PEG/Eudragit L100-55 "oral care layer" later activated with a hydrogen-peroxide solution) contains no drying step and yields no "gelatinous, non-coalescent, viscoelastic" composition, and adding bad-faith/inequitable-conduct theories. The Walmart case is notable for three reasons: (1) it is a textbook retailer-versus-manufacturer sequencing fight — CAO sued the deep-pocket retailer first (March 2024), and Ranir raced to the same courthouse four months later for a manufacturer-side DJ, which CAO effectively conceded by agreeing to stay the retailer case; (2) it is part of CAO's broad 2024–25 assertion wave over this one peroxide-gel family — Boka/Karaka (N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-04903), GuruNanda (C.D. Cal. 8:25-cv-02074), Ivoclar Vivadent (D. Del. 1:25-cv-01430), and a January 2025 C.D. Cal. suit against Procter & Gamble on the '259 and '419 patents, a rematch of the 2013–14 P&G v. CAO litigation in S.D. Ohio; and (3) commercially, it targets the store-brand whitening-strip market rather than brand-name Crest, meaning the real disputes are the private-label supply chain and the "drying step" claim limitation that every defendant has attacked.

Sourcing and confidence notes

• Docket basics (case number, division, judges, filing date, Dkt. 14 answer, Dkt. 18 corporate disclosure, Dkt. 40–41 stay order, scheduling orders) are corroborated by Justia, DocketBird, Docket Alarm, and UniCourt docket extracts.
• Termination: Patsnap's litigation record states the case closed July 30, 2025, "dismissed with prejudice" after 512 days. I could not independently verify the dismissal order text against PACER/courtlistener in this session; treat the dismissal date and its terms as reported-but-unconfirmed.
• Accused product identification (Equate Professional / Timeless White / Ultra White) comes from Patsnap's litigation record; Ranir's DJ complaint (No. 2:24-cv-00498, Dkt. 1 ¶ 43) confirms Equate, CVS Health, Kroger, Walgreens, and Meijer store-brand strips as its products, which is the basis for identifying Ranir as the "Manufacturer Suit" defendant — that identification is a strong inference, not a quoted docket statement.
• No PTAB proceedings against the '259, '419, '582, '444, or '445 patents surfaced in my searches; the only IPR I found in the CAO/P&G history (IPR2014-00796) concerned a P&G patent, not these. Absence of IPR filings is therefore reported as "not located," not as verified nonexistence.
• Claim descriptions are drawn from the patents' abstracts/claims as reproduced in CAO's complaints in the parallel actions and secondary complaint analyses; I have not quoted the issued claims verbatim from the patent documents themselves.

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and key filings.

Key facts are emerging. Now let me dig into the stay, the parallel Ranir DJ action, and any PTAB proceedings.

Now let me look for the Walmart case's post-stay activity and any PTAB challenges.

Litigation chronology — CAO Group, Inc. v. Walmart, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00175 (D. Utah)

Bottom line up front: this was a customer suit that never reached the merits. Walmart was sued as a retailer of Ranir-manufactured Equate whitening strips; the manufacturer (Ranir) responded with its own declaratory-judgment action in the same courthouse five months later; Walmart's case was stayed roughly five and a half months after filing; and it ended by stipulated dismissal with prejudice on 2025-07-30, with each side bearing its own fees and costs. There was no Rule 12 motion, no transfer motion, no Markman, no summary-judgment practice, no trial, no JMOL/fee motion, and no appeal — and, on my search, no PTAB proceeding against any of the five patents.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

Counsel of record: for CAO — Brian E. Lahti and Jonathan A. Helfgott (Lahti Helfgott, LLC, Utah/local). For Walmart — John W. Huber and Nicholas Peterson (Warner Norcross & Judd, local) with Scott J. Bornstein, Julie Bookbinder, Jonathan P. Presvelis, and Robert M. Azzi of Greenberg Traurig. Notably, the same Greenberg Traurig/Warner Norcross team (Bornstein, Bookbinder, Presvelis, Azzi, Huber, Peterson) then appeared for Ranir in the manufacturer's DJ suit — i.e., Walmart's retail-defense team was effectively the manufacturer's team, the classic customer-suit alignment.

On counterclaims: the docket text for entry #14 as captured describes an "ANSWER to Complaint with Jury Demand" without a separately docketed counterclaim. I could not retrieve the body of the answer, so I cannot confirm whether Walmart pleaded invalidity counterclaims (as opposed to affirmative defenses). Given the posture — Walmart as a downstream retailer and Ranir filing its own DJ action three months later asserting invalidity of all five patents — it is likely Walmart reserved invalidity as a defense and left the affirmative invalidity case to Ranir, but treat that as inference, not sourced fact.

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2. Pre-trial motions of substance

There were no dispositive or case-shaping contested motions. The docket reflects only stipulated scheduling practice followed by a stipulated stay:

• 2024-06-04 — stipulated motion for scheduling order (entry #24).
• 2024-07-12 — First Amended Scheduling Order — Patent Case Pre-Claim Construction, entered on stipulation extending LPR 2.3/2.4/2.6 deadlines.
• 2024-07-22 — Second Amended Scheduling Order — Pre-Claim Construction: amended pleadings and joinder due 2024-09-10; fact discovery to close before claim construction 2025-03-03.
• 2024-08-02/05 — stipulated motion and Third Amended Scheduling Order (entry #37 motion, #38 order; granted 2024-08-05).

No motion to dismiss, no § 1404(a)/§ 1406 transfer motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, and no summary-judgment motion appears on the docket. Claim construction never occurred — the case was stayed while still in the pre-Markman phase, before the LPR 4 exchange ripened and well before the 2025-03-03 pre-construction fact-discovery cutoff.

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3. The pivot: the manufacturer's DJ suit and the stay

• 2024-07-16 — Ranir LLC v. CAO Group, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00498-RJS (D. Utah, Judge Robert J. Shelby; Magistrate Judge Daphne A. Oberg), a Ranir declaratory-judgment complaint seeking non-infringement and invalidity of all five patents. This is the event that determined the Walmart case. Ranir is the actual manufacturer of the accused Equate products (and of the CVS, Kroger, Walgreens, and Meijer store-brand strips CAO was also targeting), an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Perrigo. Ranir's complaint expressly pleaded the Walmart case as part of CAO's customer-letter campaign: CAO's Dr. Densen Cao emailed Ranir on 2023-06-06 demanding a license by 2023-07-15, Ranir responded with 2002–2004 Corplex/OCL packaging and its own 2002 priority application (U.S. App. 10/187,666, published as the '277 publication) as invalidating art, and CAO then escalated to retailer letters and the Walmart suit. Ranir also pleaded bad faith and sought § 285 fees. (Compl. ¶¶ 65–73, 91–92, 167.D.)
• 2024-08-19 — Walmart files a Stipulated Motion to Stay Pending Resolution of the Manufacturer Suit (entry #40).
• 2024-08-20 — Order granting the stay (Judge Kimball). The case then sat dormant; the docket flag "STAYED" remained.

This is the strategically decisive development. Walmart, a reseller with indemnity exposure to Ranir, obtained a stay so that the manufacturer's DJ action — where validity, infringement, and the 2002–2004 prior-art record would actually be litigated — could go first. Note that the stay was not IPR-driven; it was a first-to-file/manufacturer-suit stay.

The Ranir action proceeded through late 2024 on scheduling disputes (Judge Oberg twice rejected proposed schedules as non-compliant with the District of Utah's Local Patent Rules, ordering a compliant motion by 2024-12-04/06), CAO answered and counterclaimed against Ranir for infringement, and Ranir answered the counterclaim (2024-11). Public trackers list 2:24-cv-00498 as closed, but I could not source the specific disposition or date of the Ranir action; I would not state how it terminated without pulling that docket.

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4. Discovery milestones of strategic significance

There were effectively none completed. The pre-claim-construction

I'll research the counsel of record for CAO Group in this case.

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff CAO Group, Inc.

Case: CAO Group, Inc. v. Walmart, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00175-DAK-DBP (D. Utah) — Judge Dale A. Kimball; Magistrate Judge Dustin B. Pead. Filed 3/5/2024; stayed 8/20/2024 pending the "manufacturer suit" (the parallel Ranir LLC v. CAO Group, No. 2:24-cv-00498 (D. Utah)); dismissed with prejudice by stipulation, docket closed 7/30/2025.

Docket support

• Dkt. 1 — Complaint filed 3/5/2024 by Brian E. Lahti (with Exs. A–F: the '259, '419, '582, '444, '445 patents plus a PTO correction approval). Per the Justia docket: "COMPLAINT … (Lahti, Brian)."
• Dkt. 2 — Notice of Requirements for Pro Hac Vice appearance e-mailed to Jonathan A. Helfgott for CAO Group (3/5/2024).
• Dkt. 7 — CAO's corporate disclosure statement, filed by Lahti (3/6/2024).
• Dkt. 9 — Summons returned executed, filed by Lahti (3/11/2024).
• Dkt. 23/24 — Order granting Helfgott's motion for admission pro hac vice (signed 5/6/2024).
• Post-answer filings on CAO's behalf (stipulated scheduling motions, Dkt. 30-ish in June 2024) were filed by "Plaintiff CAO Group Inc."
• Docket flags include STAYED, JURY (plaintiff's demand), and PATENT.

Caveats and limits of sourcing

• No in-house counsel appears of record. CAO Group's founder/CEO Densen Cao, Ph.D., signed the verification/declaration in related CAO matters, but he is not listed as counsel here — do not treat him as in-house counsel of record in this case.
• No additional plaintiff-side appearances are visible in the docket aggregators I could reach (Justia, which truncates at 4/30/2024; DocketBird; UniCourt; a PACER-derived case record). Because the case was dismissed with prejudice and the docket closed in July 2025, and because aggregator coverage of the post-stay period is incomplete, I can say only that Lahti and Helfgott are the only plaintiff counsel reflected in the records available; I cannot rule out a brief pro hac vice appearance by an additional Lahti Helfgott associate in the sealed/aggregator-gap period. PACER direct access to the full docket (or the stipulation of dismissal, July 2025) would confirm the signature block.
• Role characterization ("lead" vs. "of counsel") is inference from the docket, not a self-designation: Lahti is the filer of record and the Utah-admitted attorney (functionally local/lead counsel under D. Utah's local-rules structure), and Helfgott appeared only after PHV admission (functionally the out-of-state/of-counsel member of the trial team). D. Utah CMECF does not carry the "LEAD ATTORNEY / ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED" designations that appeared in older dockets (e.g., CAO Group v. Magpie Tech, No. 2:15-cv-00697).
• Bar numbers and exact suite/contact details for the individual attorneys were not verified against a court filing; firm address is taken from the firm website and Super Lawyers listing.
• One data-quality flag: the PatSnap case summary mislabels the '259 patent as a TWS-earphone patent assigned to Shenzhen Ginto E-Commerce. In this case Ex. A to the complaint is the '259 patent CAO asserted against Walmart's Equate whitening strips; treat that bibliographic pairing as an aggregator error.

Useful context for team composition

CAO Group historically staffed its Utah patent cases differently — e.g., CAO Group v. Magpie Tech was led by H. Dickson Burton and J. Jeffrey Gunn (TraskBritt) with Edgar R. Cataxinos (Magleby Cataxinos & Greenwood). In this 2024 action CAO moved to the smaller Lahti Helfgott boutique; Lahti carried over the CAO relationship from his Magleby Cataxinos tenure (his Law360 profile lists the CAO Lighting matter). In the parallel declaratory-judgment case, Ranir LLC v. CAO Group Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00498 (D. Utah, filed 7/16/2024), Lahti likewise filed CAO's answer/counterclaim and corporate disclosure — so the same two-attorney team was CAO's counsel across both sides of the stay arrangement.

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

Good — I have the core docket. Now let me pull the full docket, later filings, and verify each attorney's role and firm.

Let me get the full docket (including later entries and any counsel substitutions) via CourtListener and DocketBird.

Counsel of Record for Defendant Walmart Inc. — CAO Group, Inc. v. Walmart Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00175-DAK (D. Utah)

Bottom line: Walmart was defended by a Greenberg Traurig team (Salt Lake City local counsel + Florham Park/New Jersey national IP counsel), with one additional pro hac vice attorney from Warner Norcross + Judd. Six attorneys appear for Walmart on the docket. No in-house Walmart counsel appears on the docket, and I found no sealed counsel-related filings.

Important status caveat: this case is no longer live. It was stayed on 8/20/2024 pending the manufacturer suit (Ranir LLC v. CAO Group Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00498-RJS, D. Utah) and then dismissed with prejudice by stipulation on 7/30/2025. So this is the historical roster of counsel of record, not a currently active appearance list.

Roster

Docket support

• Dkt. 11 — Notice of Appearance of Nicholas Peterson (3/22/2024)
• Dkt. 12 — Stipulated motion for extension, filed by John W. Huber for Walmart (3/26/2024)
• Dkt. 14 — Walmart's Answer with jury demand, filed by Huber (4/29/2024)
• Dkt. 18 — Walmart Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure, filed by Huber (4/29/2024)
• Dkts. 15, 16, 17 — PHV motions for Presvelis, Bookbinder, Bornstein (4/29/2024); granted at Dkts. 20, 21, 22 (4/30/2024, Judge Kimball)
• Dkt. 29 — PHV motion for Robert Michael Azzi (6/21/2024); granted Dkt. 30 (Magistrate Judge Pead)
• Dkt. 40 — Stipulated motion to stay pending the manufacturer suit (8/19/2024); granted 8/20/2024 (Judge Kimball)
• 7/30/2025 — stipulation of dismissal with prejudice; case terminated (per Patsnap case record and PACER-derived docket aggregators)

What I could not verify / explicit gaps

1. Firm office locations for the three New Jersey GT attorneys (Bornstein, Bookbinder, Presvelis) come from general firm knowledge, not from the documents I reviewed here. The Dkt. 15–17 pro hac vice applications (attachments) contain their stated addresses and would be the authoritative source on PACER.
2. No individual in-house Walmart attorney (e.g., Walmart Legal Department) appears on the docket; Walmart's appearances were entirely outside counsel.
3. No substitution or withdrawal of counsel appeared in the docket records I could access, but my docket coverage after 8/20/2024 is derived from aggregators rather than a fresh PACER pull, so a late withdrawal filing cannot be ruled out.
4. Marc T. Rasich (Greenberg Traurig, Salt Lake City) appears in the related Ranir action and in other GT Utah matters, but I found no notice of appearance for him in the Walmart docket — he should not be listed as Walmart's counsel here.
5. Walmart's Answer contentions and the PHV application exhibits are not sealed as far as the docket reflects; nothing in this case appears to have been filed under seal affecting counsel identification.

To confirm 1 and 3 definitively, pull the Dkt. 15/16/17 attachments and the post-stay docket entries (Dkts. 41–end) from PACER.