Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Acer

I'll research this case before drafting the overview.

Let me pin down the specific D. Del. docket and its procedural history.

I found a 2019 W.D. Tex. Acer case, but the metadata says D. Del. Let me locate the Delaware docket specifically.

Case Overview — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Acer (D. Del.), U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790

The parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a non-practicing patent assertion entity — a Canadian company incorporated in 2019 that acquired its portfolio from Intellectual Ventures entities and monetized it through very high-volume litigation (more than 150 defendants by January 2022, with sixteen suits filed in a single week of September 2022). Stanford's NPE Litigation Database classifies it as an "acquired patents" asserter, and commentary describes its campaign as conventional nuisance-value licensing litigation: it rarely goes past the pleadings and, per industry reporting, no Cedar Lane case has reached trial. The campaign is run by Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago), with David W. deBruin serving as Delaware local counsel; Rabicoff and Cedar Lane were sanctioned in 2020 by Judge Vince Chhabria in N.D. Cal. for "objectively frivolous" positions taken in bad faith. Acer is the Taiwanese PC and consumer-electronics OEM (Acer Inc., with U.S. subsidiary Acer America Corp.), an operating company that makes and sells laptops, desktops, monitors, projectors and related devices — the classic defendant profile for this campaign. Acer is not a newcomer to Cedar Lane: Cedar Lane sued Acer Inc. as early as December 13, 2019 in W.D. Tex., Austin Division, before Judge Lee Yeakel (Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Acer Inc., No. 1:19-cv-01207), asserting a broader slice of the same family (RE44087, 6,473,527, 6,972,774, 7,292,261, 8,537,242).

The patent and the accused technology. The '790 patent, "Host interface for imaging arrays" (issued Dec. 6, 2005; inventor Mark Suska; priority tracing to January 2000), claims an interface — preferably integrated on the same die as the sensor — that bridges a CMOS image sensor's continuous, clock-driven "video style" pixel output and a microprocessor's asynchronous, random-access memory model. A FIFO (or addressable) memory buffers the imaging data, and a signal generator asserts an interrupt (or bus request) to the processor once a threshold quantity of data accumulates, so the host reads out at its own rate instead of being consumed by a raw pixel stream. Claim 1 recites a memory storing imaging-array data and clocking signals at a rate set by the clock, a signal generator responsive to the quantity of data in the memory, and a circuit controlling transfer at a rate determined by the processor system. In practice the theory is that Acer's camera-equipped devices (notebooks, tablets, monitors with integrated webcams, handsets) contain sensor/SoC image pipelines and DMA/FIFO/interrupt architectures that practice this interface. One important caveat: Cedar Lane's complaints of this era identify accused products only as "Exemplary Defendant Products" through claim-chart exhibits, and those exhibits were not part of the publicly filed complaint text in the parallel cases I reviewed — so the precise Acer product list and the asserted claims are not publicly verifiable from the materials I could access, and I would not assert them without the complaint exhibits. The '790 patent's 20-year term ran from its August 2003 continuation filing; third-party patent records show an estimated expiry of August 1, 2023 and a now-"inactive" legal status — which materially caps the case (no prospective injunctive relief, damages limited to pre-expiry sales inside the § 286 six-year lookback).

Procedural posture and why it matters. Per the case metadata, the action sits in the District of Delaware — the single most popular patent venue and one where Cedar Lane filed dozens of '790-family suits — and is currently stayed pending dismissal or settlement, the terminal state for nearly every case in this campaign. I could not independently verify the specific Delaware civil action number or the assigned judge in this session (the D. Del. docket search returned only sibling Cedar Lane cases); I note that essentially every Cedar Lane Delaware case from 2021–2023 was assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews, who ran them on a short leash — issuing sua sponte oral orders when answers or proof of service were overdue and granting voluntary dismissals within days or weeks (e.g., Cedar Lane v. Snap, No. 1:22-cv-00058-RGA, dismissed with prejudice 12 days after filing; Cedar Lane v. Excelitas, No. 1:22-cv-00011-RGA, dismissed in ~85 days). Treat the judge attribution as probable, not confirmed. The case is notable for three reasons: it illustrates the Delaware "file-and-settle" NPE model at industrial scale, where venue choice and low transaction costs — not merits — drive outcomes; it shows a serial defendant (Acer) being re-asserted against a different patent from the same family years after the first Texas suit; and its exposure profile is dominated by the patent's August 2023 expiration rather than by any merits ruling. I found no recorded PTAB inter partes review of the '790 patent in the sources searched (a third-party patent record lists "validity challenges: none recorded"), so unlike many NPE campaigns this one appears not to have been blunted by IPR invalidation — worth confirming on the PTAB docket before relying on it, since absence of a recorded IPR in aggregator data is not proof that none was filed.

Sourcing note. Party identities, Cedar Lane's NPE status and litigation volume, its counsel, and the 2020 sanctions are well sourced (Mondaq/LexBlog "NPE Showcase – Cedar Lane Technologies," Oct. 2022; Stanford NPE Database; Law Street Media). The '790 specification, claim 1 and expiration data are from the patent record and complaint analyses hosted by third parties. The Delaware docket number and judge for the Acer case specifically are not verified here and should be pulled from PACER/RECAP before filing; the 2019 W.D. Tex. Acer suit and the parallel Delaware dismissals are docket-verified via Unified Patents' litigation portal, CourtListener/RECAP and Justia.

I'll research this case across the docket, PTAB, and legal press.

Sourcing note before the chronology (important)

Two things in the record I could verify conflict with the case metadata in this prompt, and I'd rather flag them than paper over them:

1. Venue / case number. Every public record I could locate places Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Acer Inc. in the Western District of Texas, Austin Division — No. 1:19-cv-01207 (Judge Lee Yeakel), filed 2019‑12‑13. I could find no D. Del. action by Cedar Lane against Acer. There are dozens of Cedar Lane D. Del. suits before Judge Richard G. Andrews (e.g., 1:20‑cv‑00766, 1:20‑cv‑00836, and the Oct. 2022 wave of 1:22‑cv‑0140x cases), but none naming Acer. I have therefore written the chronology on the W.D. Tex. docket, since that is what is actually documented, while noting your metadata's D. Del. designation. If a D. Del. Acer case exists, it is not in PACER-derived aggregators or the NPE litigation databases, and it needs to be confirmed on PACER directly.
2. Patent set. The KOTRA/overseas-IP dispute registry entry for 1:19‑cv‑01207 lists the asserted patents as US RE44,087; 6,473,527; 6,972,774; 7,292,261; and 8,537,242 — the '790 is not listed for the Acer case, although it is the lead patent in the parallel Cedar Lane filings (e.g., D. Del. 1:20‑cv‑00766 and 1:20‑cv‑00836 both report 6,473,527, 6,972,790, 8,537,242). Acer was also sued the same day as ZTE (USA) on the same patent set. Whether '790 was added by amendment in the Acer case is not confirmed in anything I could retrieve.

Treat the "D. Del. / '790" framing in the metadata as the working assumption, but verify both points on PACER before relying on them.

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Chronological developments

1. Pre-suit (2019)

• 2019‑04‑29 — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. incorporated in British Columbia, with attorney Greg Benoit as director; the asserted portfolio was acquired from Intellectual Ventures through the Delaware pass-through entity Steephill Technologies LLC. Cedar Lane is the top-filing NPE of the 2019–2022 period (367+ cases, ~310 terminated by settlement, ~96% settlement rate). (IAM, 2023‑03‑20; Mondaq/RPX, 2020‑10‑26)

2. Filing and initial pleadings

• 2019‑12‑13 — Complaint filed, W.D. Tex., No. 1:19‑cv‑01207, assigned to Judge Lee Yeakel; jury demand; 19 exhibits (complaint + claim charts). Plaintiff's counsel of record: Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law) — the firm that handled the bulk of the early campaign. D.I. 1. (UniCourt docket; Unified Patents portal)
• 2019‑12‑13 — Rule 7.1 disclosure statement (no parent/publicly held affiliate) and Report on the Filing of an Action sent to the USPTO. D.I. 3, 6.
• 2019‑12‑13 — Summons issued as to Acer Inc. D.I. 7; Acer appeared through Eric H. Findlay (Findlay Craft, Tyler, TX).
• 2020‑01‑24 — Acer's unopposed motion for extension of time to answer, move, or otherwise respond. D.I. 8.
• 2020‑01‑27 — Order granting the extension; Acer's response deadline set for 2020‑03‑16. D.I. 9.
• No answer, counterclaims, or Rule 12 motion is reflected in the public record. The case never moved past the pleading stage; there are no recorded counterclaims for invalidity or non-infringement, and thus no § 285 fee posture generated by the pleadings.

3. Pre-trial motions of substance

None were filed or decided. Specifically:

• No motion to dismiss (Rule 12(b)(3)/(6)), no § 1404(a) or § 1406 transfer motion, and no motion to stay pending IPR.
• No summary judgment motion, no Daubert motions, no dispositive claim-construction briefing.
• The only motion practice of record is the single extension motion (D.I. 8–9).

4. Claim construction (Markman)

Never reached. No scheduling order, no § 282 disclosures, no joint claim construction statement, no Markman hearing, and no claim construction opinion exist for this case. This is consistent with the campaign-wide pattern: Cedar Lane's cases "have yet to progress much beyond pleadings." (Mondaq/RPX, 2020‑10‑26)

5. Discovery

No meaningful discovery occurred — no Rule 26(f) conference, no initial disclosures, no infringement or invalidity contentions, no fact or expert discovery, no depositions. There are therefore no discovery disputes, protective orders, or sanctions events to report.

6. Stay pending settlement

• By 2020‑10‑26 — The case was "stayed pending dismissal in light of a settlement." RPX/Mondaq described 1:19‑cv‑01207 as "the oldest open case in this campaign," filed against Acer in December 2019, and reported it as stayed pending dismissal on settlement. No stay order docket entry number, stay motion, or settlement-term disclosure is available in the public record I could reach. (Mondaq/RPX, 2020‑10‑26)

7. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial date was ever set; there was no verdict, no JMOL/Rule 59 motion, no Rule 54(d)/§ 285 fee motion, and no appeal to the Federal Circuit. The docket never generated an appealable order.

8. Final disposition / present posture

• The case is documented as stayed pending dismissal on settlement and has not, in any public record I located, been formally dismissed. That matches the "Stayed pending dismissal/settlement" posture in your metadata. Cedar Lane's practice in these early campaign cases was to hold the case open under a stay while settlement payment was performed, then file a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice of dismissal — often with prejudice as to plaintiff's claims, with each side bearing its own costs (see, e.g., the verbatim dismissal language in the parallel D. Del. case, Cedar Lane v. Turing Video, 1:22‑cv‑01402, closed 2023‑10‑13).
• Practical consequence: no judgment on the merits, no invalidity or non-infringement holding, and no estoppel or § 285 precedent adverse to the '790. The case is a settlement artifact, not a merits precedent.
• To confirm the terminal event (date and terms of dismissal), pull the full docket for 1:19‑cv‑01207 from PACER; the aggregators are stale (UniCourt's last sync was 2020‑02‑11, RPX's campaign summary was 2020‑10‑26).

9. Parallel PTAB proceedings — none

• No IPR, PGR, or CBM was ever filed on U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays," issued 2005‑12‑06, inventor Mark Suska, assigned through IV/Steephill to Cedar Lane). The patent's litigation record lists "Validity challenges: None recorded" across its 52 asserted cases. (PatSnap '790 litigation record)
• That is unsurprising given: (a) the cases settled in weeks, before IPR petition deadlines became economically attractive; and (b) term. The '790's earliest priority is 2000‑01‑21, and one database estimates expiry at 2023‑08‑01 (a date that would only make sense on a later continuation-chain priority — worth checking against the patent's face). Either way, the patent is now expired, which eliminates injunctive relief, caps past damages, and makes an IPR largely pointless (though still available for past-damages defense during the pre-expiry window).
• No Federal Circuit appeal on the '790 exists in the record.

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Why this case matters (analytically)

• It was the anchor case of the campaign. Filed 2019‑12‑13, it was the oldest surviving Cedar Lane suit and functioned as the template — same patents, same Rabicoff Law filing package, same 19-exhibit claim-chart structure — for the ~70-defendant 2019–2020 wave and the ~30-defendant October 2022 D. Del. wave (1:22‑cv‑0140x), which included the '790 as a lead patent. (IPWatchdog, 2022‑09‑23)
• Its value is portfolio-level, not doctrinal. Because it was stayed pre-answer, it produced no claim construction, no § 101 or § 112 ruling, and no damages ruling. Any assessment of the '790's strength must come from the handful of cases that went further — notably the N.D. Cal. Blackmagic Design line, where Judge Vince Chhabria on 2020‑10‑01 struck a third amended complaint, dismissed the induced/contributory claims, and ordered Cedar Lane to show cause why it should not be dismissed for failure to prosecute and why counsel should not be sanctioned — a data point about Cedar Lane's pleading discipline that Acer never had to litigate. (Mondaq/RPX, 2020‑10‑26)
• The business model explains the outcome. With a ~96% settlement rate and terminations typically in 40–350 days, Cedar Lane's economics depended on volume and speed, not adjudication. Acer's unopposed extension (D.I. 8–9) followed within ten months by a settlement stay is the modal Cedar Lane trajectory, not an anomaly.

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Open items to verify on PACER / PTAB (I could not confirm these)

I'll research this through multiple searches.

The metadata points to D. Del. and the '790 patent — the 2019 W.D. Tex. Acer case didn't assert '790. Let me pin down the correct Delaware docket.

The '790 patent wasn't in the 2019 W.D. Tex. Acer suit. Let me look for a Delaware Acer docket specifically.

Bottom line up front — a sourcing caveat you need before relying on this

I ran the docket literature hard, and there is a conflict between the case metadata and the public record that materially affects the counsel answer:

• The metadata says D. Del. and patent 6,972,790.
• The only Cedar Lane v. Acer case I could actually confirm on a docket is Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Acer Inc., No. 1:19-cv-01207 (W.D. Tex., filed Dec. 13, 2019), assigned to Judge Lee Yeakel. (Unified Patents litigation portal; UniCourt docket summary)
• Critically, that W.D. Tex. complaint asserted US RE44087, 6,473,527, 6,972,774, 7,292,261, and 8,537,242 — the '790 patent was not in that complaint per the Korean IP Protection Agency's case-level summary of 1:19-cv-01207. (KOTRA/IP-Korea dispute record)
• In the 2022 wave of Delaware '790 filings, the D. Del. case number sometimes mistaken for Acer — 1:22-cv-01410 — is actually Cedar Lane v. Boston Dynamics, not Acer. (IPWatchdog Patent Filings Roundup, Nov. 3, 2022)

So: I cannot confirm a Delaware Acer docket, and I could not confirm that Acer was ever sued on the '790 patent. Everything below is grounded in the confirmed dockets. I have flagged what is inference.

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Counsel of record for Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. — confirmed appearances

No in-house counsel for Cedar Lane appears on any docket I reviewed. Cedar Lane is a Canadian entity (560 Baker St., Nelson, BC) holding acquired Intellectual Ventures imaging patents; its litigation is run entirely through outside counsel. (KIPO NPE profile)

For cross-check (defense side, W.D. Tex.): Eric H. Findlay of Findlay Craft PC (Tyler, Texas) appeared for Acer and obtained an extension of the answer deadline to March 16, 2020 (Dkt. 8–9). That Acer retained conflict/venue counsel of this profile is itself consistent with a case heading toward early resolution.

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What I could not verify — stated plainly

1. No PACER/RECAP pull of an Acer D. Del. docket. I did not locate a D. Del. docket naming Acer as defendant in a Cedar Lane case. The LexDana "related cases" cluster for Cedar Lane's Delaware campaign (1:19-cv-00996 through 1:22-cv-01414, Judge Richard G. Andrews) was truncated in the search result and did not visibly include Acer. (LexDana, 1:23-cv-00376)
2. No confirmation that the '790 patent was ever asserted against Acer. The '790 was asserted against ~52 defendants (BenQ, MediaTek, Ricoh, STMicro, Adesso, Boston Dynamics, Skydio, etc.) — Acer does not appear on that list. (PatSnap '790 litigation index)
3. No sealed filings or counsel withdrawals identified. Nothing in the accessible record suggests a sealed appearance or an attorney who has appeared but is not reflected in the docket.
4. Rabicoff Law LLC's office address — I did not confirm a street address from a filing in this record, so I have not supplied one.

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Practical recommendation for the case file

Before this counsel section is finalized, someone with PACER access should pull the full docket sheet for 1:19-cv-01207 (W.D. Tex.) — specifically any transfer order, conditional dismissal, or Rule 41 stipulation — and check whether Judge Andrews' Delaware docket shows a Cedar Lane v. Acer case opened in the Oct. 2022 filing wave (1:22-cv-0140x–0141x range) that the aggregators mislabeled. The "stayed pending dismissal/settlement" status in the metadata is entirely consistent with Cedar Lane's documented pattern (310 of 367 cases closed by settlement per the KIPO study), but the court and patent fields in the metadata appear to be a mismatch with the confirmed Acer docket, and the counsel answer changes depending on which is right: Rabicoff alone in Texas; Rabicoff plus a Delaware local counsel if a Delaware case exists.

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

Bottom line

I was not able to verify any counsel of record for Acer in a D. Del. case captioned Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Acer, and I want to flag that prominently rather than fill the gap. What I could verify is different in one important respect: the only publicly indexed Cedar Lane–Acer lawsuit is No. 1:19-cv-01207 (W.D. Tex., Austin Div., Judge Lee Yeakel), filed Dec. 13, 2019 — a § 271 action asserting USRE44087, 6,473,527, 6,972,774, 7,292,261 and 8,537,242. That docket shows a verified defense appearance, set out below. Whether the D. Del. action in the case metadata is a later re-filing of the same campaign (with the '790 added) or a separate matter I cannot confirm from the sources available to me; no D. Del. docket number for Cedar Lane v. Acer surfaced in Justia/CourtListener/PACER-derived indexes, and Acer does not appear on the Snap/Wisdom NPE database or the PatSnap '790 litigation roll among the ~52 recorded '790 defendants.

Verified appearance (W.D. Tex. predecessor case)

Grounding: Dkt. 8, Unopposed MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer re #1 Complaint by Acer Inc. (Findlay, Eric), entered 01/24/2020; Dkt. 9, Order granting same, answer due 3/16/2020, signed by Judge Yeakel — reproduced at the UniCourt docket for 1:19-cv-01207, https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-cedar-lane-technologies-inc-v-acer-inc-[280284](/patent/280284), and the Unified Patents litigation portal, https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/1:19-cv-01207. Party/patent confirmation: KOTRA overseas IP dispute record for 1:19-cv-01207, and the complaint text (W.D. Tex., Austin Division) at https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/13616488.

Do not treat Findlay as counsel in the D. Del. matter without re-verification. Defense teams in these NPE campaigns routinely change between venues, and D. Del. Local Rule 83.5 would have required a Delaware-bar local counsel to enter an appearance and do the filing, so a D. Del. defense team would necessarily include at least one Delaware firm attorney in addition to any Texas/California lead counsel.

What is NOT verified (and why)

1. No confirmed D. Del. appearance for Acer. I found no Notice of Appearance, pro hac vice motion, Rule 7.1 disclosure, answer, or stipulation of dismissal naming Acer in the District of Delaware. Possible explanations, all consistent with the record I saw: (a) the case was served and resolved so quickly that appearances were never docketed before dismissal; (b) Acer was never served and the case was dismissed under Rule 41(a); or (c) the matter is indexed only in PACER and not in the RECAP-derived databases I could reach.
2. No lead counsel, of counsel, or in-house attorney identified for Acer in this matter. I decline to name a firm (e.g., the firms that commonly defend Acer in other NPE suits) because I could not tie any such firm to this case, and a wrong attribution here is worse than an admitted gap.
3. Sealing. Nothing in what I found suggests sealed filings; the more likely issue is simply a thin docket. I found no evidence of sealed appearances.

Suggested verification path (in order)

1. Pull the D. Del. docket directly on PACER (CM/ECF) and filter the party "Acer" / "Acer America Corp." against plaintiff "Cedar Lane Technologies" for 2022–2025; look specifically at D.I. entries 1–15, which is where appearances and PHV motions sit in these Cedar Lane filings.
2. In the alternative, check the Cedar Lane Delaware lead-case umbrella — Judge Richard G. Andrews handled the bulk of the Cedar Lane D. Del. wave, and the 1:99-mc-09999 miscellaneous docket (CourtListener docket 66694588) aggregates many of the complaints filed through it.
3. If the case is the 2022–2023 '790 batch, note that plaintiff-side counsel changed mid-campaign: David W. deBruin (Napoli Shkolnik LLC) filed most of the earlier Delaware complaints, but Napoli Shkolnik moved to withdraw/dissociate in May 2023 (see, e.g., Dkt. 10 in Cedar Lane v. Best Lighting, 1:23-cv-00380-RGA), with Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC, Alexandria, Va.) and John Phillips appearing thereafter. That churn is a useful date-marker for corroborating when a defendant's appearance would have been filed.
4. For the Acer side, confirm whether service ran to Acer Inc. (Taiwan) or Acer America Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) — the entity served determines which defense team and which Delaware local counsel would appear.

Case-posture note relevant to counsel research

The '790 patent's estimated expiry is August 1, 2023 (PatSnap patent record for US6972790B2), and nearly every '790 assertion in the 2022–2023 wave terminated by voluntary dismissal or consent judgment within roughly 20–350 days. That pattern — early dismissal/settlement, minimal motion practice — is exactly the scenario in which defense counsel appearances are few, and sometimes absent entirely, from the docket. It is also consistent with the "stayed pending dismissal/settlement" status in the case metadata, but I cannot confirm the stay order itself.

If you can supply the D. Del. docket number, I can run the appearance-level pull and give you a fully verified attorney list with PHV dates and firm affiliations.