Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P.

I'll research this case and its context before drafting.

Key finding: the docket shows this case was voluntarily dismissed on 10/2/2025 — I'll verify details and the broader campaign.

Now let me pin down the patent's provenance, the accused Cantor technology, and why the case was dismissed so quickly.

Case Overview & Background

Parties. Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian non-practicing entity (NPE/PAE) incorporated in British Columbia on April 29, 2019, with attorney Greg Benoit as founder/director (formerly CEO of monetization firm Patent Armory; the entity's address corresponds to IP licensing firm Pigott & Co.). Its portfolio was largely assembled from Intellectual Ventures assets (via AVInnov LLC and Steephill Technologies), and Lex Machina's 2022 report identified it as the single most active patent plaintiff in the U.S. in 2021, with 300+ cumulative district court suits against Amazon, Zoom, Huawei, Apple, Comcast and others, and historically very high, fast settlement rates (IAM reported a 96% settlement rate among terminated cases; a Chinese IP-protection-center study found ~80% settled with a median ~77–90 day closing). Its near-exclusive litigation counsel is Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who appeared pro hac vice in this case (Dkt. 6, granted Dkt. 9, 9/24/2025). Defendant Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is a New York-headquartered global financial services firm — brokerage, investment banking, and fixed-income/rates market-making — and, notably, the former firm of Howard Lutnick, who left to become U.S. Secretary of Commerce in 2025 (Law360 flagged exactly this angle in its coverage: "Cantor Fitzgerald, Citibank Hit With Trading Patent Suits," Sept. 23, 2025).

Patent and accused technology. The sole patent asserted is U.S. 8,577,782, "Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants" (App. No. 12/756,929, filed April 8, 2010; issued November 5, 2013; estimated expiry April 8, 2030). In one line: it claims a method of giving market makers a selective, profile-based pricing advantage inside an anonymous electronic marketplace — a "taker" is tied to a persistent but non-identifying "identifier," the liquidity provider pulls that identifier's trade history, builds a "profile" indicating whether those trades would generate a profit (the spec's "toxic trader" vs. "naive trader" framework, using variables such as ACTPROF/SIMPROF), and then makes an offer only to that taker, processed through an exchange with a bid/offer spread, using processors implemented at least partly in hardware. Public copies of the Cedar Lane complaints on this patent do not name the accused products in the body — they incorporate claim charts in Exhibit 2 (e.g., the parallel Cantor complaint's structure, and the same template in the Schwab, Fidelity/FMR, Cobra Trading, Citibank and TD Bank complaints). I could not verify from retrieved sources which specific Cantor platform (e.g., its rates/electronic Treasury trading venues) is charted, though the campaign's targets make electronic fixed-income market-making the clear subject matter. That identification should be treated as unverified.

Procedural posture — and an important correction. The case is docketed in S.D.N.Y. (Manhattan), Case No. 1:25-cv-07841, before Judge Dale E. Ho, filed 9/22/2025, jury demand, § 271. Cantor was served on 9/26/2025 via registered agent CSC (Dkt. 11). But the case is no longer pending: Cedar Lane filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal without prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) on 10/1/2025 (Dkt. 12–13), and Judge Ho granted it on 10/2/2025 (Dkt. 14), with the AO 120 case-termination form submitted the same day (Dkt. 15) — meaning the case lived roughly ten days and no answer, motion to dismiss, or scheduling order ever issued. The case-metadata field showing status "active" is therefore stale; the operative fact is a without-prejudice dismissal that preserves refiling (subject to § 286's six-year damages lookback). Venue in S.D.N.Y. matters for two reasons: Cantor's principal place of business is there, mooting any TC Heartland fight, and Cedar Lane's 2025–2026 campaign has deliberately split filings between S.D.N.Y./E.D.N.Y. and E.D./W.D. Tex. (Citibank went to W.D. Tex.; Bank of America and Charles Schwab to E.D. Tex.), reflecting the post-random-assignment shift of NPE filings away from the Albright courtroom.

Why it's notable. Three things. First, scale and sequencing: the '782 campaign is a textbook "sue-the-industry" pattern — Cedar Lane filed a first wave in February–September 2025 (Cobra Trading, FMR/Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Citibank, Bank of America, Corinthian Partners, Beech Hill Securities (S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-07840, filed the same day as Cantor), Cantor) and then an expansive 2025–2026 second wave against Morgan Stanley, Raymond James, Maxim Group, TD Bank, BOKF, BNY Mellon, BTG Pactual, AllianceBernstein, AlpacaDB, David Lerner, Ameritas and Horace Mann, among others (per the Stanford NPE Litigation Database and docket aggregators). Second, the financial-infrastructure context: the patent reaches the core risk-management logic of anonymous electronic trading — tiering counterparties by toxicity and quoting them selectively — so assertion against the largest Treasury/rates dealers implicates market-structure practices rather than a discrete "product," which complicates both infringement proof (does an ordinary account ID plus venue risk controls meet "identifier"/"profile"?) and invalidity. Third, IPR linkage is thin: no PTAB challenge to the '782 patent appears in retrieved records, and the parallel complaints are notably silent on prior litigation or IPR history; Cedar Lane's best-known PTAB loss was Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Techs., IPR2020-00006, where the Board held the independent claim of U.S. 7,173,177 unpatentable (FWD Feb. 12, 2021). The absence of any '782 IPR is a live strategic opening for defendants in the remaining cases — though Cantor's dismissal without prejudice creates a § 315(b) timing wrinkle, since the Federal Circuit treats a Rule 41(a) dismissal without prejudice as leaving the parties as if the action had never been brought (see Graves v. Principi, 294 F.3d 1350, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2002)).

Sourcing caveats. The dismissal reason is not publicly documented — no motion, settlement announcement, or license was disclosed; a quick license is plausible (compare Cedar Lane v. Bank of New York Mellon, 1:25-cv-09488, dismissed with prejudice in January 2026, a signature of a resolved license), but for Cantor that is inference only. I also could not verify the '782 patent's named inventors or original assignee/pre-IV chain of title from the sources retrieved (prosecution counsel is listed as the Law Office of Donald L. Wenskay), nor the specific accused Cantor platform. Primary docket grounding: Dkt. 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-07841); plaintiff's counsel and termination record confirmed via Justia Dockets, RPX Empower, and Patsnap Eureka entries for this case number.

I'll research this case across dockets, PTAB, and legal press sources.

Key finding already: the docket shows a very short-lived case. Let me verify with additional sources and check for refiling and PTAB activity.

Bottom line

This case has no merits history. Cedar Lane Technologies filed the complaint on 2025-09-22 and voluntarily dismissed it without prejudice ten days later; Judge Dale E. Ho signed the dismissal order on 2025-10-02. There was no answer, no counterclaim, no motion practice, no Markman, no discovery, no trial, and no PTAB proceeding on the '782 patent that I could identify. Every section of your requested outline is therefore a "none," and the analytically interesting questions are (a) why the dismissal happened and (b) what the dismissal did and did not preserve.

Note on case status: the metadata I was given labels this matter "active," but the S.D.N.Y. docket shows the case terminated on 2025-10-02 (Dkt. 14, plus the AO 120 termination form at Dkt. 15). The docket controls the posture; the "active" field appears stale. I found no refiling by Cedar Lane against Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. as of the date of this memo, but I could not exhaustively confirm that point (see caveats).

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Chronological record

Nothing else occurred. The answer/counterclaim deadline of 2025-10-17 was mooted by the dismissal.

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Section-by-section

1. Filing and initial pleadings. The complaint was a short-form NPE pleading of the kind Rabicoff Law files routinely on the '782 patent: it alleges Cedar Lane (a Canadian corporation) is assignee of all right, title and interest in U.S. Patent 8,577,782 ("Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants," issued 2013-11-05, application filed 2010-04-08), asserts direct and induced infringement against "Exemplary Defendant Products," and incorporates by reference claim charts in Exhibit 2 rather than naming accused products in the body. Parallel complaints in the same campaign use identical language — see the Ex Parte complaint analysis of the Schwab and Cobra Trading suits — so the Cantor complaint almost certainly follows that template. No answer and no counterclaims were ever filed, which means Cantor never put invalidity (including § 101) or non-infringement at issue in this action.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance. None. No Rule 12(b) motion, no § 1404(a) transfer motion, no stay motion. The only motions were administrative (pro hac vice, Dkt. 6/9).

3. Claim construction. None. The case never reached an initial pretrial conference, much less a Markman schedule. No claim terms of the '782 patent have been construed by any court in this action.

4. Discovery. None of record. No Rule 26(f) conference, no scheduling order, no ESI order, no contention interrogatories. The dismissal preceded the Rule 16 conference by months.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions. None, and none possible on this docket.

6. Final disposition. Voluntary dismissal without prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i), ordered 2025-10-02. Three consequences matter:

• Cedar Lane is not claim-precluded and may refile against Cantor on the '782 patent, subject to the six-year damages lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286 and the patent's ~2030-04-08 expiry.
• Because dismissal was without prejudice, there is no prevailing party and no possible fee motion under § 285. Cantor obtained no judicial finding of non-infringement or invalidity, and no covenant not to sue.
• Cantor's answer deadline was swept away; if refiled, the case restarts from zero.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings. I found no IPR or PGR on U.S. 8,577,782 in any source reviewed, and Patsnap's litigation record for this case expressly notes "Validity challenges: None recorded." That absence is consistent with the campaign's shape: defendants appear to have been resolving these cases commercially rather than through the Board. Cedar Lane is nonetheless an experienced PTAB target on other assets — e.g., Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies, IPR2020-00006, where the Board's 2021-02-12 final written decision held the independent claim of U.S. 7,173,177 unpatentable (Unified Patents summary) — so the '782 patent's survival without a Board challenge is notable.

Analytical flag (my own assessment, not a holding): the § 315(b) one-year clock for Cantor to petition IPR was likely triggered by the 2025-09-26 service, notwithstanding the later dismissal without prejudice — Click-to-Call Techs., LP v. Ingenio, Inc., 141 S. Ct. 1955 (2021) (per curiam); Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Techs., LP, 140 S. Ct. 1367 (2020). If so, Cantor's time-bar date was roughly 2026-09-26. Cedar Lane's ten-day dismissal therefore did not buy Cantor a clean PTAB slate; it only reset the courtroom.

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Why it was dismissed — the campaign context

The suit was not a standalone filing. On 2025-09-22 Cedar Lane launched a coordinated wave on the '782 patent against financial-services firms in both S.D.N.Y. and W.D. Tex., including Beech Hill Securities (1:25-cv-07840), Cantor Fitzgerald (this case), City National Rochdale, Clear Street, Corinthian Partners, and Citibank (W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00432). Law360 covered the wave on 2025-09-23 under the headline "Cantor Fitzgerald, Citibank Hit With Trading Patent Suits," pointedly describing Cantor as "Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick's former firm" (Law360 case page; see also the September 2025 Retail Patent Litigation Report, listing all six defendants and the '782 patent).

The near-uniform pattern across that wave is early exit: Citibank dismissed 2025-11-21; Percheron dismissed 2026-02-03; David Lerner Associates resolved by settlement 2026-03-31; and, in the more mature matters, dismissals with prejudice as to Cedar Lane's claims with defense counterclaims dismissed without prejudice and each side bearing its own fees (Alterna Securities, S.D. Tex. 4:25-cv-01095, May 2025; BNY Mellon, 1:25-cv-09488, 2026-01-30) — the classic signature of a paid license or covenant not to sue. The Cantor dismissal fits this template exactly, and the absence of any motion practice or defense appearance before 2025-10-01 suggests a rapid commercial resolution rather than a merits retreat. I want to be explicit that this inference is circumstantial: no settlement agreement, license, or covenant is on the public docket, and the dismissal papers (Dkts. 12–13) recite nothing about consideration. It is equally possible Cedar Lane dismissed for a case-specific reason not reflected in the record — a venue or jurisdictional concern, a standing/chain-of-title gap, or a defendant-identification error (Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is a New York limited partnership with affiliated operating entities, and the campaign's complaints elsewhere name different Cantor-adjacent entities). Nothing in the sources I reviewed identifies the actual reason.

The campaign also continued well past this dismissal, which is the best evidence that Cedar Lane's enforcement posture on the '782 patent was unaffected: new '782 suits were filed into 2026 in E.D. Tex. (TD Bank 2:26-cv-00044, filed 2026-01-22; BOKF 2:26-cv-00773, filed 2026-08-31, dismissed 2026-10-07) and in D. Del. (BTG Pactual 1:26-cv-01178, AlpacaDB 1:26-cv-01260, AllianceBernstein 1:26-cv-01261, all filed September 2026, with AllianceBernstein answering and counterclaiming on 2026-10-28) — see Patent Litigator's AllianceBernstein analysis and the BTG Pactual and AlpacaDB notes. The AllianceBernstein answer and counterclaim is, as far as these sources show, the first genuinely contested '782 matter — meaning the patent's § 101 exposure may finally get tested somewhere else, not here.

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Sourcing caveats

• The primary evidence for the timeline is the Justia docket transcription of S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-07841 (dockets.justia.com), which quotes the docket text verbatim, including the dismissal order and the AO 120 termination form. I did not independently pull the PACER images or the Dkts. 12–13 filings themselves, so I cannot characterize the stated grounds for dismissal beyond the Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) citation.
• Sibling-case details come substantially from commercial aggregators (Patsnap Eureka, Docket Nexus, Patent Litigator). Patsnap's "Verdict & Legal Analysis"

I'll research this docket and the plaintiff's counsel.

Now let me pull the full docket detail and counsel profile.

Bottom line

Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. was represented in this case by a single attorney of record: Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago, IL), who entered pro hac vice in S.D.N.Y. There is no local counsel, no co-counsel, and no in-house counsel reflected on the public docket. Because the case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice on October 2, 2025 — ten days after filing — the appearance never went beyond the pleading stage.

Counsel of record for Plaintiff

Docket citations for the appearance:

• Dkt. 1 — Complaint filed 9/22/2025, signed and filed electronically by Rabicoff for Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.
• Dkt. 5 — AO 120 patent form submitted by Rabicoff.
• Dkt. 6 — Motion for Isaac P. Rabicoff to appear pro hac vice (with declaration and certificate of good standing).
• Dkt. 9 — Order for Admission Pro Hac Vice granting Dkt. 6 (signed by Judge Dale E. Ho, 9/24/2025).
• Dkt. 11 — Summons returned executed (service on Cantor Fitzgerald via CSC, 9/26/2025) filed by Rabicoff.
• Dkts. 12–14 — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) filed by Rabicoff (10/1/2025); proposed order; and the order granting dismissal without prejudice (10/2/2025), followed by Dkt. 15 AO 120 termination form.

Important caveats and sourcing notes

1. No local counsel appears on the record. Both Justia's docket extract and the PACER Monitor party listing show Cedar Lane "Represented By: Isaac Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC" only. Notably, Rabicoff is a Chicago-based Illinois-bar attorney, not a member of the S.D.N.Y. bar, and entered solely via pro hac vice motion (Dkt. 6/9). Under S.D.N.Y. practice a pro hac vice admittee is ordinarily expected to associate with a member of the Court's bar; nothing in the free public docket reflects such an association, and no Notice of Appearance by a New York firm is listed. I could not inspect every docket entry on a paywalled PACER docket (a small number of entries between Dkts. 5 and 11 are not displayed in the free mirrors), so I cannot affirmatively rule out a local-counsel appearance — but no source records one, and none is listed in the docket's attorney field.

2. Defendant side is empty. No notice of appearance, answer, or motion by Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. appears on the docket before dismissal — consistent with the case closing 10 days after filing. So there is no opposing counsel to compare against, and no motion practice in which Rabicoff's role was tested.

3. Nothing is sealed in this case as far as public records show (the dismissal order and notice are public). The absence of counsel information here is not due to sealing — it is simply because Cedar Lane used a single, out-of-district attorney and dismissed almost immediately.

4. Context on the filing wave. This suit is one of a September 2025 cluster of ’782 Patent ("Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants," issued 11/5/2013) suits filed by Cedar Lane against financial-services firms — including Beech Hill Securities (1:25-cv-07840), Clear Street LLC (1:25-cv-07846), Corinthian Partners, City National Rochdale, Citibank (W.D. Tex.), and later First Manhattan Securities (1:25-cv-09485) and Aegis Capital (1:26-cv-07405) — all filed by Rabicoff Law. Law360 covered the wave in a September 23, 2025 piece ("Cantor Fitzgerald, Citibank Hit With Trading Patent Suits"). This confirms Rabicoff's consistent role as Cedar Lane's national enforcement counsel for this patent, and also supports an inference that the Cantor case was dismissed as part of a broader campaign-management sequence rather than on the merits.

5. One name to watch but not of record here: Rabicoff Law colleague Kenneth A. Matuszewski (Reg. No. 74,791) frequently appears as backup counsel for Rabicoff in PTAB matters, but he did not appear in this district court case and should not be listed as counsel of record.

Sources: Justia Dockets, Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., No. 1:25-cv-07841 (S.D.N.Y.) (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2025cv07841/[649842](/patent/649842)); PACER Monitor case page (https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/60259782/); Patsnap Litigation case record; Rabicoff Law firm bio (http://www.rabilaw.com/rabicoff.html); PTAB filings listing Rabicoff's registration number and Chicago address; Law360 case pages for the related ’782 suits.

If you need court-certified confirmation (e.g., for a conflicts check), pull the PACER docket sheet for 1:25-cv-07841 directly — the attorney/party "represented by" field and Dkts. 6, 9, and 12 will give you the definitive, certified list.

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

Key finding emerging — let me verify the docket directly and check for any defendant-side appearances.

The docket is now clear on the core point. Let me check for a possible refiling and whether Cantor has appeared through counsel in any Cedar Lane-related matter.

Bottom line: there is no counsel of record for the defendant in this case — because Cantor Fitzgerald never appeared

I could not identify any defense attorney for Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. in 1:25-cv-07841, and that is a substantive finding rather than a research gap. The docket shows the case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice on October 2, 2025 — ten days after filing and fifteen days before Cantor's answer deadline — with no defense appearance, answer, Rule 7.1 statement, or motion ever entered.

Docket basis (entries 1–15):

Source: Justia docket 1:25-cv-07841; PacerMonitor (identifies only Isaac Rabicoff / Rabicoff Law LLC as "Represented By"); RPX Empower. Third-party litigation databases confirm the defendant side as "not recorded": Patsnap case record.

Why no counsel appears: Under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i), a plaintiff may dismiss unilaterally before the defendant serves an answer or a motion for summary judgment. Cedar Lane filed its notice on October 1 — 16 days before Cantor's October 17 answer date and only five days after service. Cantor therefore had no obligation and no occasion to retain or enter counsel. The dismissal was without prejudice, so the claims remain live, but no refiling by Cedar Lane against Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. appears in the litigation databases I checked (Patsnap's company-wide Cedar Lane docket set of ~120 cases lists Cantor once, as this closed 2025 case).

Metadata correction worth flagging: the case header in this file says "status: active." The docket contradicts that — the case was terminated October 2, 2025. A fresh PACER pull is still advisable as a belt-and-suspenders check for any post-dismissal entry (e.g., a Rule 60/reopen motion or a bill of costs), since the free docket mirrors I relied on were last refreshed at or near termination. I found no evidence of any such entry.

Context on who would likely have appeared (clearly labeled as inference, not record)

I want to be explicit that the following is not sourced to any Cantor appearance and should not be entered as counsel of record:

• Cantor is one of roughly a dozen financial-services targets in Cedar Lane's single-patent campaign asserting US 8,577,782 ("Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants"), filed in a burst on and around September 22, 2025 (Beech Hill Securities 1:25-cv-07840, Corinthian Partners, Clear Street 1:25-cv-07846, City National Rochdale, Citibank in W.D. Tex., et al.). See Law360, "Cantor Fitzgerald, Citibank Hit With Trading Patent Suits" (Sept. 23, 2025).
• In the other cases in that campaign where defendants did appear, the defense bar was notably heterogeneous — e.g., Lerner David LLP (Orville Ricardo Cockings, Stephen F. Roth) for TIAA-CREF in 1:25-cv-09538, and Fish & Richardson (Excylyn Janaize Hardin-Smith) for BNY Mellon in 1:25-cv-09488. This confirms Cantor had no shared "campaign counsel" whose identity could be imputed to it here. Sources: Patsnap TIAA-CREF record; Patsnap BNY Mellon record.
• Cantor Fitzgerald is a frequent civil litigant in S.D.N.Y., and its in-house legal department and outside counsel relationships exist, but I found no public source tying any specific firm or attorney to this docket, and I will not speculate as to a name.

Recommended next steps if a name is genuinely needed

1. PACER docket report for 1:25-cv-07841 (full "all entries including terminated" view) to confirm the absence of a notice of appearance and to check whether the notice of dismissal recited any settlement or license.
2. Pull ECF No. 1 (complaint) and No. 12 (notice of dismissal) — the latter's certificate of service would name any defense counsel on whom the notice was served. This is the single most likely place a Cantor-side name would surface even absent a formal appearance.
3. Check the Rule 41(a) dismissal for a settlement recital — if Cedar Lane dismissed as part of a confidential license, the counterparty's counsel may appear in a later, publicly filed agreement or in Cantor's SEC/agency disclosures.

If you want, I can also profile the plaintiff-side counsel of record (Isaac P. Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC, admitted pro hac vice by Judge Ho on 9/24/2025 at ECF No. 9) as a mirror-image section for the brief.