Litigation

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Clear Street LLC

dismissed

1:25-cv-07846

Filed
2025-09-22

Patents at issue (1)

8577782

Defendants (1)

Summary

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. sued Clear Street LLC in S.D.N.Y. asserting US 8,577,782. The claims were dismissed with prejudice and counterclaims without prejudice after 63 days.

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 and the parties before drafting the overview.

Good initial hits. Now let me dig into the parties, the patent's provenance, Clear Street's counterclaims, and any PTAB activity.

Case Overview: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Clear Street LLC, No. 1:25-cv-07846 (S.D.N.Y.)

The parties. The plaintiff, Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., is not an operating company. It is a Canadian non-practicing entity, incorporated in British Columbia in April 2019, run by founder Greg Benoit (a lawyer who describes his practice as "helping patent owners monetize their patents") and represented in this matter by Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who appears in the great majority of its suits. Cedar Lane's portfolio was acquired largely from Intellectual Ventures entities, spans image processing, remote controls, and JPEG compression, and has been asserted in hundreds of district court complaints — Lex Machina's 2022 report ranked Cedar Lane the single most prolific patent plaintiff of 2021 — with a business model of high-volume, short-lived filings. The defense side is the mirror image: Clear Street LLC is a New York–headquartered, cloud-native prime brokerage, clearing, and custody firm founded in 2018, with roughly 700 institutional clients and $16 billion in customer balances, and net revenue of approximately $1.04–1.06 billion in 2025 versus $463.6 million the prior year (figures from its 2026 IPO registration reporting). Clear Street retained Fish & Richardson (Michael T. Zoppo) rather than defaulting to a low-cost defense, an early signal the company intended to litigate rather than simply pay.

The patent and the accused technology. Cedar Lane asserted a single patent: U.S. 8,577,782, "Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants," filed April 8, 2010 and issued November 5, 2013, with an estimated term running to April 2030. In one line: it claims a method of associating an anonymous trading entity with a persistent "identifier," pulling that identifier's trade history, generating a profile showing whether the entity's past trades "would generate a profit," and having a liquidity provider send a conditional bid/offer based on that profile only to that entity — i.e., letting market makers price-protect against "toxic" flow without learning the counterparty's identity. Claim 1 recites processors "implemented at least partly in hardware," language that appears calibrated against § 101 exposure. The accused instrumentality is Clear Street's electronic trading/execution and prime brokerage platform, but the complaint itself is a five-page form pleading that names no product, deferring all technical mapping to Exhibit 2, a claim chart attached to the complaint. I could not verify that chart's contents from public sources, so the precise product-to-claim mapping Clear Lane drew should be treated as unconfirmed; that opacity is itself characteristic of this campaign and was the obvious target for a Rule 12 or § 101 motion.

Posture, venue, and significance. The case was filed September 22, 2025 in the Southern District of New York, assigned to Judge Lewis J. Liman with Magistrate Judge Henry J. Ricardo designated; Clear Street was served October 24, answered and counterclaimed (with a jury demand) on November 14, and the parties filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal six days later. Judge Liman signed the dismissal on November 24, 2025 — claims dismissed with prejudice, Clear Street's counterclaims dismissed without prejudice, each side bearing its own costs and fees — and an AO 120 form went to the PTO. Total life: 63 days. That disposition is the classic signature of a confidential settlement or license rather than a merits outcome: there is no claim construction, no § 101 ruling, no summary judgment, and no public opinion; Cedar Lane also recorded no inter partes review challenge to the '782 patent in connection with this case, and I found no PTAB proceedings on the patent at all. The case is notable in three respects. First, it is a data point in a distinct second act for Cedar Lane, which pivoted from consumer-electronics and imaging defendants to financial services: the '782 patent has been asserted in 2025–2026 against Charles Schwab, Citibank, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, TD Bank, Raymond James, BNY Mellon, BTG Pactual, AllianceBernstein, and AlpacaDB, spread across E.D. Tex., W.D. Tex., E.D.N.Y., D. Del., and S.D.N.Y. Clear Street was one of a same-week S.D.N.Y. batch (cf. Cedar Lane v. Beech Hill Securities, No. 1:25-cv-07840), a venue choice plausibly driven by defendants' Manhattan headquarters and by the litigation risk and perceived hostility of the Texas dockets Cedar Lane historically favored. Second, the timing sits directly against Clear Street's capital-markets ambitions: the FT reported in December 2025 that Clear Street was preparing a listing at a $10–12 billion valuation, which became an $11.8 billion target, a 65% downsized $364 million deal on February 12, 2026, a postponement, and a formal withdrawal on February 19, 2026. Pending patent litigation is a prospectus risk factor, and a 63-day, cost-neutral exit fit neatly into that pre-IPO cleanup. Third, the case is a clean illustration of the modern PAE cost asymmetry: a form complaint with an unattached-in-substance claim chart extracts a fast, quiet resolution from a well-capitalized defendant that had already invested in Fish & Richardson and answered with counterclaims — without a court ever reaching the merits.

Sourcing notes / limits. Docket facts (dates, ECF Nos. 1–17, counsel, judge, dismissal language) are drawn from the PACER Monitor and Justia docket records for No. 1:25-cv-07846 and are reliable. Party background comes from Stanford's NPE Litigation Database, RPX, and Seyfarth Shaw's published "NPE Showcase" on Cedar Lane, which also documents the 2020 N.D. Cal. sanctions order against Cedar Lane and Rabicoff. Two items are not well sourced and should be flagged in any filing: (1) the contents of Exhibit 2 (the actual accused-product claim chart), and (2) the terms of the settlement, if any — the docket shows only a stipulated dismissal, and I found no Reuters, Law360, or IPWatchdog coverage of this specific case, only of Clear Street's IPO. The '782 patent's chain of title back to Intellectual Ventures is consistent with Cedar Lane's portfolio generally but I did not independently verify the original assignee of the '782 patent.

Key legal developments & outcome

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

I'll verify the docket chronology and check for any motion practice, PTAB activity, and final disposition details before listing developments.

Key legal developments & outcome — chronological

Bottom line: there were almost no "legal developments" in the merits sense. The case generated 17 docket entries, no motion practice of substance, no claim construction, no discovery, no PTAB proceeding, no judgment, and no appeal. What follows is the complete procedural chronology, followed by an explicit accounting of the stages that never happened and why that matters.

Chronology (S.D.N.Y. No. 1:25-cv-07846, ECF 1–17)

Date ECF Event
2025-09-22 1–6 Complaint filed (35 U.S.C. § 271) with Ex. 1 (the '782 patent) and Ex. 2 (claim chart); civil cover sheet (2); plaintiff's Rule 7.1 statement (3); summons request (4); AO 120 case-opening form (5); Rabicoff pro hac vice motion (6)
2025-09-23 7–8 Summons issued (7); AO 120 submitted to PTO under 35 U.S.C. § 290 (8); case assigned to Judge Lewis J. Liman, Magistrate Judge Henry J. Ricardo designated
2025-10-24 9 Service on Clear Street (return filed 2025-10-27); answer due 2025-11-14
2025-11-03 10 Order granting Rabicoff's pro hac vice admission (text order)
2025-11-14 11–13 Michael T. Zoppo (Fish & Richardson) notice of appearance (11); Answer with jury demand and counterclaims against Cedar Lane (12); Clear Street Rule 7.1 statement ("No Corporate Parent") (13)
2025-11-20 14–15 Stipulation of voluntary dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) (14); proposed order (15)
2025-11-24 16–17 Order granting joint stipulation: claims dismissed with prejudice; Clear Street's counterclaims dismissed without prejudice; each party bears its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees (16); AO 120 case-termination form (17)

Sources: PACER Monitor docket, https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/60260278/Cedar_Lane_Technologies_Inc_v_Clear_Street_LLC ; Justia docket (through the 2025-09-22 filings only), https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2025cv07846/[649849](/patent/649849) ; UniCourt (ECF 1–6 text), https://unicourt.com/case/urc-CASEgu428795e7de1e .

The stages that did not occur — and why that is the story

  • No Rule 12 motion. Clear Street did not move to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) or 12(c), and filed no § 101 motion. It went straight to an answer and counterclaims on the answer deadline. The 6-day gap between ECF 12 and ECF 14 leaves no room for motion practice; there is no motion, opposition, or order on any dispositive motion in ECF 1–17.
  • No scheduling order, Rule 26(f) conference, initial disclosures, or protective order. None appears on the docket, which is consistent with termination roughly six weeks after service and before the pleadings had even settled.
  • No Markman. No joint claim construction statement, no Markman briefing, no claim construction order or opinion. The '782 patent's key terms were never construed by any court.
  • No transfer or stay motion, and correspondingly no Fintiv-type stay analysis — there was no IPR to stay for (see below).
  • No summary judgment, trial, verdict, JMOL, new-trial, or fee motion. No judgment was entered; the termination instrument is a stipulated dismissal order, not a judgment. With "each party shall bear its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees," Clear Street foreclosed any § 285 fee recovery — a plaintiff-favorable term and a strong settlement signature.
  • No appeal. No notice of appeal appears on the docket. The 30-day window under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A) would have expired on or about 2025-12-24; nothing was filed. Cedar Lane could not appeal in any event: its claims were dismissed with prejudice at its own request, so it was not aggrieved.

One procedural wrinkle worth noting. ECF 14 is captioned as a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) stipulation — which is self-effectuating — yet the parties also submitted a proposed order (ECF 15), the Clerk's Office reviewed it as to form on 2025-11-24, and Judge Liman signed a dismissal order the same day (ECF 16). That belt-and-suspenders approach is standard where counterclaims are pending (Cedar Lane could not unilaterally dismiss Clear Street's counterclaims under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i)), and it is what preserved the asymmetric disposition: claims gone permanently, counterclaims gone provisionally.

The counterclaims and their legal afterlife

Clear Street's ECF 12 counterclaim is the only affirmative offensive step any defendant took in this case. The docket text ("COUNTERCLAIM against Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.") does not disclose the counts, and I could not retrieve the pleading itself; based on the caption and Fish & Richardson's standard practice in this campaign, these were almost certainly declaratory-judgment counts for non-infringement and invalidity of the '782 patent — but treat the specific counts as unverified.

Legally, the "without prejudice" dismissal of those counterclaims is the most consequential choice in the case. It means:

  1. No invalidity adjudication and no issue preclusion. Nothing in this case binds anyone — Cedar Lane, Clear Street, or the ten-plus other financial-services defendants — on § 101, § 102, § 103, or claim scope. The '782 patent emerges from this case completely unadjudicated.
  2. No prevailing party, hence no fees. Combined with the mutual cost-bearing language, Clear Street gave up any argument that it "prevailed" for § 285 purposes.
  3. No DJ judgment to appeal or to build on in a later declaratory action.

Parallel PTAB proceedings: none — and that is unusual

I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding on U.S. 8,577,782 — not filed by Clear Street, not filed by any third party or defensive aggregator, and none instituted or terminated as of today (2026-11-13). No petition appears in the PTAB record for the patent, no Fintiv/stay briefing exists in any of the related district court cases, and the litigation-data records for this case list "Validity challenges: None recorded" (PatSnap, https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-v-clear-street-llc-patent-infringement-patsnap/ ). Clear Street's § 315(b) one-year bar would have run on 2026-10-24 (one year from the 2025-10-24 service date), so a Clear Street IPR is now time-barred absent joinder; any third-party challenge remains available.

This is notable because Cedar Lane is a known PTAB target: Unified Patents challenged Cedar Lane's U.S. 7,173,177 in IPR2020-00006, the Board instituted on 2020-03-18, and the final written decision of 2021-02-12 held the asserted independent claim unpatentable, with rehearing denied 2021-12-08 (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/2/12/cedar-lane-patent-held-unpatentable ; https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/ptab/10878 ). The '782 patent — a business-method-adjacent financial trading patent in the Alice crosshairs — has nonetheless never been tested at the Board, across what Stanford's NPE Litigation Database lists as at least eleven 2025–2026 suits (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8577782 ). Every one of those cases that has closed has closed by early dismissal, so neither the courts nor the agency have passed on the patent's validity.

Campaign-level correlation worth flagging

The dismissal dates cluster tightly, which supports the "coordinated resolution" reading rather than a case-specific merits event:

Two differences distinguish this case from its siblings and bear on any inference about the deal: Clear Street's dismissal was stipulated (Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), with an order) rather than a unilateral notice, and it followed an answer and counterclaims — the only recent '782 matter in which the defendant got a pleading on the record before exit. That is consistent with a negotiated resolution reached after Clear Street's counsel had begun work, not with a pre-service walk-away.

Sourcing notes / limits (updates to the earlier sections)

  1. Correction to earlier wording: the prior draft said "Cedar Lane also recorded no inter partes review challenge to the '782 patent in connection with this case." Cedar Lane is the patent owner and could not file such a challenge; the accurate statement is that no third party or defendant filed any IPR/PGR against the '782 patent, in connection with this case or otherwise.
  2. Unverified: the counts and content of Clear Street's counterclaims (ECF 12) — the docket text states only that a counterclaim was filed without prejudice to a later order dismissing it. I could not obtain the pleading text.
  3. Unverified: whether the 2025-11-20 stipulation recited any consideration or license. The public docket shows no settlement agreement, no Rule 41(a)(2) disclosure, and no license recordation at the PTO; the only recorded terms are those in ECF 16.
  4. Docket coverage: the Justia record for this case was last retrieved 2025-09-22 and shows only ECF

Plaintiff representatives

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

I'll verify the plaintiff's counsel of record against docket sources and firm records.

Let me check whether local S.D.N.Y. counsel also appeared — the pro hac vice motion implies a local sponsor.

Let me check the complaint caption block and the full docket for any additional plaintiff-side appearances.

Plaintiff's Counsel of Record — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Clear Street LLC, No. 1:25-cv-07846 (S.D.N.Y.)

Bottom line: exactly one attorney appeared for Cedar Lane in this case — Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who was the sole signatory on every plaintiff-side filing (ECF 1–6, 9, 14–15). No second plaintiff-side appearance, no in-house counsel, and no separate "local counsel" notice of appearance appears anywhere on the docket. Nothing in this docket is sealed; the absence of additional counsel is a feature of the record, not of redaction.

Table of appearances

Attorney Role Firm / office Basis of appearance Experience note
Isaac P. Rabicoff (Reg. No. 74,147) Lead counsel and sole counsel of record for Cedar Lane; also the attorney who filed the complaint, the Rule 7.1 statement, the AO 120 form, the summons request, and the stipulation/proposed dismissal order Rabicoff Law LLC — Chicago, IL HQ (73 W. Monroe St., Chicago, IL 60603); recent 2025 complaints use an Alexandria, VA address (5680 King Centre Dr., Suite 645, Alexandria, VA 22315) Admitted pro hac vice — ECF 6 (motion filed 9/22/2025, $200 fee, receipt ANYSDC-31746938, with Rabicoff declaration and certificate of good standing); deficiency-free notice same day; granted by Judge Liman 11/3/2025 (ECF 10, text-only order) Founder of Rabicoff Law; registered patent attorney; admitted in Illinois, the Federal Circuit, the Seventh Circuit, E.D. Tex., N.D. Ill. (Trial Bar), and W.D. Wis. — but not the S.D.N.Y. bar, which is why PHV was required. Firm markets itself as among Lex Machina's top 3 most active patent-litigation firms (2017) and has led licensing campaigns against Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Apple, LG, Huawei, Samsung and Google; Rabicoff has argued before the Federal Circuit and defeated institution of IPR/CBM petitions, including a CBM petition filed by Mastercard. He is the near-universal face of Cedar Lane's docket and the subject (with Cedar Lane) of the 2020 N.D. Cal. sanctions order discussed in the case overview.

Points to carry forward / flag

  • No local S.D.N.Y. counsel of record. S.D.N.Y. Local Civil Rule 1.3 ordinarily contemplates a member of the bar as counsel of record when an out-of-district attorney appears pro hac vice, and the PHV motion itself (ECF 6) lists no local sponsor. Two caveats: (a) the CM/ECF docket as reproduced by PACER Monitor, Justia, and UniCourt shows no co-signer or second appearance, so I can state the record fact confidently; (b) I could not retrieve the underlying affidavit/declaration (ECF 6-1) to confirm whether Rabicoff's motion papers named a local sponsor who simply never entered a separate appearance. Treat "no local counsel" as a docket-level conclusion, not a verified one. This is consistent with Cedar Lane's other 2025 S.D.N.Y. filings (Beech Hill Securities, No. 1:25-cv-07840; TIAA-CREF, No. 1:25-cv-09538; Morgan Stanley, No. 1:26-cv-00294), each of which shows the identical Rabicoff-only PHV pattern.
  • Do not confuse prosecution counsel with litigation counsel. Patsnap's case page for No. 1:25-cv-07846 lists "Law Office of Donald L. Wenskay" in a "prosecution counsel" field. That is the '782 patent's patent-prosecution attorney of record at the USPTO, not an appearance in this litigation, and Wenskay did not appear in the case. Several secondary databases conflate the two fields.
  • No other Rabicoff Law attorney appeared. Kenneth A. Matuszewski (Reg. No. 74,791) is Rabicoff's usual co-counsel/backup in PTAB filings and appears with him in other Cedar Lane matters, but he did not enter an appearance here. Cedar Lane's principal, Greg Benoit, likewise did not appear as counsel; there was no in-house appearance.
  • Sourcing. Docket facts are from the PACER Monitor docket for No. 1:25-cv-07846 (https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/60260278/Cedar_Lane_Technologies_Inc_v_Clear_Street_LLC) and the Justia docket (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2025cv07846/649849), which reproduce ECF 6, the 9/22/2025 filing notice, and the 11/3/2025 PHV grant. Biographical and admissions information is from Rabicoff Law's own attorney page (http://www.rabilaw.com/rabicoff.html) and his USPTO PTAB filings, which list Reg. No. 74,147 and the Chicago address. There is no Law360, Reuters Legal, or Bloomberg Law coverage of this case identifying counsel, so all counsel identification derives from the docket and firm materials rather than press reporting.

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 firm records to identify defense counsel of record.

Let me pull the full docket and the answer/counterclaims document to identify every attorney who appeared.

Now let me get the answer PDF itself (to see all signature blocks) and Zoppo's professional background.

Counsel of Record — Defendant Clear Street LLC

Bottom line: Exactly one attorney ever appeared for Clear Street in this case, and he was lead counsel: Michael T. Zoppo, a Principal in the New York office of Fish & Richardson P.C. No local counsel, no second chair, no in-house appearance, and no pro hac vice motion appears on the docket. That is consistent with the case's 63-day life and with Fish having a Manhattan office; because the case died before any scheduling order or Rule 26(f) conference, there was never occasion to staff up.

Table of appearances

Attorney Role Firm / office ECF appearance Patent litigation note
Michael T. Zoppo (Reg. No. 61,074) Lead counsel — sole attorney of record for Clear Street LLC Fish & Richardson P.C., 7 Times Square, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10036 (zoppo@fr.com) Notice of Appearance filed 11/14/2025 at 11:20 a.m.; signed the Answer, Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaim (ECF No. 12, filed 11/14/2025 at 11:23 a.m.) and Clear Street's Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure statement the same day Career-long financial-services patent defense practice; first-chair trial lawyer whose F&R bio credits him with "over a billion dollars" of exposure in an options-exchange case that ended in a pre-verdict adverse judgment affirmed by the Federal Circuit with a $6M+ fee award, plus summary judgment of non-infringement for USAA in USAA v. Mitek (W.D. Tex.) and an Alice invalidation affirmed in Asghari-Kamrani v. USAA (E.D. Va.); also an active AIA/post-grant practice (first-chaired multiple IPRs)

That is the complete list. Nothing in the PACER Monitor, Justia, UniCourt, PatSnap, or Stanford NPE database records for No. 1:25-cv-07846 discloses any additional defense-side attorney, and the docket's "represented by" field lists Zoppo alone.

Verification points and negative findings

  • No local counsel. Fish & Richardson maintains a New York office and Zoppo is New York-based, so Clear Street did not retain S.D.N.Y. local counsel — a departure from the pattern in Cedar Lane's Texas and Delaware filings, and a small tell that Clear Street's defense was centrally managed by F&R rather than assembled ad hoc.
  • No pro hac vice activity on the defense side. The only PHV motion in the case was plaintiff's — Isaac P. Rabicoff's motion (ECF No. 6, filed 9/22/2025), granted by Judge Liman by text order. No equivalent defense filing exists.
  • No in-house appearance. Clear Street's legal department does not appear on the docket. The company was in the middle of its IPO process during this window, so abstention from record appearance is unremarkable (and in-house counsel would in any event need S.D.N.Y. admission).
  • No other Fish & Richardson names. Unlike the co-pending Cedar Lane v. Bank of New York Mellon, No. 1:25-cv-09488 (S.D.N.Y.), where a second F&R attorney, Excylyn Janaize Hardin-Smith, appeared alongside the firm's team and signed the answer/counterclaims, the Clear Street docket shows Zoppo signing alone — again consistent with a case that resolved before staffing expanded.
  • Firm name caveat. The docket and PACER party record say "Fish & Richardson P.C."; at least one aggregator (PatSnap) renders it "Fish & Richardson LLP." The P.C. form is the correct one and matches Zoppo's own signature block.

Why this matters analytically

Zoppo is not a generalist defense hire; he is arguably the single F&R partner most identified with patent defense for exchanges, banks, and insurers — precisely the sector Cedar Lane pivoted into with the '782 patent. The presence of a first-chair financial-services patent trial lawyer, rather than a cost-driven responsive pleader, is the strongest docket-level evidence supporting the earlier observation that Clear Street lawyered up to fight: it filed an answer with counterclaims and a jury demand on the answer deadline (ECF No. 12), rather than seeking an extension or a quick nuisance-value license. Six days later the case was gone on a stipulated dismissal with Clear Street's counterclaims dismissed without prejudice — i.e., the counterclaims were used as settlement leverage and then retired, the standard structure where a license or covenant not to sue is exchanged.

Sourcing notes / limits

Docket facts (appearance date and time, ECF No. 12, the Rule 7.1 filing, the absence of defense PHV motions, and the dismissal order) are from the PACER Monitor docket record for No. 1:25-cv-07846, with the underlying document text corroborated by Justia and UniCourt; Zoppo's firm, office address, registration number, and case history are from Fish & Richardson's own biography page and his signature blocks in other public filings and PTAB papers. Two limits should be flagged: (1) I could not obtain the full text of ECF No. 12 (the answer/counterclaim), so the specific counterclaim counts Clear Street pleaded — presumably declaratory judgment of non-infringement and/or invalidity — are not verified; and (2) because the dismissal was by stipulation, no appearance, withdrawal, or substitution order post-dating 11/24/2025 exists, so Zoppo's representation should be described as terminating with the case, not as formally withdrawn on the record.