Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Comcast (Cable/Corp.)

I'll research this case across multiple sources before drafting.

Case Overview

Correction to the prior summary: the case is confirmed. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Comcast Cable Communications LLC, No. 1:20-cv-00501 (W.D. Tex., Austin Division), filed May 11, 2020, assigned to Judge Robert Pitman, and closed October 13, 2020 after Cedar Lane filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (Doc. 12, Oct. 5, 2020) and the court entered an order closing the case (Doc. 13) and sent the patent report to the USPTO (Doc. 14). Total pendency: 156 days (RPX Insight; Patexia docket; Justia docket).

Parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian-registered non-practicing entity (Nelson, British Columbia), formed around 2019 by Greg Benoit, a lawyer with a long NPE-litigation background. It does not make or sell products; it acquires patent portfolios — here, assets that traveled from Intellectual Ventures → AVInnov LLC → Cedar Lane (assignment recorded Oct. 17, 2019) — and litigates them, principally through Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago), who appeared in this case (Doc. 4) and is also listed as correspondent on the chain-of-title filings (USPTO assignment records; Shenzhen IP Protection Center risk warning). By 2021 Cedar Lane had reportedly become the single most prolific patent plaintiff in the U.S. by case count, with 300+ district court suits. Comcast Cable Communications LLC is the operating cable/broadband subsidiary of Comcast Corporation — the largest U.S. cable operator and a major ISP and content distributor. Comcast was represented in this matter by Deron Dacus, who filed three agreed extensions of time to respond (Docs. 8, 10, 11); no answer, motion to dismiss, or transfer motion ever reached the docket before dismissal.

Accused technology and patents. The complaint pleaded seven patents in seven counts (with 14 exhibits, many of them claim charts): US 6,502,194; 6,526,411; 6,721,489; 6,978,475; 7,086,079; 7,173,177; and 8,165,867 (RPX/KOTRA case record). RPX tallies 8 accused products; the complaint's substantive theory is standard Cedar Lane boilerplate against the defendant's consumer hardware/services, and the natural fit for the '867 claim is Comcast's voice-controlled Xfinity X1 platform / XR-series voice remote and Xfinity Stream app — however, that specific product identification is my inference from claim 1, not something I could confirm from the complaint text. On the two patents I can source technically: the '867 ("Methods for translating a device command"; filed Sept. 15, 2000 as PCT/US2000/025613, national stage 10/466,202; issued Apr. 24, 2012; inventor Robert D. Fish) claims a method in which a first device captures visual or auditory input containing a human-understandable command, ships it to a distal computer that translates it into a formatted, device-executable command in real time, and the second device executes the returned command while local to the first (Google Patents; RPX patent page). The **'177

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and parallel PTAB proceedings.

Key docket confirmed. Now let me dig into the PTAB proceedings on the '867 patent and check for any later Comcast suits.

Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Comcast Cable Commc'ns LLC — Development Chronology

Threshold correction to the existing summary

The previously generated summary flagged the case number, filing date, and disposition as unconfirmed. Those are now confirmed:

The framing in the prior summary ("involving US 8,165,867") understates the scope: the '867 patent was one of seven patents in a single complaint. It was never singled out for separate treatment, and none of the seven was ever adjudicated.

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Chronological developments

1. Filing and initial pleadings

2020-05-11 — Complaint filed (D.E. 1). Cedar Lane, represented by Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC), filed a seven-count patent infringement complaint with a jury demand, plus a Rule 7.1 disclosure statement (D.E. 2), notice of appearance (D.E. 4), and summons request (D.E. 3). The complaint carried Exhibits 1–15, with Exhibit 8 being the infringement claim charts. Count 7 asserted the '867 patent ("Methods for translating a device command," issued 2012-04-24 from an application filed 2000-09-15). The pleading template is Cedar Lane's standard form: direct infringement plus induced and contributory theories, alleging that service of the complaint itself created the requisite knowledge.

2020-05-12 — Formal service documents (D.E. 5–6). The clerk transmitted the statutory "Report on Patent" to the USPTO and issued summons to Comcast.

2020-06-23 — COVID-19 administrative order (D.E. 7). Court-wide Second Amended Emergency Order; not case-specific but relevant to the extension pattern below.

2020-07-17 — Comcast appears (D.E. 8–9). Deron R. Dacus filed a notice of appearance for Comcast and simultaneously an agreed motion for extension of time to answer, pushing the response date to 2020-09-07.

Answer and counterclaims: none. This is the single most important structural fact about the case. Comcast never filed an answer, never asserted counterclaims (no declaratory judgment of invalidity or non-infringement), and never filed a Rule 12 motion. The docket contains no responsive pleading of any kind.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None were filed by either side. Specifically:

• No motion to dismiss (Rule 12(b)(6) or otherwise).
• No motion to transfer venue — notable, because Comcast is a Pennsylvania/New Jersey entity and this was a 2020 W.D. Tex. NPE suit; the absence of a transfer motion is consistent with a case that never matured past the pleading stage, and contrasts with the § 1404(a) fights that dominated W.D. Tex. patent dockets in 2020–2021.
• No motion to stay pending IPR — necessarily, because no IPR on the '867 patent existed to stay for (see § 7).
• No summary judgment motion.
• No motion for attorneys' fees under § 285.

The only contested-adjacent filings were three successive agreed extensions of Comcast's answer deadline: D.E. 9 (to 2020-09-07), D.E. 10 (to 2020-09-21, granted 2020-09-08), and D.E. 11 (to 2020-10-05, granted 2020-09-21). All were unopposed text orders by Judge Pitman. This serial-extension pattern — three agreed postponements of the first responsive pleading, followed by a plaintiff's dismissal — is the signature of parallel settlement/license negotiations rather than merits litigation. (The docket does not disclose whether a license was in fact executed; the dismissal notice is silent on consideration.)

3. Claim construction (Markman)

The case never reached claim construction. No scheduling order, no Joint Claim Construction Statement, no Markman briefing, no Markman hearing, and no claim construction order appear on the docket. Consequently, no court has ever construed a claim of the '867 patent in this case, and no W.D. Tex. construction of the '867 patent exists to cite from this litigation.

4. Discovery milestones

No discovery of consequence occurred. There was no Rule 26(f) conference on the docket, no scheduling order, no protective order, no infringement or invalidity contentions served under a local patent rule, and no deposition or document-production disputes. The only "discovery-like" disclosure was the Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure statement (D.E. 2). Cedar Lane's infringement theories rested entirely on the complaint's Exhibit 8 charts — self-executing contentions that were never tested.

5. Trial, verdict, and post-trial motions

No trial, no verdict, no JMOL, no new-trial motion, no fee motion, no appeal. The case terminated roughly five months after filing, before the pleading stage closed.

6. Final disposition

2020-10-05 — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (D.E. 12). Cedar Lane filed an unopposed notice of voluntary dismissal with a proposed order, filed by Rabicoff.

2020-10-13 — Order closing case (D.E. 13–14). Judge Pitman entered an order "re 12 NOTICE of Voluntary Dismissal. ORDER CLOSING CASE," and the clerk sent the patent report to the USPTO. RPX records the case as closed 2020-10-13 after 156 days in litigation.

Caveat on prejudice: the docket text (D.E. 12–13) as reproduced in the secondary sources does not specify whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice. Cedar Lane's later Delaware dismissals were a mix — e.g., with prejudice as to Neato Robotics (D. Del. 1:21-cv-00405, D.E. 8–9, 2021-05-12) but without stated prejudice as to Cox, Altice, Philips, and FirsTech. For the Comcast case the record I can source is silent, so I would treat "without prejudice" as the likely but unverified reading, to be confirmed against the PACER image of D.E. 12.

No appeal. There was nothing appealable: no judgment on the merits, no claim construction, no fee award.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings on the '867 patent

This is where the case is most interesting, because the answer is largely negative:

• No IPR or PGR was ever filed against US 8,165,867 in connection with this case. No FWD, no institution decision, no IPR-based stay, and therefore no § 315(e) estoppel attaching to Comcast.
• Unified Patents ran a PATROLL crowdsourcing contest on the '867 patent instead. The contest opened 2021-01-20 and closed 2021-03-01, seeking prior art on at least claim 1, with a $3,000 prize. The winner, Vibhor Dimri, was announced on 2021-04-20. Unified's own description confirms the '867 patent had been asserted against D-Link, Disney, DISH Network, Comcast, LG, iHeart Media, ViacomCBS, TCL Communication, and SiriusXM. ([Unified Patents contest page](https://pat

Bottom line

For this W.D. Tex. matter, exactly one attorney appeared for Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. on the docket: Isaac Phillip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago, IL). No local counsel, no co-counsel, and no in-house counsel for Cedar Lane appear in the record I could retrieve. Cedar Lane is a Canadian NPE with no in-house legal staff reflected in any filing — its "authorized person," Greg Benoit (Pigott & Co./Patent Armory), is a corporate director, not an attorney of record, and should not be listed as counsel.

Case identification caveat (read first)

The metadata you supplied matches Cedar Lane Techs., Inc. v. Comcast Cable Commc'ns LLC, No. 1:20-cv-00501 (W.D. Tex., Austin Div.), filed May 11, 2020 before Judge Robert Pitman and closed October 13, 2020 on Cedar Lane's own notice of voluntary dismissal. (RPX Insight; Justia docket). One discrepancy to flag: that complaint asserted seven patents — the '194, '411, '489, '177, '079, '177 and '867 — not the '867 alone. (KOTRA case abstract) I found no separate W.D. Tex. Comcast suit pleading only the '867; if your metadata derives from a Unified Patents "patent → case" tag, this is that case. If a later Comcast '867-only suit exists, it was not surfaced in any searchable docket source, and I would not assert counsel for it.

Counsel of record — plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

That is the complete list. Nothing in the docket suggests a second plaintiff-side appearance.

What is not in the record — say so plainly

• No local counsel. W.D. Tex. practice in this era commonly paired an out-of-state filer with an Austin/Waco local firm; here no local counsel ever entered an appearance in the retrieved docket, and Rabicoff's own signature blocks were marked "Pro Hac Vice admission to be filed."
• No pro hac vice motion appears on the retrieved docket. The docket as reproduced by Justia/Patexia shows only Docs. 1–4 and 6–14, with Docs. 6–11 being Comcast's agreed extensions of time to answer (filed by Deron Dacus of Germer Beaman & Brown, Austin — defense counsel, listed only for completeness). Cedar Lane dismissed the case on Oct. 5, 2020, before any appearance issue was raised. Whether a PHV application was ever docketed is something I could not verify from free sources; treat it as unconfirmed rather than as a finding.
• No sealed-material issue. Nothing suggests counsel was hidden by sealing; the docket is simply thin because the case lasted 156 days and died at the pleading stage.
• No in-house counsel. Cedar Lane has no disclosed legal department; its corporate filings identify Benoit as director, and its address corresponds to Pigott & Co., an IP licensing firm.

Practical takeaway for the litigation narrative

The plaintiff-side representation in this case is a single-attorney, volume-filer operation — a relevant fact if you are characterizing Cedar Lane's litigation posture. The case never reached an answer, Markman, or IPR; Cedar Lane voluntarily dismissed (Dkt. 12) and Judge Pitman closed the case (Dkt. 13), with the PTO notified at Dkt. 14. On the parallel PTAB side, Unified Patents ran a PATROLL prior-art contest on claim 1 of the '867 in early 2021 (contest page), but I found no instituted IPR against the '867 arising from this Comcast matter.

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

Found the likely case (1:20-cv-00501). Now let me verify counsel details.

Let me check the full docket on CourtListener and whether any additional Comcast counsel or a later Cedar Lane–Comcast suit exists.

Bottom line

I located the case and its docket. The only attorney who entered an appearance for the Comcast defendant is Deron R. Dacus of The Dacus Firm, P.C. (Tyler, Texas) — a sole appearance (Dkt. 8), with no co-counsel, no Philadelphia-based Comcast outside counsel, and no in-house counsel recorded before the case was voluntarily dismissed five months after filing. Details and sourcing caveats below.

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Case identification (corrects the standing summary)

Note on the prior summary: the case is confirmed, but the '867 patent was one of seven patents in the complaint — not the sole patent-in-suit. Unified Patents' PATROLL listings naming Comcast as an '867 target are consistent with this action and with the 2021 Cedar Lane campaigns.

Counsel of record for defendant Comcast Cable Communications LLC

Deron R. Dacus — lead counsel and sole counsel of record

• Firm: The Dacus Firm, P.C., 821 ESE Loop 323, Suite 430, Tyler, TX 75701 (903-705-1117)
• Appearance: Notice of Attorney Appearance, Dkt. 8 (July 17, 2020) — "Attorney Deron R Dacus added to party Comcast Cable Communications LLC(pty:dft)." He then filed all three agreed extensions of Comcast's response deadline (Dkt. 9, July 17, 2020; Dkt. 10, Sept. 7, 2020; Dkt. 11, Sept. 21, 2020), each granted by text order.
• Experience note: Dacus is Comcast's long-standing Texas patent defense counsel — e.g., C-Cation Technologies v. Comcast (E.D. Tex. 2:11-cv-00030, Comcast's Patent L.R. 4-2 compliance notice, 2013) and CommWorks Solutions v. Comcast (W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00366, notice of appearance, May 3, 2021). As plaintiff-side lead he obtained the $23.6M Marshall verdict in Mobile Telecommunications Technologies v. Apple (2014) and an $18.8M verdict in EON Corp. IP Holdings v. Silver Spring Networks (E.D. Tex. 2014), and was lead trial counsel in Genband's $8.2M verdict; his firm also reports a $39M verdict in the Lowrance matter. Board Certified in Civil Trial Law (Texas Board of Legal Specialization); Super Lawyers 2009–2011, 2019–2026.

No other defense counsel identified. The docket I can reconstruct (through Dkt. 14) shows no second notice of appearance, no pro hac vice application, no Delaware/Pennsylvania Comcast litigation counsel, and no in-house attorney entry. This is consistent with the procedural posture: Comcast never answered or moved to dismiss — the case was dismissed on Cedar Lane's notice before the (thrice-extended) October 5, 2020 response deadline.

Sourcing caveats — please read before relying on this

1. PACER not directly accessed. The docket above is reconstructed from Justia (which captured only the May 11, 2020 filing-stage entries), Patexia's document list, RPX Insight, and CourtListener-adjacent documents. Justia's own page warns a "more recent docket listing may be available from PACER." Confirm Dkt. 8 and the absence of additional appearances against the PACER docket for 1:20-cv-00501 before filing anything.
2. Appearance documents themselves are not public free of charge. I confirmed Dkt. 8's existence and signatory from docket metadata, but did not read the appearance PDF; the firm/address/bar details are corroborated from Dacus's filings in other Comcast matters (C-Cation; CommWorks 6:21-cv-00366, Dkt. 9, which lists the same Tyler address and email).
3. Nothing here is sealed — no sealing order appears; the limitation is simply that the docket snapshot I could reach ends at Dkt. 14 (Oct. 13, 2020).
4. No in-house Comcast counsel is documented. I found no record of a Comcast legal-department attorney entering an appearance; I am not inferring one exists.
5. Potential-name trap: Comcast's later Texas patent cases (e.g., Touchstream Technologies v. Comcast, E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-0059/60) feature entirely different defense teams (Fish & Richardson's Ashok Ramani, David Lisson, et al.). Those attorneys have no connection to this 2020 Cedar Lane action and should not be listed for it.