Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. D-Link

I'll research this case and the parties before drafting the overview.

I have the core case identified. Let me drill into the complaint specifics, the patent, and any PTAB activity.

Let me pin down the patent's technical content and ownership chain.

Case Overview & Background

Parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. D-Link Corporation, No. 6:20-cv-01202 (W.D. Tex., filed Dec. 31, 2020), pitted a high-volume Canadian non-practicing entity against a Taiwanese networking-hardware manufacturer. Cedar Lane is a Toronto-based company incorporated in 2019 that does not make or sell products; it acquired a portfolio of patents — press and defense-bar reporting indicates the portfolio originated largely with Intellectual Ventures entities — and has sued hundreds of defendants, frequently through Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who appeared for Cedar Lane here (Dkt. 2). Seyfarth Shaw's "NPE Showcase" profiles Cedar Lane as "one of the more prolific NPEs in the patent enforcement market," noting 16 cases filed in a single week of September 2022, all in W.D. Tex. (Seyfarth/Mondaq; Open Legal Blog Archive). D-Link Corporation is the Taipei-based parent of the D-Link brand of routers, IP cameras, switches, and network storage; its U.S. sales subsidiary is D-Link Systems, Inc. of Fountain Valley, California. Notably, Cedar Lane named the Taiwanese parent rather than the U.S. operating subsidiary — a choice that in D-Link's parallel FTC litigation became a personal-jurisdiction battleground, with D-Link Corp. declaring it "does not sell any products to the United States" and has not shipped goods into the U.S. since 2008 (D-Link Corp. declar. ¶¶ 3–14). No Rule 12 motion was ever filed here, so that issue was never tested.

Patents and accused technology. The case metadata flags U.S. Patent No. 8,165,867 ("Methods for translating a device command"), issued April 24, 2012 from a Sept. 15, 2000 PCT national-phase filing (PCT/US2000/025613, published as WO 2002/023389). Claim 1 recites a method in which a first device (preferably a cell phone) captures visual or auditory information containing a human-understandable device command directed at a second device, transmits it to a "distal computer system," which acts as a "remote human-to-device command translation service provider" to convert the command into a formatted, machine-executable command, which is sent to the second device for execution while the two devices are local to each other (RPX claim text; Google Patents). In practice Cedar Lane charted app-mediated remote control of connected consumer devices against this disclosure. Importantly, the '867 was not the only patent pled: third-party litigation databases record that the complaint asserted six patents — U.S. RE44,087, 6,473,527, 6,924,832, 6,972,790, 8,165,867, and 8,537,242 (see the Korea IP Protection Agency's case entry for 6:20-cv-01202, KOTRA), consistent with the twelve exhibits attached to Dkt. 1. I could not verify the specific accused D-Link model numbers — the complaint's claim charts are not publicly indexed in the sources I could reach, and no answer or infringement contentions were ever served.

Procedural posture, venue, and significance. Filed in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas and assigned to Judge Alan D. Albright — then the nation's busiest patent judge and the reason Cedar Lane and dozens of other plaintiffs filed in W.D. Tex. — the case moved slowly on service (D-Link served May 7, 2021, Dkt. 12; waiver returned May 24, Dkt. 13), and D-Link obtained an agreed extension to answer to September 22, 2021 (Dkt. 15). Before any responsive pleading, the parties filed a joint motion to dismiss on August 26, 2021 (Dkt. 16), and Judge Albright entered an order of voluntary dismissal with prejudice on October 1, 2021 (Dkt. 17), with the AO-120 report sent to the PTO the same day (Dkt. 18) (Patexia docket). The dismissal terms were not public; the "with prejudice" label and joint motion are consistent with a settlement or license, but no settlement document, royalty figure, or license was disclosed in any source I found. The case's significance is threefold. First, it is a textbook illustration of the 2020–2021 W.D. Tex. NPE-filing surge and of the campaign economics Seyfarth describes — cases that never reach an answer, Markman, or trial, and instead generate volume settlements. Second, it is a data point in the defensive-response ecosystem: Unified Patents opened a PATROLL crowdsourcing contest on January 20, 2021 seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of the '867, with a $3,000 prize, expiring March 1, 2021 and awarded to Vibhor Dimri on April 20, 2021 (Unified Patents; PATROLL listing). Third, the IPR linkage is indirect but real: I found no instituted IPR on the '867 itself, but Unified Patents' IPR2020-00006 against a different Cedar Lane patent (U.S. 7,173,177) was instituted March 18, 2020 and produced a February 12, 2021 final written decision cancelling a substantial set of challenged claims — a timing that coincides with the quick collapse of several Cedar Lane district-court cases, including this one (Patexia IPR docket). One further market-context point, flagged as unverified: the '867's September 15, 2000 filing date means its base 20-year term would have run in September 2020 absent patent term adjustment (Google Patents displays the patent as "Expired – Lifetime"), which if correct would have sharply compressed the pre-suit damages window and weakened Cedar Lane's leverage — but I could not confirm the PTA figure or expiration date from a primary source.

Sourcing caveats. The case number, filing date, judge, division, and dismissal are corroborated by docket-derived databases (UniCourt, Patexia) and match the metadata. The six-patent assertion set comes from a single secondary database (KOTRA) and should be confirmed against Dkt. 1 before being treated as settled. The accused products, the settlement terms, and the '867's expiration/PTA status are not well sourced and are stated as open questions rather than findings.

I'll research this case across multiple sources.

Found the core case. Let me verify the docket details and check for related/parallel proceedings.

Now let me get the complaint document and check for parallel PTAB proceedings.

Bottom line

The metadata in the case summary is now confirmed and corrected: this is Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. D-Link Corporation, No. 6:20-cv-01202 (W.D. Tex.), filed 2020-12-31 before Judge Alan D. Albright (Waco Division), and it closed on 2021-10-01 by voluntary dismissal with prejudice on a joint motion — i.e., a negotiated resolution reached before D-Link ever answered. The '867 patent was one of six patents asserted, not the sole patent. There was no Markman, no discovery, no summary judgment practice, no trial, and no appeal.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

Patents asserted. The complaint asserted six patents, per the Korean IP Protection Agency's (KOTRA/WIPG) docket-level record of the case and cross-referenced secondary reporting: US RE44,087; US 6,473,527; US 6,924,832; US 6,972,790; US 8,165,867; and US 8,537,242. The '867 patent — "Methods for translating a device command," issued 2012-04-24, application filed 2000-09-15 — was one count among several. I was unable to pull the Dkt. 1 PDF itself, so the exact count-by-count structure and the accused D-Link product lines (routers, cameras, NAS, media players) are not verified from the primary document.

No answer and no counterclaims. This is the single most important procedural fact: D-Link Corporation never filed an answer, never filed counterclaims for declaratory judgment of invalidity/non-infringement, and never moved to dismiss, transfer, or stay. The docket goes from service directly to dismissal.

Service complications. The docket shows a protracted and unusual service sequence consistent with serving a Taiwanese parent corporation rather than its U.S. subsidiary, D-Link Systems, Inc.:

• 2021-02-02 — Dkt. 8: service documents sent by FedEx from the clerk's office (suggesting foreign service under Rule 4(f)/Hague Convention).
• 2021-04-28 — Dkt. 10/11: new summons requested and issued (the first attempt apparently lapsed).
• 2021-05-17 — Dkt. 12: summons returned executed, D-Link "served on 5/7/2021," answer due 2021-05-28.
• 2021-05-25 — Dkt. 13: Waiver of Service returned executed; waiver sent 2021-05-24, answer due 2021-08-23.
• 2021-08-23 — Dkt. 15: agreed extension; answer reset to 2021-09-22.

Net effect: roughly eight months of the case's ten-month life was consumed by service and extensions. Naming the foreign parent (rather than D-Link Systems, Inc.) was a tactical choice that cost Cedar Lane the schedule.

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2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None. On the docket:

• No Rule 12(b) motion to dismiss.
• No § 1404(a) or § 1406(a) motion to transfer (notable, given the TC Heartland/In re Samsung-era pressure on W.D. Tex. filings and the fact that D-Link is a Taiwan corporation with no Texas headquarters — a transfer motion would have been a plausible and possibly strong defense play, particularly since Cedar Lane's own related cases against D-Link-adjacent defendants were being filed in D. Del., C.D. Cal., and elsewhere).
• No motion to stay pending IPR (there was no IPR to wait for — see § 5).
• No summary judgment motion; the case closed before the scheduling order issued.

The only case-management orders entered were Judge Albright's boilerplate standing orders: Dkt. 9 (2021-02-12, sealing/redaction procedures in patent cases) and Dkt. 14 (2021-06-16, standing order regarding scheduling orders). No scheduling order, no Docket Control Order, no Discovery Order issued.

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3. Claim construction

Did not occur. No exchange of preliminary or final infringement contentions, no Joint Claim Construction Statement, no Markman briefing, no Markman hearing, no claim construction order. Because the case never produced a single substantive ruling, there is no W.D. Tex. or Federal Circuit authority construing the '867 patent's claims arising from this action.

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4. Discovery milestones

None of significance. No Rule 26(f) conference is reflected, no discovery order, no contention interrogatories, no depositions, no third-party subpoenas. Because discovery never began, Cedar Lane never obtained D-Link's source code, chipset procurement data, or sales figures — which is likely precisely why a cheap early resolution was available to D-Link.

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5. Parallel PTAB proceedings and other validity challenges

District court: Nothing.

PTAB: I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition against US 8,165,867 in the record searched. I want to be explicit that this is a negative finding based on incomplete search coverage — I was cut off before completing a full PTAB docket sweep (Patent Trial and Appeal Board Endpoint / Unified Patents portal), so it should be verified before being relied on. My working conclusion: no IPR was filed against the '867 patent, and certainly none was instituted in time to affect this case.

What did exist was a crowdsourced prior-art challenge, not an AIA trial. On 2021-01-20, Unified Patents opened a PATROLL contest offering $3,000 for prior art on at least claim 1 of US 8,165,867, characterizing the patent as owned by an NPE, directed to "wirelessly controlling an electronic device with another electronic device in real time," and — critically — listing the assertion campaign: D-Link, Disney, Dish Network, Comcast, LG, and iHeart Media in W.D. Tex.; ViacomCBS in N.D. Ill.; TCL Communication in D. Del.; and Sirius XM in S.D.N.Y. The contest closed 2021-03-01, and Unified announced the winner (Vibhor Dimri, $3,000) on 2021-04-20, with APEX Standards contributing prior-art and claim-charting submissions.

This timing matters doctrinally: the PATROLL campaign ran concurrently with D-Link's answer deadline window. A crowdsourced prior-art hit is exactly the input a defendant uses to decide whether to (a) file an IPR, (b) hold out for a cheap settlement, or (c) litigate. D-Link chose the cheap settlement route. The prior art generated by that contest remained available for other defendants in the campaign (Dish, Comcast, LG, etc.).

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6. Settlement and final disposition

There was no consent judgment, no injunction, no damages award, and no judicial ruling on validity or infringement of the '867 patent. Cedar Lane dismissed with prejudice, which under settled law is an adjudication on the merits as to D-Link and, combined with the joint motion, is the standard signature of a paid-up license or covenant not to sue. Consistent with Cedar Lane's documented practice in parallel cases, the deal was almost certainly a small lump-sum license — the closest documented comparable in the record is Cedar Lane v. Zhuhai RaySharp (W.D. Tex.), where the settlement was $10,000 plus a perpetual worldwide license to the defendant and affiliates (publicly disclosed because RaySharp/Reolink was in an IPO diligence posture). The D-Link settlement amount and terms are not public and I have no source for them; do not treat any figure as verified.

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7. Present posture

Closed and final. No appeal was taken (Cedar Lane, as the dismissing plaintiff, could not appeal a dismissal it sought; D-Link had no adverse judgment to appeal). The case has been terminated since 2021-10-01. Cedar Lane Technologies itself remains an active serial filer through at least 2026 (e.g., Cedar Lane v. David Lerner Associates, E.D.N.Y. No. 1:26-cv-00183, dismissed on settlement 2026-03-31), but it has not reasserted against D-Link.

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8. Analytical points worth carrying forward

a) The '867 patent was likely expired or near-expired at filing. Application filed 2000-09-15 means a 20-year term ending 2020-09-15 absent patent term adjustment — i.e., roughly 3.5 months before Cedar Lane filed suit on 2020-12-31. Subject to PTA on the face of the patent (which I have not verified), the '867 was a back-damages-only asset: no forward injunction possible, damages capped by the six-year lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286, so a recovery window of roughly 2014–2020, and D-Link's exposure would have been further limited by marking/notice under § 287 and the absence of pre-suit knowledge. This is a strong explanation for why the case priced cheaply on both sides and why Cedar Lane named the foreign parent and then accepted a quick exit.

b) The real leverage was never judicial — it was the campaign. The '867 was asserted against roughly ten defendants across four districts. The economic engine was the aggregate of small settlements, with the D-Link case functioning as one node in a portfolio campaign rather than a genuinely contested piece of litigation. This case is a clean illustration of the "file broadly, settle cheaply, never litigate to a merits ruling" NPE model.

c) Why D-Link's defense worked without any motion. By (i) forcing Cedar Lane to chase service on a Taiwanese entity for five months, (ii) obtaining two answer extensions to 2021-09-22, and (iii) never answering or counterclaiming, D-Link kept its litigation costs near zero and preserved every defense. It bought its way out before paying for a single deposition, a transfer motion, or an IPR. Notably, it also avoided creating any adverse claim-construction record on the '867 that other defendants could have used — and avoided a Federal Circuit appeal that could have invalidated the patent outright.

d) The case never generated citable precedent. For research purposes: there is no opinion, order, or transcript from No. 6:20-cv-01202 that construes the '867 patent or reaches the merits. The only substantive public artifacts are Dkt. 16 (joint dismissal motion) and Dkt. 17 (dismissal order). Anyone citing this case for a legal proposition is

I'll research the counsel of record for Cedar Lane Technologies in this W.D. Tex. case against D-Link.

I have the core docket. Let me verify additional appearances and Rabicoff's firm details.

Bottom line

Only one attorney has appeared for Cedar Lane in this case: Isaac Philip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago). He signed the complaint, filed the Rule 7.1 disclosure, handled service, and filed the joint dismissal. No local Texas counsel, no co-counsel, no in-house counsel, and no pro hac vice sponsor appear on the docket.

Note also that this corrects the "unconfirmed" metadata in the existing case summary: the case is Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. D-Link Corporation, No. 6:20-cv-01202 (W.D. Tex.), filed 12/31/2020 before Judge Alan D. Albright, and dismissed with prejudice on 10/1/2021 (Doc. 17). The complaint asserted six patents — U.S. Patent Nos. RE44,087; 6,473,527; 6,924,832; 6,972,790; 8,165,867; and 8,537,242 — so the '867 was one of several patents-in-suit, not the sole one.

Counsel of record for Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

No other attorney — lead, of counsel, local, or in-house — appears on this docket.

Supporting docket evidence

• Doc. 1 — Complaint for Patent Infringement, filed 12/31/2020 by Rabicoff (fee receipt 0542-14331173), with Exhibits 1–12. Entry reads "filed by Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.. (Rabicoff, Isaac)." (Patexia docket; UniCourt)
• Doc. 2 — "NOTICE of Attorney Appearance by Isaac Rabicoff on behalf of Cedar Lane Technologies Inc." (12/31/2020). This is the only appearance filed on the plaintiff's side.
• Doc. 3 — Rule 7.1 Disclosure Statement (Rabicoff).
• Docs. 4, 10 — Requests for issuance of summons (Rabicoff); Doc. 12 summons returned executed (served 5/7/2021); Doc. 13 waiver of service returned (Rabicoff).
• Docs. 15, 16 — Notice of agreed extension (8/23/2021) and Joint Motion to Dismiss (8/26/2021), both signed "(Rabicoff, Isaac)."
• Doc. 17 — "ORDER GRANTING 16 PLAINTIFF'S NOTICE OF VOLUNTARY DISMISSAL WITH PREJUDICE. Signed by Judge Alan D Albright" (10/1/2021); Doc. 18 — AO 120 report to the PTO.

What is not on the record (stated explicitly)

1. No local counsel and no pro hac vice motion. The docket contains no appearance by any Texas attorney and no PHV application for Rabicoff, who is not shown as admitted to the W.D. Tex. bar in his published admissions list. Because the case was resolved by agreed extensions and dismissal before any answer, scheduling order, or hearing, the local-counsel/PHV issue apparently never had to be cured. I could not retrieve Doc. 1's signature block directly (only docket text), so I cannot rule out a second signatory on the complaint — but no such attorney ever entered an appearance.
2. No in-house counsel. Cedar Lane (a Canadian NPE, principal place of business in Nelson, B.C.) is a patent-assertion entity with no in-house litigation counsel of record in this or its related suits.
3. No sealed appearances. Cedar Lane's filings in this case were not sealed; the only sealing-related entries are Judge Albright's general standing orders (Docs. 9 and 14).
4. Defendant-side note (context only): D-Link never filed an answer, motion, or notice of appearance in this action — it waived service (Doc. 13) and the case was dismissed with prejudice roughly four months later. That is consistent with a settlement, but the docket does not state a settlement, so I would not assert one.

Sourcing caveats

The counsel identification rests on docket-aggregator records (Patexia, UniCourt) that reproduce W.D. Tex. CM/ECF text verbatim, plus Rabicoff Law's own site and PTAB cover pages listing his registration number and addresses. I was unable to pull the underlying PACER PDFs or a CourtListener RECAP page for No. 6:20-cv-01202 within this session, and I found no Law360/Reuters coverage of this specific case naming counsel. Firm address has shifted over time (73 W. Monroe St. in 2018 filings; 4311 N. Ravenswood Ave. now), so the current Chicago address above is the one to use.

If you want this nailed to the PDF level, the two documents to pull from PACER are Doc. 1 (complaint signature block) and Doc. 2 (notice of appearance); together they definitively establish the complete plaintiff-side roster.

I'll research this docket and counsel. Let me start with several searches.