Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. David Lerner Associates, Inc.

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

Key conflict surfacing: the metadata says '790, but docket-derived records indicate '782 was asserted. Let me verify both patents and the campaign.

Now let me pin down the actual complaint/patent, the defendant's business, and the '790 patent's actual scope.

Case Overview — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. David Lerner Associates, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00183 (E.D.N.Y.)

Parties and posture. Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian entity with a stated principal place of business in Nelson, British Columbia — the address recited in its complaints in this campaign (e.g., Cedar Lane v. Cobra Trading, No. 2:25-cv-00230 (E.D. Tex.), Compl. ¶ 2). Stanford's NPE Litigation Database classifies Cedar Lane as a non-practicing entity whose assertions rest entirely on "acquired patents," with roughly fifty suits listed. Its best-known earlier campaign involved U.S. Patent 7,173,177, which Unified Patents challenged at the PTAB; the Board issued a final written decision on February 12, 2021 holding the asserted independent claim unpatentable (Unified Patents). Defendant David Lerner Associates, Inc. is a privately held securities broker-dealer headquartered in Syosset, New York, founded in 1976 by David Lerner, with roughly $4 billion in client assets, ~185 employees, and branch offices in White Plains, Boca Raton, Lawrenceville, and Westport. It is a retail-facing firm known for proprietary products (the Apple REITs, the Spirit of America funds, Energy 11/Energy Resources 12) rather than an electronic market-maker; its regulatory history includes a $14 million FINRA settlement in 2012 and a 2013 dismissal of an investor class action by Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in the E.D.N.Y. Procedurally, the case was filed January 13, 2026, assigned to Judge Ann M. Donnelly with Magistrate Judge Marcia M. Henry on referral; Cedar Lane served process on February 5, 2026; Thompson Hine's Brian P. Lanciault appeared for David Lerner on February 19, 2026 and obtained an extension to March 30, 2026. The parties filed a notice of settlement on March 30, 2026, and Judge Donnelly entered an order on March 31, 2026 dismissing the action "with leave to reopen within sixty days if the settlement is not finalized." No answer, motion to dismiss, or claim construction ever issued, and no dismissal-with-prejudice stipulation appears in the docket snapshots available (Justia docket; PACER Monitor). Note the discrepancy with the case metadata: although the prompt lists U.S. Patent 6,972,790 and flags the assertion as unconfirmed, litigation-database records attribute this docket to U.S. Patent 8,577,782 ("Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants") (Patsnap case record). I could not open the complaint itself in this session; the attribution rests on secondary docket-derived records plus the strong contextual fit discussed below, so the patent identification should be treated as probable rather than verified.

Asserted patent and accused technology. The '782 patent issued November 5, 2013 from an application filed April 8, 2010, is classified in G06Q 40/00, and expires around April 8, 2030 (Patsnap patent data). In one line: it claims a method of "semi-anonymous" electronic trading in which a trading entity is tied to a persistent but non-identifying identifier, a liquidity provider acquires that entity's trade history and generates a profile (e.g., whether the entity's past trades would have been profitable — the "toxic trader" screen), and a conditional offer is then routed only to that entity through an exchange. Cedar Lane's complaints in the parallel suits assert "one or more claims," identify no accused product by name in the body, and defer all infringement contentions to claim-chart exhibits — a pattern that makes the accused instrumentality opaque on the face of the pleadings (see complaint analyses of Cedar Lane v. Charles Schwab, No. 2:25-cv-00233, and Cedar Lane v. Bank of America, No. 2:25-cv-01225). Functionally, the theory would reach electronic order-handling/RFQ or alternative-trading-system features that price or target counterparties based on trading history; whether David Lerner — a branch-based retail broker-dealer selling REITs and mutual funds — operates any such system is precisely the kind of threshold dispute that never got litigated here. The alternative reading in the metadata ('790) does not fit: the '790 patent belongs to Cedar Lane's separate and much larger camera/video-capture campaign, where it has been asserted in roughly 52 cases against security-camera, imaging, and consumer-electronics defendants (Leica Camera, Lorex, Johnson Controls, Speco, ZKTeco, Skydio, among others), with no broker-dealer defendants listed (Patsnap '790 litigation index). I was unable to verify the '790 title or abstract text in this session, so I will not characterize its claims beyond that litigation record.

Why it matters. This case is one data point in a distinct Cedar Lane campaign — a pivot from its well-worn video/imaging portfolio to a single financial-technology patent asserted against broker-dealers. The wave began in February 2025 against trading-centric firms (Cobra Trading, Charles Schwab), expanded on September 22–23, 2025 to include Cantor Fitzgerald and Citibank, which Law360 covered under the headline "Cantor Fitzgerald, Citibank Hit With Trading Patent Suits," and then swept through New York and Texas dockets: Safra Securities, Beech Hill, Empire Asset Management, Percheron, Spartan Capital, First Manhattan, Clear Street, Morgan Stanley, Maxim Group, Raymond James, Bank of America, and later Aegis Capital and A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners. The outcomes so far are almost uniformly early exits — voluntary dismissals without prejudice at Cantor Fitzgerald (10 days) and Safra (80 days), a with-prejudice dismissal at Citibank before answer, a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) dismissal with prejudice at Prosperum Securities — consistent with rapid, low-dollar license settlements rather than merits adjudication. David Lerner's case follows that template exactly: roughly eleven weeks from filing to a noticed settlement, with the defendant represented by national counsel (Thompson Hine) and no substantive motion practice. Three features make it notable for monitoring: (1) venue strategy — Cedar Lane has spread identical complaints across S.D.N.Y., E.D.N.Y., E.D. Tex., W.D. Tex., N.D. Ill., and D. Colo.; here it chose Brooklyn, where David Lerner's Syosset headquarters supplies unquestionable venue under § 1400(b), and it drew a judge (Donnelly) not known for patent-specific administration; (2) IPR exposure — no PTAB proceeding on the '782 patent appears in the records I reviewed, and Cedar Lane has no recorded validity challenge to that patent, meaning a coordinated inter partes review (Unified Patents' preferred tool, which it used successfully against Cedar Lane's '177 patent) remains the obvious defensive lever for the industry group; and (3) the retail-broker mismatch — asserting a market-microstructure patent against small wealth-management firms tests how far claim charts can stretch "liquidity provider" and "exchange" language, and the absence of any answer or invalidity challenge in this docket means that question is being settled commercially, not judicially.

Sourcing caveats. Party names, court, case number, judge assignments, and docket events are drawn from the Justia and PACER Monitor docket records. Counsel identifications (Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC for plaintiff; Brian P. Lanciault of Thompson Hine LLP for defendant) match the docket. The patent-in-suit identification, the settlement characterization, and several parallel-case details rely on Patsnap's litigation summaries (an AI-assisted secondary source) and on complaint text captured by CourtListener and ExParte for companion suits; PACER itself was not directly accessed, and the actual complaint and claim charts in 1:26-cv-00183 were not reviewed. I found no court opinion, Law360 case page, or PTAB record specific to this docket, and no confirmation that the settlement ripened into a dismissal with prejudice before the sixty-day reopening window closed.

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and the asserted patent's litigation history.

Key discrepancy emerging — let me verify the asserted patent and check for PTAB activity.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. David Lerner Associates, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00183 (E.D.N.Y.)

Bottom line

This case never got past the pleadings. Filed 2026-01-13, served 2026-02-05, settled before any answer was filed, and administratively closed on 2026-03-31 — roughly 77 days door to door. There was no answer, no counterclaim, no motion practice of any kind, no Markman, no discovery, no trial, no judgment, no appeal, and no PTAB proceeding on the asserted patent. The litigation is best understood not as a litigated dispute but as one docket entry in Cedar Lane's rolling campaign against small and mid-sized broker-dealers and financial-services firms.

Threshold issue: which patent was actually asserted?

This matters and I want to be explicit about the conflict in the record.

• The case metadata supplied for this engagement lists U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays" — an image-sensor/FIFO interface patent). The prior case summary correctly flagged that the '790 assertion was "not confirmed."
• I could not confirm '790 was asserted here, and the record points elsewhere. Third-party litigation databases record U.S. Patent No. 8,577,782 B2 ("Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants") as the patent at issue in 1:26-cv-00183. See Patsnap litigation record for 1:26-cv-00183 (listing US8577782B2, app. no. 12/756,929, granted 2013-11-05, est. expiry 2030-04-08, classified G06Q40/00).
• That identification is far more plausible on its face. David Lerner Associates is a securities broker-dealer; the '782 is a trading/order-routing business-method patent that Cedar Lane has asserted against at least a dozen financial firms in 2025–2026 (Bank of America, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Maxim Group, Raymond James, TIAA-CREF, Hilltop Securities, Aegis Capital, A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners, First Manhattan, Spartan Capital, Percheron, Empire Asset Management, Beech Hill, Henley & Company, Global Financial Services, Ameritas, and others — see the Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for patent 8577782). The '790, by contrast, expired 2023-08-01 per Patsnap and has been asserted against camera/module/sensor makers (Amazon, onsemi, STMicroelectronics, Ricoh, Motorola Solutions), not broker-dealers.
• Caveat: I could not open the complaint (ECF No. 1) or its Exhibit 1 directly to read the patent number off the face of the pleading, because PACER was not accessible to me. The '782 identification rests on aggregator metadata, not on the primary document. I recommend pulling ECF No. 1 and the AO 120 form at ECF No. 11/17 before relying on either patent number in a filing.

I have written the balance of this memo to describe the procedural history, which is patent-agnostic, and to flag the '790-specific points where they differ.

Chronology

Sources: Justia docket (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/1:2026cv00183/[540713](/patent/540713)); PACER Monitor (https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/62457092/Cedar_Lane_Technologies_Inc_v_David_Lerner_Associates,_Inc); Patsnap case record.

1. Filing and initial pleadings

Cedar Lane filed a single-count § 271 infringement complaint on 2026-01-13 with a jury demand. Per the standard Rabicoff Law template used across the '782 campaign, the complaint would have attached Exhibit 1 (the patent) and Exhibit 2 (a claim chart) — that structure is confirmed in the parallel S.D.N.Y. and N.D. Ill. '782 complaints filed the same year (e.g., Cedar Lane v. Aegis Capital, S.D.N.Y., ECF 1; Cedar Lane v. A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners, S.D.N.Y., ECF 1), but I have not verified the identical attachment structure in this specific docket.

No answer and no counterclaims were ever filed. The response deadline was extended once by stipulation, from the default date to 2026-03-30 (ECF 14, so-ordered 2026-02-23), and the notice of settlement was filed on the day that response was due. This is a materially different posture from Cedar Lane's Texas cases: in Cedar Lane v. Global Financial Services, S.D. Tex. No. 4:25-cv-02271, the defendant (represented by Fish & Richardson) had pleaded counterclaims, and the July 2025 dismissal order disposed of Cedar Lane's claims with prejudice while dismissing the defendant's counterclaims without prejudice — suggesting invalidity counterclaims were live and unresolved. No such counterclaim record exists here.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None. There was:

• No Rule 12(b) motion to dismiss — notably, no § 101 patent-eligibility challenge, which is the obvious defense theory against a G06Q40/00 business-method claim. Cedar Lane's rapid-settlement model appears designed to prevent exactly that challenge from being briefed.
• No motion to transfer venue. Worth flagging as a missed lever from the defense side: David Lerner Associates is a Syosset, New York firm, so E.D.N.Y. was likely a proper and convenient forum and a transfer motion would have been weak.
• **

I'll research this docket and Cedar Lane's counsel. Let me start with several searches in parallel.

Docket shows one plaintiff attorney so far (Isaac Rabicoff). Let me verify the full docket, the pro hac vice motion/local counsel requirement, and Rabicoff's firm details.

Bottom line

The retrieved docket for Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. David Lerner Associates, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00183 (E.D.N.Y., filed Jan. 13, 2026; Judge Ann M. Donnelly; Mag. J. Marcia M. Henry) shows exactly one attorney appearing for the plaintiff: Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago, Illinois), admitted pro hac vice on January 20, 2026. No other plaintiff-side appearance (local counsel, of counsel, or in-house) appears in the public record retrieved. The case is a short-lived file — plaintiff served process on Feb. 5, 2026, defendant appeared through Thompson Hine, the parties noticed settlement on Mar. 30, 2026, and Judge Donnelly dismissed the action Mar. 31, 2026 with leave to reopen within 60 days.

Counsel of record for Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

Isaac P. Rabicoff — lead counsel. A registered patent attorney and the founder of Rabicoff Law LLC, a Chicago boutique whose practice is almost entirely plaintiff-side patent assertion. His firm's own materials describe Rabicoff Law as "among Lex Machina's top 3 law firms in 2017 for most active patent litigation," and he has run licensing/assertion campaigns naming Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Apple, LG, Huawei, Samsung and Google; he also claims defeats of IPR/CBM institution (including a Mastercard CBM), Federal Circuit argument, and a Federal Circuit amicus brief on § 101. He is Cedar Lane's near-permanent litigation counsel — the same name appears for Cedar Lane in its 2025–26 financial-services campaign in S.D.N.Y. (e.g., v. Safra Securities, 1:25-cv-09533; v. TIAA-CREF, 1:25-cv-09538; v. Bank of New York Mellon, 1:25-cv-09488), E.D.N.Y. (v. Henley & Company, 1:25-cv-06328), W.D. Tex., N.D. Ill. (v. LaSalle St. Securities, 1:26-cv-00721), and earlier in the 2020–23 campaigns. He also served as PTAB lead counsel for patent owners such as William Grecia/SportBrain Holdings.

Two experience points are directly material to a counsel-of-record assessment here, and both are documented in court and bar records rather than firm marketing:

• N.D. Cal. sanctions and referral (Cedar Lane's own prior case). In Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Blackmagic Design Inc., No. 3:20-cv-01302-VC, Judge Vince Chhabria sanctioned Rabicoff $1,000 under Rule 11 and referred him to the district's Standing Committee on Professional Conduct, finding (among other things) that he had filed 49 patent cases in the district while not admitted, often without seeking pro hac vice admission, and made misleading statements about hearing notice and his own role in the case. The Standing Committee's informal resolution (approved Feb. 4, 2022) required payment of $9,193 in unpaid PHV fees, which he paid Feb. 16, 2022.
• Bar discipline. He self-reported the sanction; the Illinois ARDC closed its inquiry without action, while the Virginia State Bar imposed a public reprimand without terms (VSB matter, Nov./Dec. 2022) over the same conduct. These are the reason his PHV affidavit practice (timely motion + fee, as done at ECF 6 here) draws attention in each new district.

Who is not on the docket (and one open question)

• No local counsel of record appears. E.D.N.Y. practice generally contemplates designation of a member of this Court's bar in connection with a pro hac vice admission. The public docket shows the PHV motion (ECF 6) and Mag. Judge Henry's Jan. 20, 2026 order granting it, but no separate notice of appearance by any New York attorney for plaintiff. I could not retrieve the ECF 6 affidavit/attachment to see whether a local counsel was designated but never appeared. Flagging this as unconfirmed — it is the one place where a second name could exist without showing on the docket summary.
• No in-house counsel and no of-counsel entry for Cedar Lane appears. Cedar Lane (a Canadian patent-holding entity) has historically litigated exclusively through outside counsel.
• Earlier Cedar Lane counsel from other districts did not appear here — e.g., Raeann Warner (Jacobs & Crumplar, Wilmington, DE), who was lead attorney for Cedar Lane in its 2020 D. Del. suits, and Kirk Anderson, who served as local counsel in the N.D. Cal. matters. Neither name appears in 1:26-cv-00183.
• For completeness, the only other attorney in the case is defendant's: Brian Philip Lanciault, Thompson Hine LLP (notice of appearance ECF 13, Feb. 19, 2026; filed the stipulation at ECF 14 and the notice of settlement at ECF 16).

Caveats on the record

1. Patent discrepancy. Your metadata lists U.S. Patent 6,972,790 and flags that assertion of the '790 is unconfirmed. Third-party litigation databases instead record U.S. Patent 8,577,782 B2 ("Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants") as the patent pleaded in this case — consistent with Cedar Lane's 2025–26 brokerage/financial-advisor campaign, whose complaints attach the '782 patent and a claim chart (see, e.g., the S.D.N.Y. filings listed above). I have not seen the ECF 1 complaint in 1:26-cv-00183 itself, so I cannot confirm which patent was pleaded; the '782 is the better-supported reading, but I am not overriding your metadata.
2. Case is closed on the docket. Settlement notice ECF 16 (Mar. 30, 2026) and Judge Donnelly's dismissal order (Mar. 31, 2026, dismissal with leave to reopen within 60 days) mean no additional counsel appearances are likely to be added absent reopening.
3. Verification path. Confirm the plaintiff's full appearance list at PACER for 1:26-cv-00183 (Doc. 1 signature block; Doc. 6 PHV affidavit and any local-counsel designation; Doc. 7 corporate disclosure), and cross-check the closed docket on CourtListener/RECAP. Any name beyond Rabicoff that surfaces there should be treated as new information, not as something visible in the record I retrieved.

Sources: Justia docket, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/1:2026cv00183/540713; PACER Monitor, https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/62457092/Cedar_Lane_Technologies_Inc_v_David_Lerner_Associates,_Inc; Patsnap litigation record (patent, settlement basis-of-termination text), https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-v-david-lerner-associates-patent-settlement-patsnap/; Rabicoff firm bio, http://www.rabilaw.com/rabicoff.html; Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Blackmagic Design Inc., No. 3:20-cv-01302-VC (N.D. Cal.), sanctions/referral order, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-01302/pdf/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-01302-9.pdf; Virginia State Bar reprimand materials, https://vsbwebstorage.blob.core.windows.net/$web/actions/Rabicoff-[121222](/patent/121222).pdf; S.D.N.Y. campaign dockets, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2025cv09533/[653124](/patent/653124) and .../1:2025cv09538/653130; E.D.N.Y. related case, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/1:2025cv06328/[538797](/patent/538797).

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

Bottom line

Only one attorney has appeared for Defendant David Lerner Associates, Inc. in E.D.N.Y. No. 1:26-cv-00183: Brian Philip Lanciault, Jr. of Thompson Hine LLP (New York office). There is no separate local counsel, no pro hac vice sponsor, and no in-house appearance on the docket. The case is already closed — dismissed by Judge Ann M. Donnelly on 3/31/2026 after a notice of settlement (ECF 16), with leave to reopen within 60 days.

Counsel of record for Defendant

Docket record for his appearance:

• ECF No. 13 (2/19/2026) — Notice of Appearance on behalf of David Lerner Associates, Inc. (first and only defense appearance).
• ECF No. 14 (2/19/2026) — Stipulation of Extension of Time (so-ordered 2/23/2026 by Mag. J. Marcia M. Henry, answer/response deadline moved to 3/30/2026).
• ECF No. 16 (3/30/2026) — Notice of Settlement filed by Lanciault for the defendant; 3/31/2026 — Order dismissing the case, with leave to reopen within 60 days (Judge Donnelly); AO-120 patent report at ECF 17 (4/17/2026).

Verification notes and caveats

• No additional counsel. The PACER Monitor docket (last updated 9/18/2026) lists only Lanciault as counsel for the defendant; no pro hac vice motions, no notice of appearance by any other attorney, and no in-house counsel entry. Nothing in the record is sealed — the docket is fully public, so the absence of other counsel is a real absence, not a sealing artifact.
• Firm/office location. Thompson Hine's own site and the 2018–2023 signature blocks in Spectrum Dynamics list 300 Madison Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10017; some directories (Martindale, FindLaw) still show 335 Madison Avenue from an earlier address. The 300 Madison address is the current one per the firm's professional page.
• Credentials. Admitted New York, 2016; Syracuse University College of Law, J.D. 2015. Listed as a Rising Star in Securities Litigation (2022–2026). His firm bio describes IP work but does not list patent litigation as a primary practice area — worth flagging if you are assessing defense-side patent depth.
• You have not been told who else may have been retained behind the scenes. Cedar Lane's campaign against broker-dealers has frequently drawn specialized patent defense firms (e.g., Lerner David for TIAA-CREF in S.D.N.Y. No. 1:25-cv-09538; Faegre Drinker for Uhlmann Price in N.D. Ill.). In this case, however, no such firm entered an appearance before settlement.

Two discrepancies you should resolve against the pleadings

1. Patent-in-suit. Your metadata lists U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays"), while a secondary litigation database (Patsnap) reports that 1:26-cv-00183 asserted U.S. Patent No. 8,577,782 ("Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants") — consistent with the same database's reports for Cedar Lane's parallel broker-dealer suits (e.g., Cedar Lane v. Uhlmann Price Securities, N.D. Ill. 1:25-cv-15329). Given that David Lerner Associates is a broker-dealer rather than an image-sensor manufacturer, the '782 patent is the more plausible fit, and I would treat the '790 designation as unconfirmed until the complaint (ECF 1) and the AO-120 report (ECF 11/17) are pulled from PACER. The docket summaries I could retrieve do not name the patent.
2. Termination character. The dismissal order (3/31/2026) is a dismissal with leave to reopen within 60 days, not an entry of a with-prejudice dismissal or a so-ordered settlement. I found no later stipulation of dismissal on the retrieved docket, and no infringement contentions, answer, or IPR activity — consistent with Cedar Lane's pattern of early, low-cost settlements.

Sources: Justia docket, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/1:2026cv00183/540713 · PACER Monitor, https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/62457092/Cedar_Lane_Technologies_Inc_v_David_Lerner_Associates,_Inc · Thompson Hine bio, https://www.thompsonhine.com/professionals/brian-lanciault/ · Law360 attorney docket, https://www.law360.com/firms/thompson-hine/attorneys/brian-philip-lanciault-jr/cases · Spectrum Dynamics signature block, No. 1:18-cv-11386 (S.D.N.Y.), Doc. 765 · Patsnap case page (patent discrepancy), https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-v-david-lerner-associates-patent-settlement-patsnap/