Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. First Manhattan Securities LLC

I'll research this case and its parties, then build the overview.

Good foundation. Now let me verify the parties' backgrounds, the patent's provenance, and the broader campaign.

Now let me trace the patent's provenance, the scale of the broker-dealer campaign, and any PTAB/industry response.

Case Overview & Background

Parties. Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian non-practicing entity incorporated in 2019, founded by attorney Greg Benoit, and is one of the most prolific patent plaintiffs in the U.S. — it filed roughly 325+ suits in its first few years, was reportedly the most active patent plaintiff in the country in 2021, and has sued Amazon, Zoom, Huawei, MediaTek, Apple and Canva, almost always through Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who represents Cedar Lane here (Dkt. 6, pro hac vice motion). Cedar Lane's portfolio is overwhelmingly acquired rather than developed (191 of 193 patents in one 2022 analysis), and a large share derives from Intellectual Ventures entities (NPE Showcase – Cedar Lane Technologies; AFR, June 2025). Its model is volume nuisance-value litigation that rarely survives past the pleadings; in 2020 Judge Vince Chhabria (N.D. Cal.) sanctioned Cedar Lane and Rabicoff for positions taken "in bad faith" and referred Rabicoff to that court's professional-conduct committee (per the same secondary source; I did not independently pull the sanctions order). Defendant First Manhattan Securities LLC is emphatically not a typical Cedar Lane target: it is the SEC-registered broker-dealer (CRD #1845, FINRA/SIPC, 399 Park Avenue) affiliate of First Manhattan Co. LLC, the New York wealth manager founded in 1964 by David "Sandy" Gottesman, with roughly $36B+ in assets under management, ~145 investment professionals, and clearing/custody at Pershing (firstmanhattan.com; Form CRS). It is a retail/advisory brokerage, not a market maker — a mismatch that matters to the infringement theory discussed below. Notably, FMS retained Fish & Richardson (Excylyn Hardin-Smith appearing; Neil J. McNabnay of Fish's Dallas office moved pro hac vice, Dkt. 11, 14) — heavyweight patent defense counsel atypical for a firm this size, suggesting insurer- or industry-coordinated defense. FMS answered and counterclaimed on 12/19/2025 (Dkt. 13) and filed a Rule 7.1 statement showing no corporate parent (Dkt. 12).

The patent and the accused technology. A single patent was asserted: U.S. 8,577,782, "Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants" (Application 12/756,929, filed 2010-04-08; issued 2013-11-05; G06Q 40/00; estimated expiry 2030-04-08; prosecution counsel Law Office of Donald L. Wenskay). In one line: it claims a method of tagging an anonymous trading counterparty with a persistent identifier, building a profile from that identifier's trade history (e.g., whether the counterparty's trades "would generate a profit"), and letting a liquidity provider send a specially priced, conditionally targeted offer only to that counterparty — essentially, semi-anonymous "toxic flow" segmentation for electronic markets. Independent claim 1 recites associating a trading entity with an identifier via a processor, acquiring trade-history information for that identifier, receiving an offer from a liquidity provider based on a profitability profile, the offer being made only to that entity, and processing the offer through an exchange with a bid/offer spread. The complaint is a short-form template: it identifies the accused instrumentality only by reference to "Exemplary Defendant Products" and "Exemplary '782 Patent Claims" in Exhibit 2 (a claim chart), and pleads direct infringement plus post-suit induced/willful infringement based on the filing of the complaint (Compl. ¶¶ 11, 16). Caveat: the public complaint docketed at Dkt. 1 contains Exhibits 1–2, but the specific accused FMS products are not named in the body of the pleading, and I could not verify from any source which FMS systems (e.g., its Pershing-based order routing or advisory trading workflow) are charted. The patent's original assignee/chain of title to Cedar Lane is also not confirmed in the sources I reviewed — given the Wenskay prosecution and Cedar Lane's acquisition pattern an IV-linked provenance is plausible but unproven, and the '782 does not appear among the Pipeline Financial Group portfolio that dominates this technical space.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Filed 11/13/2025 in S.D.N.Y. before Judge Margaret M. Garnett; the case was over in 47 days — FMS answered and counterclaimed 12/19/2025, and on 12/30/2025 Judge Garnett granted a joint stipulation dismissing all claims against FMS with prejudice and all counterclaims without prejudice, each side bearing its own fees and costs (Dkts. 15–17; AO 120 filed same day). That asymmetry is the signature of a negotiated resolution — a with-prejudice dismissal permanently immunizes FMS, which typically implies a license, covenant or payment, though the terms are not public and I will not speculate. Venue is the strategic story: Cedar Lane has historically filed in W.D. Tex./E.D. Tex. (Albright's courtroom), but here it sued New York financial firms at home in S.D.N.Y. and E.D.N.Y., where venue is secure under § 1400(b) and where the practice is to file broad parallel waves. The '782 campaign is large and ongoing: the same patent has been asserted against at least a dozen broker-dealers and banks, including Bank of America (E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-01225), Citibank (W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00432), BNY Mellon (S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-09488, dismissed with prejudice 1/30/2026), Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley (1:26-cv-00294), Maxim Group (1:26-cv-00292), Raymond James (W.D. Tex. 7:26-cv-00022), Beech Hill Securities, Empire Asset Management, Percheron, Spartan Capital, Henley & Company, David Lerner Associates, Cobra Trading, Doo Technology and TD Bank (Stanford NPE Litigation Database, patent 8577782). Two features make this case notable: (1) it is a retail-brokerage shakedown wave — the '782's claims are drawn to market-maker/ECN price discrimination against "toxic" flow, yet the defendants are mostly small advisory broker-dealers whose order flow is routed to third-party venues, making the infringement theory (and any divided-infringement or § 101 eligibility defense) highly vulnerable; and (2) it shows the defense side organizing — Fish & Richardson representation and a near-immediate, with-prejudice exit for a 145-person RIA is consistent with coordinated carrier-funded defense rather than one-off settlement. On the record I reviewed, no IPR, CBM or PGR against the '782 appears (Patsnap's case record lists "validity challenges: none recorded" for this action, and my searches surfaced no PTAB proceeding), so validity was never tested — the patent faces its 2030 expiry with the campaign, not the PTAB, as the only filter. Judge Garnett's individual practices and any claim-construction activity never came into play; the case generated no opinion, no Markman, and no public discovery.

Sourcing notes / not verified: the counterclaim's substantive grounds (Dkt. 13) and the stipulation's underlying consideration; the accused FMS products; the '782's original assignee; and the precise citation for the 2020 N.D. Cal. sanctions order. Docket facts above are from the Justia docket and PacerMonitor; I was unable to complete a full PACER pull or an RPX/Law360 search within this session.

I'll research this case across PACER, PTAB, and legal news sources.

Let me dig into the counterclaims, the PTAB record, and that Supreme Court filing.

Bottom line

This was a 47‑day, one‑patent, one‑defendant complaint that never reached any substantive adjudication. Cedar Lane filed on 2025‑11‑13; First Manhattan answered and counterclaimed on 2025‑12‑19; seven days later the parties stipulated to dismissal, and Judge Margaret M. Garnett signed the dismissal order on 2025‑12‑30 — claims dismissed with prejudice, counterclaims dismissed without prejudice, each side bearing its own costs and fees. No motion to dismiss, no transfer motion, no stay motion, no Markman proceeding, no discovery, no trial, and no PTAB proceeding on the '782 patent was ever initiated in connection with this case.

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Chronology

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Subject‑by‑subject

1. Filing and initial pleadings

The complaint is a short form pleading typical of Cedar Lane's Rabicoff‑drafted template: a bare recitation of assignee standing, incorporation of the Exhibit 2 claim chart by reference, and direct/inducement/willfulness theories with knowledge pegged to service of the complaint. Notably, the publicly filed complaint refers to "Exemplary Defendant Products" identified in the claim‑chart exhibit; the complaint itself does not name accused products in narrative form. Technical substance per the complaint: the '782 patent (application filed 2010‑04‑08; issued 2013‑11‑05) claims a method for generating conditional, individually targeted trade offers to semi‑anonymous market participants based on a profitability profile derived from that participant's trade history (claim 1 elements summarized at Ex Parte complaint analysis).

Defendant's answer and counterclaims came in on 2025‑12‑19 (Dkt. 13), five days before the answer deadline, with a jury demand, represented by Fish & Richardson. I could not verify the counts pleaded in the counterclaim — the docket text says only "COUNTERCLAIM against Cedar Lane Technologies Inc." and the pleading is not available on the free sources I could reach. The recurring pattern in Cedar Lane's identical‑template cases against comparably situated broker‑dealers (e.g., Cedar Lane v. Oppenheimer & Co., 1:26‑cv‑00297 (S.D.N.Y.), same Fish & Richardson counsel, same dismissal language) suggests declaratory‑judgment counts on non‑infringement and invalidity, but I am flagging that as an inference, not a sourced fact.

2. Pre‑trial motions of substance

None. There was no Rule 12(b)(1)/(3)/(6) motion, no § 1404(a) transfer motion (though a transfer out of S.D.N.Y. would have been a natural defense play given Cedar Lane's parallel filings), no § 1406 venue challenge, no motion to stay pending IPR (no IPR existed to stay for), and no summary judgment motion. The docket contains exactly one contested‑adjacent filing on each side: Cedar Lane's PHV motion (Dkt. 6) and First Manhattan's PHV motion (Dkt. 14), both administrative. The case was dismissed ten days before the answer‑stage motions clock would even have run in earnest.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

Never reached. No scheduling order issued, no Rule 26(f) conference occurred, no joint claim construction statement, no Markman briefing or hearing, and no claim construction ruling. The 2026‑01‑14 initial pretrial conference set in Dkt. 9 was never held — the case closed on 2025‑12‑30, mooting it. Consequently the two terms that would have driven the case were never construed:

• "profile containing information that indicates whether said trading transactions … would generate a profit" — the specification's SIMPROF/ACTPROF profitability computations (col. 4:50–5:10) versus a broader "any relevant information relating to the trader" reading (col. 2:65–67);
• "said offer being only made to said trading entity" — technical exclusivity versus targeted/flagged offers on a shared exchange, in tension with the specification's broadcast‑to‑subscribers language (col. 4:5–9).

These are the pressure points a real defense would have attacked. No construction of the '782 claims exists in any court as a result of this case.

4. Discovery milestones

None of strategic significance — no discovery at all. No Rule 26(f) report, no initial disclosures, no ESI protocol, no protective order, no interrogatories, no document production, no depositions. Service was effected 2025‑12‑03 and the case ended 27 days later. There was no infringement contentions exchange, no damages contentions, no third‑party discovery into Cedar Lane's acquisition of the patent or its licensing/revenue history — the discovery that would normally supply a damages and standing/ownership record in an NPE campaign case.

5. Trial events, verdict, post‑trial motions

None. No trial, no verdict, no JMOL, no Rule 59 motion, no fee motion under § 285. The dismissal order expressly provides that each party bears its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees, which foreclosed a prevailing‑party fee motion (and is consistent with a negotiated rather than litigated resolution).

6. Final disposition / present posture

Terminated 2025‑12‑30 by stipulation under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), memorialized by Judge Garnett's order (Dkt. 17). The structure of the dismissal is the analytically interesting part:

• Claims dismissed with prejudice: Cedar Lane cannot re‑assert the '782 patent against First Manhattan on these claims. That is a one‑way door — Cedar Lane gave up the claim, not just the forum.
• Counterclaims dismissed without prejudice: First Manhattan's DJ claims (and any invalidity theory in them) were not adjudicated and were deliberately preserved rather than surrendered. First Manhattan declined to convert the case into a validity ruling.
• No admission, no consent judgment, no injunction, no damages, no license recorded on the face of the docket. The docket does not recite any consideration. Whether a license, covenant not to sue, or a bare walk‑away underlies the stipulation is not disclosed in any source I could find; the seven‑day turnaround from answer to stipulation combined with the "each party bears its own fees" term is consistent with an early negotiated exit, but I cannot source the terms.

Present posture: closed, with no appeal. No notice of appeal was filed; there is no Federal Circuit docket for this case.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings

No IPR or PGR on U.S. 8,577,782 has been filed by First Manhattan or anyone else, on the record I could locate. The docket shows no stay motion and no PTAB activity, and third‑party litigation databases list no validity challenge associated with this case (Patsnap case record: "Validity challenges: None recorded"). The § 315(b) one‑year bar triggered by the 2025‑12‑03 service would have run to roughly 2026‑12‑03 — i.e., that window has now essentially closed without a petition, and the with‑prejudice dismissal makes a First Manhattan petition pointless.

Two context points worth keeping in view:

• Cedar Lane has been on the receiving end of Unified Patents challenges before, but on a different patent: Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., IPR2020‑00006, final written decision **2021‑02‑12

Counsel of Record for Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (Plaintiff)

Bottom line: Only one attorney ever appeared for the plaintiff on the docket — Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who is lead (and sole) counsel of record. He filed a pro hac vice motion in the S.D.N.Y. on the day the complaint was filed. No local counsel and no in-house counsel appear in the record. The case was dismissed by joint stipulation 47 days later, so no other plaintiff-side appearance was ever necessary.

Docket grounding (S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-09485, Judge Margaret M. Garnett)

• Dkt. 1 (11/13/2025) — Complaint for infringement of US 8,577,782, filed by Rabicoff for Cedar Lane; Dkt. 2–5 — civil cover sheet, Rule 7.1 disclosure, summons request, AO 120 form, all signed by Rabicoff. (Justia docket; PACER Monitor)
• Dkt. 6 (11/13/2025) — "MOTION for Isaac P. Rabicoff to Appear Pro Hac Vice" ($200 fee, receipt ANYSDC-31991537), with his declaration, certificate of good standing, and proposed order; the clerk's office entered a "no deficiencies" notice the same day. This confirms he is not a member of the S.D.N.Y. bar and appeared in this district by pro hac vice.
• Dkt. 15–16 (12/26/2025) — stipulation of voluntary dismissal and proposed order, filed by Rabicoff; Dkt. 17 (12/30/2025) — Judge Garnett's order dismissing plaintiff's claims with prejudice and defendant's counterclaims without prejudice, each side bearing its own fees and costs.
• Defendant's side, for contrast: Excylyn Janaize Hardin-Smith (Fish & Richardson, notice of appearance 12/19/2025) and Neil J. McNabnay (Fish & Richardson, Dallas; pro hac vice motion 12/19/2025).

Caveats and open items

1. Ruling on the pro hac vice motion is not visible in the public docket extracts I reviewed. The docket listings show Dkt. 6 and the deficiency notice, then jump to defendant-side filings; no text order granting the motion appears in the captured docket text through dismissal. In a closely related S.D.N.Y. case before the same judge (Cedar Lane v. Conexus LLC), Judge Garnett granted Rabicoff's identical motion by text order on 1/8/2025, so a grant here is likely but I could not verify it — treat it as unsourced.
2. No local counsel of record appears. S.D.N.Y. practice ordinarily contemplates a member of this Court's bar acting with a pro hac vice admittee; the docket reflects no such appearance for plaintiff. This is an observation about the record, not a finding of a rules violation.
3. No in-house counsel appeared. Cedar Lane's founder, Greg Benoit, is himself an attorney with NPE-litigation background, but he did not enter an appearance in this case.
4. No sealed-material issue: nothing suggests the appearances were sealed; the absence of additional plaintiff counsel reflects the case's 47-day life, not redaction.

Practice context worth noting for the file

• This case is part of a coordinated November 2025 S.D.N.Y. wave asserting the '782 patent against broker-dealers and financial institutions — e.g., Cedar Lane v. TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, No. 1:25-cv-09538 (S.D.N.Y., filed 11/14/2025) and Cedar Lane v. Safra Securities LLC, No. 1:25-cv-09533 (S.D.N.Y., filed 11/14/2025), both filed by Rabicoff with the identical Dkt. 1–6 package — plus Cedar Lane v. Bank of America Corp., No. 2:25-cv-01225 (E.D. Tex.). Same counsel, same complaint template, same PHV papers.
• Rabicoff's history is relevant to how much weight to give his filings: a 2022 filing by a Chinese IP-protection center reported Rabicoff Law LLC had handled 58 Cedar Lane suits; and in Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Blackmagic Design Inc., No. 3:20-cv-01302-VC (N.D. Cal. Nov. 19, 2020), Judge Chhabria sanctioned Rabicoff $1,000 under Rule 11 and referred him to the N.D. Cal. Standing Committee on Professional Conduct, which resolved the matter informally (payment of ~$9,193 in unpaid pro hac vice fees). See sanctions order excerpt and In re Isaac Rabicoff, No. 20-mc-80206-JD (N.D. Cal.) (committee final report). Firm bio: rabilaw.com/rabicoff.html.

If you need the PHV disposition confirmed, the reliable path is a PACER pull of the full docket (entries 7–10) for 1:25-cv-09485; the free aggregators I could reach truncate that stretch of the docket.

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

Let me dig into the individual attorneys and their firms.

Let me confirm the docket entries and check whether the pro hac vice motion was ever granted, plus the related-case defense pattern.

Counsel of Record for Defendant First Manhattan Securities LLC

Both attorneys who appeared for First Manhattan are from Fish & Richardson; there is no in-house or co-counsel appearance on the docket. There is also no formal "lead counsel" designation in the record (no appearance form styled as lead, and the case closed before any scheduling order or Rule 26(f) conference that would have required one), so the role labels below are inferred from the filings themselves.

Supporting docket facts

• Service: summons returned executed — First Manhattan served 12/3/2025, answer due 12/24/2025 (PACER docket, S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-09485).
• Appearance and response: Hardin-Smith appeared 12/19/2025 (Dkt. 11), filed the corporate disclosure statement (Dkt. 12) and the Answer with counterclaim and jury demand (Dkt. 13) the same day — i.e., the defense was mounted by Fish's New York office, with Dallas principal McNabnay moved in PHV simultaneously (Dkt. 14).
• PHV status: the clerk cleared McNabnay's motion as deficiency-free on 12/22/2025, but no order granting pro hac vice appears on the docket; the case was dismissed days later (joint stipulation Dkt. 15 filed 12/26/2025; proposed order Dkt. 16; dismissal order Dkt. 17 and AO 120 form Dkt. 18 on 12/30/2025). So his appearance was never formally perfected — he is a filer of record on Dkt. 14 only.
• Termination: all claims against First Manhattan dismissed with prejudice, counterclaims dismissed without prejudice, each side bearing its own costs and fees (Dkt. 17, Judge Margaret M. Garnett).

Context worth noting on the defense team's role

This case was one of a wave of near-simultaneous '782-patent suits filed by Cedar Lane (through Isaac Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC) against broker-dealers and financial institutions in November 2025. Fish & Richardson appears to have been running a coordinated defense across that wave: the same New York office (Hardin-Smith) appeared for The Bank of New York Mellon in the companion case Cedar Lane Techs. v. BNY Mellon, No. 1:25-cv-09488 (S.D.N.Y.), filed and dismissed on essentially the same schedule, and Law360's attorney tracker lists Hardin-Smith on Cedar Lane v. Ingalls & Snyder (11/14/2025) and Cedar Lane v. Oppenheimer & Co. (1/13/2026) as well. That pattern supports reading Fish as retained defense counsel (not local counsel hired by another firm) for First Manhattan.

Caveats / sourcing notes

• Role labels are inferences. The S.D.N.Y. docket does not designate "lead" vs. "local" counsel; I have inferred McNabnay as lead/PHV merits counsel (Texas bar, PHV motion) and Hardin-Smith as the New York counsel of record (only attorney signing filings). No in-house appearance was filed.
• Title discrepancy for Hardin-Smith: Fish's own bio page still describes her as an "Associate," while a 2025 Fish press release refers to her as a Principal. Treat her exact title as unsettled as of late 2025.
• Firm name: the correct entity is Fish & Richardson P.C. Aggregator pages (e.g., PatSnap) list "Fish & Richardson LLP" / "Fish & Richardson PC (Dallas)" — the "LLP" rendering appears to be an aggregator artifact, not a docket entry.
• No sealed filings. The docket is fully public; nothing about defendant's representation was sealed.
• I found no Law360/Reuters coverage specifically of the First Manhattan case (it resolved in 47 days), so the counsel identification rests on the PACER docket (Dkts. 11–14) plus firm biographies, not on secondary press reporting of this particular action.