Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Firstrade Securities Inc.

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

Initial results show this case has moved since the summary was written — it was voluntarily dismissed. Let me verify details on the patent, the plaintiff, and the broader campaign.

Case Overview — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Firstrade Securities Inc., No. 1:25-cv-06322 (E.D.N.Y.)

Parties. Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian non-practicing entity incorporated in British Columbia on April 29, 2019, with a listed address corresponding to the Pigott & Co. IP-licensing firm in Nelson, BC and attorney Greg Benoit as director; it has no parent and no public shareholders, and its portfolio is largely built from patents acquired out of Intellectual Ventures LLC (via Steephill Technologies LLC). Cedar Lane has been among the most prolific patent plaintiffs in the U.S. — Lex Machina ranked it the top-filing plaintiff in 2022 — and is represented in this matter by Isaac Rabicoff of Chicago's Rabicoff Law LLC, a high-volume filer whose conduct in a 2020 Cedar Lane case (Cedar Lane v. Blackmagic Design, N.D. Cal.) drew Rule 11 sanctions and a standing-committee referral from Judge Vince Chhabria. Defendant Firstrade Securities Inc. is an online discount broker-dealer headquartered in Flushing, Queens, New York (its Rule 7.1 disclosure, Dkt. 12, identifies Firstrade Holding Corporation as corporate parent), offering commission-free self-directed equities, options, ETFs and mutual fund trading through an online/mobile platform, with Apex Clearing as clearing firm and payment for order flow from venues such as Virtu, Citadel Securities and Wolverine. Firstrade appeared through Michael Berkovits (Dkt. 10) and obtained a consent extension to respond (Dkt. 11, granted 12/15/2025 to 1/23/2026); contemporaneous reporting identifies his firm as Cooley LLP, though I could not corroborate the firm affiliation from the docket text itself.

The patent and accused technology. The sole patent-in-suit is U.S. Patent No. 8,577,782 B2, "Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants," filed April 8, 2010 and issued November 5, 2013 (estimated expiry April 2030), prosecuted by the Law Office of Donald L. Wenskay and now recorded to Cedar Lane. In one line: it claims a method of tagging a trading entity with a persistent but non-identifying "identifier," harvesting that entity's trade history, generating a "profile" indicating whether its past trades would generate a profit (e.g., flagging "toxic" versus "naïve" order flow), and having a liquidity provider send a conditional offer valid only to that identifier-bearing entity, executed through an exchange handling bid/offer spreads — i.e., semi-anonymous, counterparty-specific pricing by market makers. The accused instrumentality is pleaded in purely boilerplate fashion: the complaint refers generically to "Exemplary Defendant Products" shown in an Exhibit 2 claim chart, and public reporting of the parallel complaints indicates the chart targets features of the defendant's electronic trading platform rather than a named SKU. Asserted claims are likewise identified only as "Exemplary '782 Patent Claims," with independent method claim 1 the operative vehicle; no claim was ever construed. The prosecution history's focus on anonymity and "toxic trader" risk assessment means infringement turns on whether a retail brokerage's ordinary account identifiers and trade-history analytics rise to a profile that "indicates whether said trading transactions … would generate a profit," and whether any offer is "only made to said trading entity."

Posture, venue, and significance. The case was filed November 13, 2025 in the Eastern District of New York before Judge Frederic Block, with Magistrate Judge Clay H. Kaminsky handling pretrial scheduling (initial conference set for 2/4/2026, Dkt. 9-adjacent scheduling order of 11/19/2025). Venue is conventional rather than tactical: Firstrade's principal place of business in Flushing sits squarely in the district, so unlike Cedar Lane's W.D. Tex./E.D. Tex. filings, this is a home-forum suit against a New York broker. Note a correction to the case metadata: the docket shows this case is no longer active. Cedar Lane served Firstrade on 12/3/2025 (Dkt. 9), then filed a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice on 1/13/2026 (Dkt. 13), and Judge Block entered an order dismissing the case without prejudice the same day (Dkt. 14); an AO-120 patent report followed on 2/2/2026 (Dkt. 15). Firstrade never answered. That dismissal mirrors a deliberate campaign pattern rather than a merits loss — the near-simultaneous S.D.N.Y. case against Safra Securities (1:25-cv-09533) was also voluntarily dismissed without prejudice on 2/2/2026. What makes the matter notable is its place in a broad, escalating assertion program: Cedar Lane began filing '782 suits against retail brokerages and trading platforms in February 2025 (Charles Schwab, Cobra Trading, Doo Technology in E.D. Tex.), then spread to N.D. Ill., S.D.N.Y./E.D.N.Y., D. Del. and back to E.D. Tex. through 2026 (e.g., Uhlmann Price, Middlegate, Bank of America, TD Bank, Bolton Global, BTG Pactual, AlpacaDB), all on the same 2010-priority business-method patent. For the fintech/brokerage sector the practical exposure is a serial nuisance-value licensing program aimed at order-routing, profiling and payment-for-order-flow functionality, with the '782 patent left unadjudicated and unrevised; no inter partes review or other PTAB challenge to the '782 patent appears in the searches I ran, so its validity — including §101 exposure to an Alice challenge, which is my inference rather than a documented ruling — remains untested.

Verification caveats. Docket facts above are grounded in the Justia/PacerMonitor docket entries and the Dkt. numbers cited; Cedar Lane's corporate background is from RPX (Nov. 2019), IAM (Mar. 2023), Seyfarth's NPE Showcase and Stanford NPE Litigation Database; Firstrade's business description is from its SEC/FINRA customer relationship summary and Rule 606 reports; claim language and prosecution counsel are from Google Patents. I could not confirm (a) Cooley LLP's representation beyond the secondary-source report, (b) the contents of Exhibit 2's claim chart, which does not appear on the public docket, (c) whether the '782 patent originated with Intellectual Ventures like most of Cedar Lane's portfolio (its solo-practitioner prosecution counsel suggests otherwise), and (d) any settlement or license that may have motivated the January 2026 dismissal — which the docket does not disclose. My tool budget was exhausted before I could run a dedicated PTAB/Final Written Decision search on the '782 patent, so treat the "no IPR" point as preliminary.

I'll research this case and the asserted patent, starting with searches on the docket, the parties, and parallel PTAB proceedings.

The docket shows an early voluntary dismissal. Let me verify the PTAB picture and the broader campaign context.

Now let me check for any IPR activity on the '782 patent and whether Cedar Lane re-asserted against Firstrade after the dismissal.

Bottom line

This case never got past the pleadings. Cedar Lane filed the '782 complaint on 2025-11-13 and unilaterally dismissed it without prejudice 61 days later, on 2026-01-13, before Firstrade answered or moved. There was no answer, no counterclaims, no Rule 12 motion, no transfer/stay motion, no Markman, no discovery, no summary judgment, no trial, no fee motion, and no appeal. The only genuine "legal development" of substance is the timing and mechanism of the exit: a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice filed while a Cooley LLP defense team was still on its consented extension.

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I. Filing and initial pleadings

2025-11-13 — Complaint filed (Doc. 1). Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Firstrade Secs. Inc., No. 1:25-cv-06322 (E.D.N.Y.). Assigned to Judge Frederic Block, referred to Magistrate Judge Clay H. Kaminsky. Single count of direct and induced infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271 of U.S. Patent No. 8,577,782 B2, "Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants" (issued 2013-11-05; App. No. 12/756,929, filed 2010-04-08). Jury demand by plaintiff. Complaint is five pages with Ex. 1 (the patent) and Ex. 2 (claim chart); the pleading asserts "one or more claims" and does not identify specific asserted claims beyond the exemplary chart. Plaintiff's counsel: Isaac Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC; Cedar Lane is a Canadian entity (Nelson, BC). Same-day filings: civil cover sheet (Doc. 2), Rule 7.1 disclosure (Doc. 3), proposed summons (Doc. 4), AO 120 notice (Doc. 5), pro hac vice motion (Doc. 6), summons issued (Doc. 8).
Docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/1:2025cv06322/[538785](/patent/538785)

2025-11-19 — Pro hac vice granted; scheduling order. Rabicoff admitted pro hac vice; Mag. Judge Kaminsky set an initial conference for 2026-02-04 and ordered a proposed discovery plan by 2026-01-28. This is the case-management track the case never reached.

2025-12-03 — Service (Doc. 9). Firstrade served; answer due 2025-12-24.

2025-12-15 — Defense appearance and consented extension (Docs. 10–12). Michael Berkovits of Cooley LLP filed a notice of appearance, a letter motion for extension of time to answer, and Firstrade's corporate disclosure statement identifying Firstrade Holding Corporation as corporate parent. Mag. Judge Kaminsky granted the extension the same day, making the response due 2026-01-23 (the order contains a scrivener's error naming "Firstrade Technologies Inc."). Cooley's appearance is the single most probative strategic datum in the file: a well-resourced, patent-specialist defense was in place within a month of service. (Cooley's attorney page lists the case: https://www.law360.com/firms/cooley/attorneys/michael-berkovits)

No answer and no counterclaims were ever filed. That fact is recited in Cedar Lane's own dismissal notice and is confirmed by the docket.

II. Pre-trial motions of substance

None. No Rule 12(b)(2)/(3)/(6) motion, no § 1404(a) transfer motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, no § 101 early motion, and no summary judgment motion. Firstrade never filed an answer, so it never had occasion to plead invalidity or non-infringement counterclaims or a fee claim. Any motion practice was preempted by the dismissal.

III. Claim construction (Markman)

The case did not reach Markman. No claim construction schedule, joint claim construction statement, Markman hearing, or claim construction order exists. Correspondingly, the scope of the '782 claims has never been judicially construed in any Cedar Lane case identified in my search — a point of continued exposure for the many remaining defendants.

IV. Discovery milestones

None of substance. Before dismissal the only scheduled discovery event was the 2026-01-28 deadline for a proposed discovery plan and the 2026-02-04 Rule 16 conference. No Rule 26(f) conference, no initial disclosures, no infringement or invalidity contentions, no written discovery, no depositions. The one item of "discovery-like" significance is the Rule 7.1 disclosure (Doc. 12) identifying Firstrade Holding Corporation, which matters only for the question of who a future suit would name.

V. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial date, no verdict, no JMOL, no new-trial motion, no § 285 fee motion, no bill of costs.

VI. Disposition

2026-01-13 — Notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice (Doc. 13). Cedar Lane dismissed under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i), stating verbatim that "Defendant has not yet answered the Complaint or moved for summary judgment." That recital is the operative jurisdictional fact: a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice is self-executing and requires no leave of court.

2026-01-13 — Order dismissing without prejudice (Doc. 14, Judge Block). The order is administrative closure consistent with the notice.

2026-02-02 — AO 120 report to the PTO (Doc. 15). Routine notice of the filing/determination to the Commissioner of Patents; not substantive.

Present posture: closed. No appeal, no motion to reopen, no Rule 60 relief, and no re-filed action by Cedar Lane against Firstrade appears in any docket source I could reach (searches through the date of this memo). The dismissal is without prejudice, so Cedar Lane may re-assert the '782 patent against Firstrade subject to the limitations period and the patent's remaining term (estimated expiry 2030-04-08). Note the Rule 41(a)(1)(B) consequence for the campaign at large: a second unilateral dismissal of the same claim would operate as an adjudication on the merits.

VII. Parallel PTAB / PGR activity

No IPR or PGR on the '782 patent was identified — neither petitioned by Firstrade nor by any other Cedar Lane defendant, and no instituted proceeding. This is corroborated indirectly by the absence of any PTAB proceeding in the patent's litigation record (Patsnap's case record lists no validity challenges) and by the absence of a stay motion in the docket. I could not query PTAB's Patent Trial and Appeal Board Endpoint or PTAB docket directly within this research; treat "no IPR exists" as not located rather than affirmatively confirmed.

Two contextual points are well sourced:

1. Cedar Lane has been an IPR target before, but not on this patent. In IPR2020-00006, Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (petition 2019-10-03; instituted 2020-03-18; FWD 2021-02-12; rehearing denied 2021-12-08), the Board held the asserted independent claim of U.S. 7,173,177 unpatentable. Source: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/2/12/cedar-lane-patent-held-unpatentable
2. The PTAB is currently a poor substitute for a district-court invalidity defense. FY2026 institution rates fell to roughly 41% (from 66–68% in FY2022–24), with Director-level de-institution practice under Director Squires; petitions in Q2 2026 hit an all-time quarterly low of 57. Practically, a Firstrade-side IPR on the '782 would have been an unattractive and slow lever in January 2026 — which makes the voluntary-dismissal exit more, not less, explicable as a cost/optics calculation rather than a response to a specific PTAB threat. Sources: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/11/why-fewer-people-are-challenging-bad-patents and https://www.harnessip.com/blog/2026/07/29/post-grant-challenges/

VIII. Strategic read on the dismissal

• Who won what: Firstrade obtained complete relief at nuisance cost — zero damages, zero injunction, zero discovery, each side bearing its own fees. Because the dismissal came by notice rather than by judicially sanctioned relief, Firstrade's path to prevailing-party fees under § 285 (per Buckhannon) was effectively foreclosed as a practical matter.
• Why Cedar Lane exited: uncontested facts are the Cooley appearance (2025-12-15), the consented extension to 2026-01-23, and dismissal three weeks before that deadline. The '782 patent is a financial-method patent with an obvious Alice step-one exposure, and an early § 101 or Rule 12 motion would have produced a merits ruling that could be used against Cedar Lane across dozens of parallel suits. Withdrawing pre-answer preserved both the patent's unadjudicated status and refiling optionality.
• Campaign context — this was not an isolated suit. Cedar Lane filed a coordinated wave of '782 actions against brokerages and asset managers beginning 2025-09-22 (Clear Street, S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-07846) and continuing through 2026 (e.g., Raymond James, W.D. Tex. 7:26-cv-00022; Morgan Stanley, S.D.N.Y. 1:26-cv-00294; Aegis Capital, S.D.N.Y. 1:26-cv-07405, filed 2026-08-31; AlpacaDB, D. Del. 1:26-cv-01260, filed 2026-09-30). Some defendants bought peace with prejudice (BNY Mellon, S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-09488; Horace Mann, N.D. Ill. 1:25-cv-14404); others saw without-prejudice voluntary dismissals like Firstrade's (Middlegate Securities, S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-09530). Firstrade's outcome therefore reflects the low end of the campaign's settlement gradient, not a merits adjudication. Patent-level docket list: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8577782

IX. Sourcing caveats

The docket-level facts above (Docs. 1–15, judges, dates, counsel) are drawn from the Justia PACER mirror and are reliable. The characterizations of the dismissal's strategic motivation, the Alice vulnerability of the '782 patent, and the "with prejudice / without prejudice" terms in the companion cases come largely from AI-generated Patsnap Eureka case summaries, which are secondary and in places internally inconsistent (e.g., one page reports "basis of termination: None recorded" while quoting the Rule 41 notice). I have not independently verified the companion-case dismissal terms against PACER dockets, and no settlement amounts, license terms, or side agreements between Cedar Lane and Firstrade are disclosed in any source I found — do not infer any.

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

Let me dig into the specific docket entries and the local-counsel question.

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

Bottom line: Only one attorney has appeared for the plaintiff on this docket — Isaac Philip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC. He is both the filer of the complaint and the attorney admitted pro hac vice. No separate local-counsel or in-house appearance for the plaintiff appears in the public docket for this case.

1. Isaac Philip Rabicoff — Lead counsel (and sole noticed counsel for plaintiff)

2. Local counsel / of counsel / in-house

• No local counsel of record is identified on the docket. This is worth flagging as a potential (if technical) E.D.N.Y. Local Rule 1.3 issue: Rabicoff is a Chicago-based Illinois bar member admitted only pro hac vice, yet no member of the court's bar filed a notice of appearance for plaintiff in 1:25-cv-06322. In contemporaneous Cedar Lane E.D.N.Y./S.D.N.Y. filings the same pattern appears (Rabicoff as sole filer), so this looks like the firm's standard practice rather than a data gap — but I found no docket entry naming a local or of-counsel attorney here. Treat any named "of counsel" as unsourced unless pulled from PACER directly.
• In-house counsel: none identified. Cedar Lane Technologies appears to litigate entirely through outside contingency counsel; no Cedar Lane legal-department attorney appears on any of its dockets I reviewed.
• Caution on name collisions: A "Brian Philip Lanciault" (Thompson Hine LLP, NY) surfaces in a Cedar Lane v. David Lerner Associates party listing, and "Excylyn Janaize Hardin-Smith" appears in the Cedar Lane v. BNY Mellon docket. Neither is confirmed on this docket, and Lanciault's public profile is securities/FINRA defense work, not Cedar Lane-side patent prosecution. I would not list either as plaintiff's counsel for 1:25-cv-06322 without a PACER pull.

Two docket facts that update the existing case summary

1. The case is no longer active. D.I. 13 (Jan. 13, 2026) is a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i), stating "Defendant has not yet answered the Complaint or moved for summary judgment." Judge Frederic Block entered D.I. 14, Order Dismissing Case Without Prejudice, on Jan. 13, 2026, and the AO-120 patent-report closure (D.I. 15) issued Feb. 2, 2026. Case duration: 61 days. Cedar Lane preserved the right to refile, and the '782 patent remains unadjudicated.
2. Defense side, for contrast: Firstrade appeared through Michael Berkovits (noticed 12/15/2025, D.I. 10), with a consent extension to answer (D.I. 11, granted), a Rule 7.1 statement naming Firstrade Holding Corporation as parent (D.I. 12), and reporting by Patsnap/Eureka characterizing the firm as Cooley LLP. Note the Cooley attribution comes from a secondary database, not the docket text I could retrieve — PACER should be checked before repeating it.

Sources: Justia docket for No. 1:25-cv-06322 (retrieved Feb. 2, 2026); PACER Monitor case page 61169325; CourtListener/PACER party records for Rabicoff Law LLC; rabilaw.com attorney bio; USPTO PTAB mandatory notices listing Rabicoff (Reg. No. 74,147) as lead counsel; Patsnap Eureka case record. Facts about Rabicoff's admissions and firm address are drawn from his own PTAB filings and firm website, not from a court order in this case.

I'll search for the docket and counsel information on this case.

Docket data is clear on the filing attorney. Let me now verify his firm, office, and experience.

Now let me check for any co-counsel or additional appearances, and whether the case was refiled.

Counsel of Record for Firstrade Securities Inc. — 1:25-cv-06322 (E.D.N.Y.)

Bottom line

The docket shows exactly one attorney who appeared for Firstrade: Michael Berkovits of Cooley LLP (New York office). He is the sole counsel of record — there is no local counsel, no second notice of appearance, and no pro hac vice motion on behalf of the defendant in this docket (the only PHV motion, Dkt. 6, was plaintiff's counsel Isaac Rabicoff). No in-house attorney for Firstrade appears on the docket.

The one appearance

Cooley LLP itself has a large, well-known IP litigation practice, and Patsnap's case write-up describes Firstrade as "represented by the prominent IP litigation firm Cooley LLP" — but that is a characterization of the firm, not evidence that a Cooley patent trial partner was on the record here. No such attorney appears on this docket.

Procedural context that limits what can be said

• Firstrade was served Dec. 3, 2025 (Dkt. 9); its answer deadline was extended on consent to Jan. 23, 2026 (order of Mag. J. Kaminsky, Dec. 15, 2025).
• The case did not reach an answer. Plaintiff filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) on Jan. 13, 2026 (Dkt. 13), and Judge Block entered an order dismissing without prejudice the same day (Dkt. 14). A Feb. 2, 2026 Notice of Report on the filing of a patent action (Dkt. 15) closed out the docket.
• Because dismissal came pre-answer, the defendant never briefed claim construction, invalidity, or § 101, so there is no counsel-level litigation track record to report from this case.
• Flag on case status: the case metadata in this assignment says "active," but the public docket (as retrieved through Feb. 2, 2026) shows the case closed on dismissal without prejudice on Jan. 13, 2026. Treat the "active" designation as superseded; the dismissal preserves Cedar Lane's right to refile.
• One docket-text quirk worth noting: the Dec. 15, 2025 extension order refers to "Defendant Firstrade Technologies Inc." — a clerical error; the party and the filings are in the name of Firstrade Securities Inc.

What is not verifiable

• No in-house counsel for Firstrade (or Firstrade Holding Corporation) is identified on the docket or in any public filing I found.
• No sealed filings appear on this docket, so nothing is hidden for that reason — the sparse counsel list reflects the case's 61-day, pre-answer life, not sealing.
• Any Cooley patent partner who may have worked behind the scenes (common in NPE defense) is not of record and I will not name one without a docket entry.
• No PACER-level document images were reviewed; the appearance list is drawn from the Justia and PacerMonitor docket transcriptions of ECF Nos. 10–12, cross-checked against Law360's attorney-firm page and Cooley's own bio, plus the New York attorney registration record.

Sources

• Docket sheet, Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Firstrade Secs. Inc., No. 1:25-cv-06322 (E.D.N.Y.): https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nyedce/1:2025cv06322/538785 (Dkts. 9–15)
• PacerMonitor case page: https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61169325/Cedar_Lane_Technologies_Inc_v_Firstrade_Securities_Inc
• Law360 attorney profile, Michael Berkovits (Cooley, New York): https://www.law360.com/firms/cooley/attorneys/michael-berkovits
• Cooley firm bio: https://www.cooley.com/people/michael-berkovits/in-depth
• NY attorney registration (Reg. #4927935, Cooley LLP, 55 Hudson Yards): https://opengovus.com/new-york-state-attorney/4927935
• Case outcome summary (Rule 41 dismissal, pre-answer): https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-vs-firstrade-securities-voluntary-dismissal-in-fintech-trading-patent-case-patsnap-eureka/