Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. iHeartMedia

Good initial grounding. Let me verify the complaint's substance, the dismissal, and any IPR linkage.

Case Overview — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. iHeartMedia Inc., No. 1:20-cv-00472 (W.D. Tex.)

Parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian patent-holding entity — widely characterized in the trade press as an NPE/PAE — that does not itself make or sell products and instead monetizes an acquired portfolio through sequential licensing campaigns. Its president, Greg Benoit, has described the company's model openly, and IAM identified Cedar Lane as the single most frequent patent plaintiff of 2022, with a reported 96% settlement rate across terminated cases and a strong preference for W.D. Tex. (https://www.iam-media.com/index.php/industry/broadcasting?page=13). IPWatchdog's filing roundups tag Cedar Lane's assertions with "[Steephill Technologies, IV]" — i.e., the patents trace to Intellectual Ventures-sourced assets — though I have not independently verified the chain of title for the '867 specifically. The defendant, iHeartMedia, Inc., is the largest U.S. radio broadcaster (a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas), operating roughly 860 terrestrial stations plus the iHeartRadio streaming/podcast platform. Cedar Lane's own counsel in this action was Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Dkt. 4), a high-volume filer who handled much of the campaign. Per DISH Network's 10-K disclosure in a parallel Cedar Lane suit, Cedar Lane "is a non-practicing entity that has filed more than 75 patent infringement lawsuits" (https://capedge.com/filing/[1042642](/patent/1042642)/0001558370-22-003448/10K-2021FY).

Accused technology and patents. The complaint (Dkt. 1, filed May 1, 2020) was a six-patent assertion, not a single-patent case: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,452,609, 6,502,194, 6,526,411, 6,721,489, 8,165,867 and 8,805,830 (IPWatchdog's May 6, 2020 roundup lists exactly this set for No. 1:20-cv-00472, https://ipwatchdog.com/2020/05/06/patent-filings-roundup-blackberry-accused-abuse-paypal-isnt-playing-wsou-earns-its-frequent-filer-card/; the Korean IP Protection Agency's W.D. Tex. docket summary lists the same six). The asserted family, as DISH summarized it in the companion case, "relate[s] to streaming digital audio to a home audio system; aspects of play lists and purchased content; and voice control" — a fair description of the accused functionality here, i.e., iHeartRadio's on-demand streaming, playlist/curation features, and voice-command interface. One-line sketches of the verified patents: the '194 patent, "System for playback of network audio material on demand," claims client-server streaming of audio over a network; the '411 patent, "System and method for creating dynamic playlists," claims automated/rule-based playlist generation; the '489 patent, "Play list manager," claims user management of playlist content; and the '867 patent, "Methods for translating a device command," filed September 15, 2000 and issued April 24, 2012, claims translating a captured item (notably a spoken sentence) into a machine-usable command/written expression so one wireless device can control another in real time — Unified Patents glosses it as "wirelessly controlling an electronic device with another electronic device in real time" (https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/AymDhWe8pwshAiJHD). I could not verify the titles of the '609 and '830 patents from a primary source; the '830 appears to sit in the same family as the '177/'443 "User interface for simultaneous management of owned and unowned inventory" patents Cedar Lane asserted against DISH, but that is inference, not confirmation. The case was voluntarily dismissed before any claim chart, invalidity contention, or Markman practice became public, so the precise accused instrumentalities are not documented on the docket.

Posture, venue, and significance. Filed May 1, 2020 in the Austin Division of the Western District of Texas and assigned to Judge Robert Pitman (with Magistrate Judge Austin designated for referral) — not to Judge Alan Albright in Waco, where much of the 2020 W.D. Tex. NPE wave landed. Venue here was unusually clean as a doctrinal matter: iHeartMedia is headquartered in San Antonio, inside the district, so residency under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) was straightforward and the case did not depend on the divisional contortions that later drew In re Google/Apple mandamus scrutiny. The docket reflects a pure pre-answer settlement track: three successive joint motions to extend iHeart's response deadline (Dkt. 7 on May 26, Dkt. 9 on July 21, Dkt. 10 on Aug. 20, 2020), pushing the answer date from July 27 to Aug. 26 to Sept. 25, 2020, followed by Cedar Lane's Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (Dkt. 11, Sept. 28, 2020) and Judge Pitman's order closing the case the next day (Dkt. 12, Sept. 29, 2020). No answer, motion to dismiss, or IPR petition was ever filed by iHeart; the sources I reviewed do not state whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice, and no license or settlement terms are disclosed on the public docket — consistent with the 96% settlement pattern IAM reported for Cedar Lane, but not proof of it in this instance. The case matters chiefly as a data point in three larger stories. First, it is one node in a coordinated, near-simultaneous campaign: Cedar Lane filed against Sirius XM the same day (No. 3:20-cv-01103) and against Comcast, Disney, DISH, ViacomCBS, LiveXLive, Deezer, D-Link, TCL, LG and others over the following months, asserting the '867 against at least D-Link, Disney, DISH, Comcast, LG, ViacomCBS, TCL and SiriusXM. Second, it illustrates defensive-cost economics against a broadcast/streaming industry still restructuring — iHeartMedia had emerged from Chapter 11 in 2019 — where a fast nuisance-value license beats a merits fight. Third, it sits alongside the PTAB track: Unified Patents had already petitioned for IPR of Cedar Lane's U.S. 7,173,177 in IPR2020-00006 (filed Oct. 3, 2019; instituted Mar. 18, 2020), and later ran a PATROLL crowdsourcing contest on the '867 itself, offering $3,000 for prior art on at least claim 1 from Jan. 20 to Mar. 1, 2021, with the prize awarded to Vibhor Dimri (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/4/20/3000-awarded-for-cedar-lane-prior-art). I found no instituted IPR against the '867, so the invalidity pressure on that patent came from crowd-sourced prior art rather than an adjudicated PTAB outcome.

Sourcing caveats. The caption, case number (1:20-cv-00472), filing date (May 1, 2020), Judge Pitman assignment, and the dismissal sequence are confirmed by the Unified Patents civil docket and Patexia document list for the case. The six-patent scope of the complaint rests on the IPWatchdog roundup and the Korean IP Office summary rather than the complaint PDF itself — note this corrects the existing case summary's single-patent ('867-only) framing. Titles for the '609 and '830 patents, the prejudice status of the dismissal, and any settlement consideration are not verified.

Confirmed the basic docket (1:20-cv-00472, Judge Pitman) and a voluntary dismissal in Sept. 2020. Now let me verify whether there was any re-filing, and check for PTAB proceedings on the '867 patent.

Now let me pin down PTAB activity on the '867 patent and whether iHeart was ever re-sued.

Bottom line

Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. iHeartMedia Inc., No. 1:20-cv-00472 (W.D. Tex.) — the case the existing summary flagged as unconfirmed is now confirmed: filed 2020-05-01, assigned to Judge Robert Pitman (Magistrate Judge Austin referral designation), and voluntarily dismissed by Cedar Lane on 2020-09-28/29, roughly five months later, before iHeartMedia ever answered. There was no answer, no counterclaim, no motion practice on the merits, no Markman, no discovery, no trial, no appeal. I found no PTAB IPR or PGR against US 8,165,867 in any search; the only Cedar Lane PTAB proceeding I could locate concerns a different patent (US 7,173,177).

This is a thin docket, so most of the requested categories resolve to "did not occur." I flag each such negative explicitly and note where the negative rests on the docket record versus merely on an absence of search hits.

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Chronology

Filing and initial pleadings

The complaint was filed in the W.D. Tex. Austin division on 2020-05-01 with a jury demand. iHeartMedia never filed an answer, counterclaim, or Rule 12 motion. Instead, the parties filed three successive joint extension motions (May, July, August 2020), each granted by text order, pushing the response deadline from an original date in spring 2020 to 2020-09-25 — one day before Cedar Lane dismissed. The pattern (joint extensions immediately followed by voluntary dismissal) is consistent with parallel settlement/license discussions, but I did not find any public settlement agreement or license announcement, so that inference is unsourced.

Patents asserted — a discrepancy worth verifying. Unified Patents' PATROLL and litigation records identify only US 8,165,867 ("Methods for translating a device command," issued 2012-04-24, filed 2000-09-15) as asserted against iHeartMedia. However, the Korea IP Protection Agency (KOIPA/KOTRA) dispute database entry for No. 1:20-cv-00472 lists six patents: US 6,452,609; 6,502,194; 6,526,411; 6,721,489; 8,165,867; and 8,805,830. Cedar Lane's contemporaneous complaints in this campaign did assert overlapping subsets of playlist/streaming patents (per Mondaq's October 2020 roundup, describing the "wirelessly controlling a device with another device in real time" '867 patent alongside playlist patents 6,502,194 / 6,526,411 / 6,721,489 and 6,452,609). I could not retrieve the text of Dkt. 1 itself, so the exact asserted set is not definitively confirmed; treat the six-patent list as reported-but-unverified and the '867 patent as the one independently corroborated.

Pre-trial motions of substance

None. No motion to dismiss, no § 1404(a)/§ 1406 transfer motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, no summary judgment motion, no discovery motions, no motion to compel. The only motions on the docket are the three uncontested joint extension motions.

Claim construction (Markman)

None. The case never reached a scheduling order, so no Markman briefing, hearing, or order exists. (The docket contains no scheduling order or status-conference entry in any of the retrieved records.)

Discovery milestones

None of strategic significance. No Rule 26(f) conference order, no infringement or invalidity contentions, no expert reports, no depositions. The case terminated during the pleading-extension phase.

Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial setting, no verdict, no JMOL/Rule 50 or Rule 59 motions, no fee motion under § 285 or Rule 54. No appeal was taken, so there is no Federal Circuit docket for this case.

Final disposition

Voluntary dismissal with the court's closing order on 2020-09-29. Because iHeart had not served an answer and no summary-judgment motion was pending, Cedar Lane had an unconditional unilateral right to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i). I could not confirm from the retrieved docket text whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice — the docket entry reads simply "NOTICE of Voluntary Dismissal." Given the absence of any answer, a without-prejudice dismissal is the mechanically available default, and a refiling would therefore have remained legally possible; but no second Cedar Lane–iHeartMedia suit appears in the related-case listings for 1:20-cv-00472 (which do list later 2021 Cedar Lane filings against other defendants). Present posture: closed; no live litigation between these parties on the '867 patent that I can locate.

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Parallel PTAB / PGR proceedings

• No IPR or PGR on US 8,165,867 was located. Searches of PTAB-related materials and Unified Patents' own records produced no petition, institution decision, or final written decision directed to the '867 patent. Given the case died in five months and Cedar Lane's '867 assertions against other defendants were also mostly short-lived, the absence of a PTAB challenge is unsurprising.
• Unified Patents' PATROLL prior-art contest on the '867 patent — announced 2021-01-20 ($3,000 prize, claim 1, contest closing 2021-03-01); winner Vibhor Dimri announced 2021-04-20, with APEX STANDARDS supplying patent, non-patent, and claim-charting submissions. This is crowdsourced prior art, not a PTAB filing; whether it ripened into a petition is not established in any source I found.
• The only Cedar Lane PTAB case I could confirm is on a different patent: Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Techs. Inc., IPR2020-00006 on US 7,173,177 (petition 2019-10-03; instituted 2020-03-18; final written decision 2021-02-12 holding the asserted independent claim unpatentable; rehearing denied 2021-12-08). That patent was not at issue in the iHeartMedia suit, and the IPR therefore had no effect on this litigation.
• Ex parte reexamination activity in Cedar Lane's campaign concerned other patents: DISH Network's 10-K/S-4 disclosures describe requests filed in 2020 on the '784, '799, '318 and '970 patents, with grants on 2020-11-02, 2020-11-20, 2020-12-14 and 2020-12-15. Nothing on the '867 patent.

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Strategic read

1. This case is a data point in a portfolio-wide file-and-settle campaign, not a merits litigations. Cedar Lane (formed April 2019, funded by IV patent divestitures) named iHeartMedia in a wave of streaming-service complaints; the overwhelming majority of these cases ended in voluntary dismissal within weeks or months, often after joint extensions and without an answer. The '867 patent alone was asserted against D-Link, Disney, DISH, Comcast, LG, iHeartMedia, ViacomCBS, TCL and SiriusXM, and later against Bose, Whirlpool, Cox, Sonos and a long list of consumer-electronics defendants — nearly all dismissed voluntarily (e.g., Bose, 6:21-cv-00280, dismissed 2021-04-27; Whirlpool, 1:21-cv-00529, dismissed 2021-06-03; Cox, 1:22-cv-00471, dismissed 2022-05-09).
2. Credibility pressure on the campaign was mounting in exactly this window. On 2020-10-01, Judge Vince Chhabria (N.D. Cal.) struck Cedar Lane's third amended complaint in the Blackmagic Design case, dismissed induced/contributory claims, and

Counsel of record for the plaintiff

Bottom line: One attorney appeared for Cedar Lane Technologies in this action — Isaac Phillip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago), who was sole counsel of record, lead counsel, and the only filer on the docket. No local counsel, co-counsel, or in-house attorney ever entered an appearance. The case closed by voluntary dismissal roughly five months after filing, which is why the appearance list never grew.

Case identification (correcting/confirming the metadata)

Note on the patent: the source you relied on (Unified Patents) lists only US 8,165,867, and the '867 patent was indeed asserted, but reporting on the complaint indicates Cedar Lane pleaded six patents against iHeartMedia — US 6,452,609, 6,502,194, 6,526,411, 6,721,489, 8,165,867, and 8,805,830 — consistent with the other complaints in that campaign (e.g., the DISH and Disney suits filed the same period). I could not open the complaint itself to confirm the exact count, so treat the "six patents" point as reported rather than docket-verified.

Plaintiff's counsel of record

No other attorney — no W.D. Tex. local counsel, no co-counsel from another firm, and no Cedar Lane in-house lawyer — appears anywhere on the docket. Cedar Lane is a British Columbia-formed, non-practicing entity whose director is Greg Benoit; Benoit is a business principal, not an attorney of record, and I would not list him as counsel.

What is not verifiable / caveats

• No pro hac vice motion appears on this docket. In several of Rabicoff's other cases he appeared with a "(Pro Hac Vice admission to be filed)" notation, and his W.D. Tex. admission status became an issue in the N.D. Cal. proceeding. Here, nothing on the face of the docket shows a PHV application, which suggests he was proceeding on some form of Texas/W.D. Tex. admission — but I could not confirm his bar admission status in W.D. Tex., so I state it as unresolved rather than assume either way.
• Nothing is sealed in this case; the pleadings and the dismissal papers are public. The absence of additional counsel is therefore a real absence, not a sealing artifact.
• Defendant's counsel: iHeartMedia's appearances (if any) do not appear in the docket excerpts I could retrieve before the case closed, so I cannot name defense counsel without risking fabrication. The docket shows only joint extension motions filed by plaintiff's counsel and no answer or Rule 12 motion from iHeartMedia.
• No later iHeartMedia suit located. Your metadata describes a W.D. Tex. action involving only the '867 patent; the only Cedar Lane–iHeartMedia case I can confirm is this 2020 one. If your source reflects a separate, later filing, I could not find it — flag that as unconfirmed rather than assume it exists.

Sources

• PACER docket 1:20-cv-00472 (W.D. Tex.), as mirrored on Unified Patents' litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/1:20-cv-00472) and Patexia's document list (services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-iHeartMedia-Inc-id-136937/documents) — appearance, motions, dismissal, closing order.
• Unified Patents PATROLL contest page and Jan. 20, 2021 insight post (asserted-against list including iHeart Media).
• In re Isaac Rabicoff, No. 20-mc-80206-JD (N.D. Cal.), Standing Committee Final Report and Judge Chhabria's Nov. 19, 2020 sanctions/referral order in No. 20-cv-01302-VC (public PDFs via Justia/CourtListener).
• CourtListener party records for Cedar Lane cases (current Rabicoff Law LLC address/phone).
• RPX/Law.com reporting on Cedar Lane's formation, Greg Benoit, and the campaign's patent families.

Bottom line

No attorney has appeared of record for iHeartMedia in this case. The docket for Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. iHeartMedia Inc., No. 1:20-cv-00472 (W.D. Tex., Austin Div.) contains only one notice of attorney appearance — plaintiff's. Defendant-side counsel never filed an appearance, answer, Rule 7.1 disclosure, or any signed paper before the case was dismissed. I therefore cannot give you a defense counsel name, firm, or office, and I will not guess at one.

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1. Case identification (updating the prior summary)

The prior summary flagged the case number, filing date, and disposition as unconfirmed. They are now confirmed from docket-derived sources:

Sources: Unified Patents civil docket; Patexia docket sheet.

Caveat on the patent count: the metadata in your prompt lists only US 8,165,867. The Korean IP Protection Agency's case abstract for 1:20-cv-00472 reports the complaint asserted six patents: 6,452,609; 6,502,194; 6,526,411; 6,721,489; 8,165,867; and 8,805,830 (KOTRA abstract). The '867 patent is the one Unified Patents' PATROLL program targeted (and paid a $3,000 prior-art award on in April 2021) (Unified).

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2. What the docket actually shows on counsel

Plaintiff's counsel of record (for contrast/reference):

• Isaac Phillip Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC, Chicago, IL — Dkt. 4, Notice of Attorney Appearance (5/1/2020); signed the complaint, Rule 7.1 disclosure, all three extension motions, and the voluntary dismissal. Rabicoff is Cedar Lane's serial counsel across its NPE campaign (he appears as Cedar Lane's counsel in dozens of W.D. Tex., D. Del., E.D. Tex., and S.D.N.Y. filings).

Defendant's counsel of record: none.

The docket's full substantive sequence:

1. Dkt. 1 — Complaint (5/1/2020); Dkt. 2 — Rule 7.1 disclosure (plaintiff); Dkt. 3 — summons request; Dkt. 4 — Rabicoff appearance; summons issued as to iHeartMedia Inc.
2. Dkt. 7 (5/26/2020), Dkt. 9 (7/21/2020), Dkt. 10 (8/20/2020) — three "Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer," each filed by Rabicoff and each granted by text order, pushing iHeart's response deadline from 7/27/2020 → 8/26/2020 → 9/25/2020.
3. Dkt. 11 — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (9/28/2020), three days after the final answer deadline.
4. Dkt. 12 — Order Closing Case; Dkt. 13 — Report on Patent to USPTO.

Two inferences worth flagging, both labeled as inferences:

• The motions are captioned "Joint," which means iHeart's litigation counsel was in contact with Rabicoff and consented to the extensions. But a joint motion can be filed by one side's counsel, and here the ECF filer on all three is Rabicoff. Those attorneys are not identified anywhere in the public docket.
• No answer, motion to dismiss, or counterclaim was ever filed, so no defense argument or signature block exists in the record from which to identify iHeart's lawyers.

There were also no inter partes review petitions on the '867 patent by iHeart that I could locate; the only iHeart PTAB activity I found is unrelated — iHeartMedia, LLC as petitioner in a CBM proceeding on US 7,797,172, where petitioner's counsel was O'Melveny & Myers LLP (Mark J. Pensabene, Brian Cook) per a May 23, 2016 PTAB service certificate (PTAB document). Do not treat that as counsel in this case — different matter, different patent, and six years earlier. I mention it only because it is the one verified iHeart patent-counsel data point I could source.

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3. Where defense counsel would be found if it exists

If you need a name, these are the only routes, and each has a cost/limitation:

1. PACER docket report for 1:20-cv-00472 — I was working from Unified Patents' and Patexia's mirrors, which reproduce the docket text but strip party/attorney metadata. A native PACER docket sheet would settle definitively whether any appearance was entered and withdrawn (some W.D. Tex. appearances in 2020 were entered and then withdrawn after settlement, and the mirrors do not always capture N/A text entries).
2. The three joint motions themselves (Dkts. 7, 9, 10) — each is a 3-page PDF with a signature block that frequently includes defense counsel's name and firm, even where no appearance was separately filed. This is the single highest-value document to pull. CourtListener's RECAP archive does not appear to hold these for this case number; PACER purchase would be required.
3. The dismissal papers (Dkt. 11) — a two-page notice plus proposed order. If dismissal was pursuant to a settlement/license, the notice typically does not name defense counsel, but the certificate of service (if any) would.
4. iHeartMedia's SEC disclosures / 10-Q litigation notes for Q2–Q3 2020 — iHeart was in Chapter 11 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. No. 18-31274) through early 2020 and emerged in 2020, so this suit was filed against a just-reorganized debtor; the claims-register and post-emergence litigation disclosures may reference this adversary but will not name outside counsel.
5. Cedar Lane's own filings elsewhere — Cedar Lane's complaints in parallel suits list related cases but not opposing counsel.

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4. Fitness-for-use statement

• Usable now: the case number, court, judge, filing date, dismissal date, dismissal mechanism, the identity of plaintiff's counsel, the extension-motion timeline, and the fact that iHeart never answered.
• Not established and should not be stated as fact: any defense attorney name, firm, office, or role. I found zero sourced defense-side attorney in this matter. Any name you see attributed to iHeart in this case (including O'Melveny, Haynes and Boone, or iHeart's in-house team) is either from a different Cedar Lane suit against a different defendant or from an unrelated iHeart patent/defamation matter — not counsel of record here.
• Caveat on my method: these findings rest on docket mirrors and secondary aggregators, not a live PACER pull. The mirrors are consistent with each other on the 13-entry docket and the absence of a defense appearance, but a PACER docket report and the Dkts. 7/9/10 signature blocks are the confirmatory step I could not complete within this session.