Litigation

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Moxa

Patents at issue (1)

6972790

Defendants (1)

Summary

Named in Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for US 6,972,790.

Case overview & background

Plain-language overview of the case: parties, accused product, patents at issue, and why the suit matters.

I'll research this case to build an accurate overview. Let me start with searches on the parties, patent, and docket.

Let me dig into the docket, the parties' profiles, and the patent's provenance and validity history.

Case Overview — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Moxa Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00778 (W.D. Tex., Waco Div.)

The parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a patent monetization entity, not an operating company. It is registered in Nelson, British Columbia (560 Baker St.), was established around 2019, and its asserted portfolio consists of acquired patents — the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies every Cedar Lane suit under the "acquired patents" asserter category, and third-party analyses (including a Korean IP Office report on NPE activity affecting Korean companies) describe Cedar Lane as acquiring patents originating with Intellectual Ventures and asserting them in U.S. district courts in the computer/AV and image-data-processing space. It is represented in this matter by Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Alexandria, VA), who filed the complaint and appears as sole plaintiff counsel on the docket (Docs. 1–2). Rabicoff's high-volume filing practice has been the subject of judicial scrutiny elsewhere — Judge Vince Chhabria sanctioned him $1,000 under Rule 11 in Cedar Lane Techs. v. Blackmagic Design (N.D. Cal.) and referred him to that district's standing committee on professional conduct (No. 20-cv-01302-VC, Doc. 61, Nov. 19, 2020) — which is relevant background to how this campaign was litigated, though no such issue arose on the Moxa docket. Defendant Moxa Inc. is the U.S. facing arm of Moxa Group (founded 1987 in Taiwan), a manufacturer of industrial networking, industrial computing and industrial IP-video-surveillance equipment; its U.S. operations are based in Brea, California (Moxa Americas Inc.). Moxa's product lines include industrial Ethernet switches, serial device servers, industrial embedded computers, and the VPort line of industrial IP cameras, video servers/encoders and NVRs.

The accused technology and the patent. The case metadata identifies a single patent-in-suit: U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790, "Host interface for imaging arrays" (inventor Mark Suska; application filed Dec. 21, 2000; issued Dec. 6, 2005). In one line: it claims an interface — preferably fabricated on the same die as a CMOS image sensor — that buffers pixel data from the imaging array in a memory such as a FIFO, then generates an interrupt or bus-request signal to the host processor when a threshold quantity of data has accumulated, and clocks the data out to the processor at the processor's rate, eliminating "glue logic" between the sensor's video-style output and an address-based host bus ('790 Abstract & col. 1–2). That claim set maps naturally onto camera and video-encoder hardware, which is consistent with the target set in Cedar Lane's campaign; but the record does not publicly name the accused Moxa products. Like Cedar Lane's other complaints in this wave, the Moxa complaint is a short-form template that incorporates infringement claim charts by reference (Exhibits 4–6) and does not attach them to the public filing, so the specific accused SKUs and claim charts are not available from public sources. Two caveats worth flagging: (1) third-party complaint analyses of this very docket describe the complaint as asserting three patents — the '790 plus U.S. 6,473,527 (module interfacing A/D conversion means to JPEG compression means) and U.S. 8,537,242 (divisional of the '790, method claims for the same FIFO/interrupt interface) — so the precise patent count should be confirmed against PACER, though the '790 is the patent the Stanford database and the case metadata associate with this suit; and (2) per Patsnap's patent records, the '790's estimated expiry was August 1, 2023, meaning Cedar Lane was asserting a patent in its final year, with damages confined to the six-year lookback from the July 2022 filing.

Procedural posture and why it matters. Cedar Lane filed on July 13, 2022 in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas before Judge Alan D. Albright — then the busiest and most plaintiff-favorable patent courtroom in the country. Moxa was served July 19, 2022 (Doc. 7), later waived service effective August 30 with an answer due November 28, 2022 (Doc. 8), and the case was reset against Albright's updated standing orders in mid-September (Doc. 9/entry of Sept. 16, 2022). Moxa never answered or moved to dismiss. On September 26, 2022, Cedar Lane filed a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice (Doc. 9), which Judge Albright granted on March 6, 2023 (Doc. 10), with the AO-120 report sent to the PTO (Doc. 11). There was no Markman, no summary judgment, no trial, and no Federal Circuit or PTAB proceeding on the '790. The case is therefore notable less for anything decided than for what it illustrates: it is a single docket in a very large, near-uniformly terminal NPE campaign. Cedar Lane filed hundreds of suits from 2019 onward (a Korean IP Office survey counted roughly 367 actions, the overwhelming majority resolved by settlement or dismissal), and IAM/Docket Navigator data ranked it the dominant filer of U.S. computer-sector patent cases in 2022 with a reported 98% settlement rate. The Moxa suit sits squarely in Cedar Lane's September–October 2022 W.D. Tex. surge against industrial-camera and networking vendors — NEXCOM (6:22-cv-00946), Provision-ISR (6:22-cv-00948), Silent Sentinel (6:22-cv-00960), Tattile (6:22-cv-00962), Vanguard (6:22-cv-00968), Vimar (6:22-cv-00971), Zhuhai RaySharp (6:22-cv-01030), PixArt (6:22-cv-01077), Motorola Solutions (6:22-cv-01111), Ricoh (6:22-cv-01119), Konica Minolta (6:22-cv-01074) and MediaTek (6:22-cv-01029) — every one of which was voluntarily dismissed, most within weeks to months. Notably, the portfolio was not untested: Unified Patents had already prevailed in an IPR against a different Cedar Lane patent (U.S. 7,173,177), the PTAB instituting in March 2020 and issuing a final written decision on February 12, 2021 holding the asserted independent claim unpatentable. That outcome is the strategic backdrop for the image-sensor patents: rather than litigating validity, defendants overwhelmingly chose the cheaper path of settlement or agreed dismissal, and the '790 itself shows no recorded IPR challenge — so no tribunal ever passed on its validity. In market terms, the case is a compact illustration of how industrial-IoT and video-surveillance hardware makers — frequently mid-sized, frequently foreign (Taiwan, Korea, Israel, Italy, China) — became settlement targets under a template complaint in a plaintiff-friendly division, with cost-of-defense economics, rather than claim scope, driving outcomes.

Sourcing notes and open questions

  • Docket facts (dates, doc numbers, judge, dismissal) are grounded in the Patexia docket report for 6:22-cv-00778 and the Stanford NPE database entry; the complaint, service and dismissal sequence (Docs. 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) is consistent across both.
  • The '790's specification, claims and prosecution details are drawn from the patent text as summarized in third-party complaint analyses (Ex Parte AI Lab, 6:22-cv-00778 complaint analysis) and Patsnap's patent record (inventor, filing/issue dates, estimated expiry Aug. 1, 2023).
  • Unverified / do not treat as established: the specific Moxa products accused (claim-chart exhibits were not publicly filed); whether the Moxa complaint asserted one patent or three; whether the dismissal reflected a settlement, a license, or simple abandonment (no public settlement record; the dismissal was without prejudice and Moxa never appeared); the original assignee of the '790 prior to Cedar Lane's acquisition (I found no source confirming the chain from Intellectual Ventures for this specific patent — the IV link is documented for the Cedar Lane portfolio generally, and for the '177 patent specifically, not verified patent-by-patent); and any Moxa revenue or market-share figures.
  • Useful primary links: Stanford NPE DB patent page (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6972790); Patexia docket (https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-Moxa-Inc-id-[165251](/patent/165251)/documents); Unified Patents IPR announcement re U.S. 7,173,177 (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights); N.D. Cal. sanctions/referral order in Cedar Lane v. Blackmagic Design (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-01302/pdf/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-01302-9.pdf).

Key legal developments & outcome

Major rulings, motions, claim construction, settlements, and the present posture or final disposition.

I'll research this case systematically across court dockets, PTAB records, and legal press.

Key docket found. Let me now dig into the docket details, any IPR proceedings, and related actions.

Now let me check PTAB proceedings on the '790 patent and broader context on the Cedar Lane campaign.

Bottom Line

Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Moxa Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00778 (W.D. Tex., Judge Alan D. Albright), was a short-lived, pleading-stage case. It was filed 2022-07-13 and ended on 2023-03-06 when Judge Albright granted Cedar Lane's own voluntary dismissal without prejudice (Docs. 9–10). Moxa never answered, never counterclaimed, and no substantive motion, Markman proceeding, discovery, trial, or appeal ever occurred. There is no merits adjudication of U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 in this case.

1. Chronology of Docket Events

Date Doc. Event
2022-07-13 1 Complaint for patent infringement filed (jury demand); case assigned to Judge Albright; form AO-120 sent to USPTO
2022-07-13 2 Notice of appearance of Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) for Cedar Lane
2022-07-13 3 Rule 7.1 disclosure statement (no parent/affiliate — consistent with NPE status)
2022-07-13 4–6 Request for summons; summons issued as to Moxa Inc.
2022-07-19 7 Moxa served; answer due 2022-08-09 (noted on docket 2022-08-23)
2022-08-30 8 Waiver of service sent to Moxa; answer deadline reset to 2022-11-28 (filed 2022-09-09)
2022-09-16 — Clerk's notice re: Judge Albright's updated standing orders (procedural only)
2022-09-26 9 Cedar Lane's Motion to Dismiss / Notice of Voluntary Dismissal Without Prejudice, with proposed order
2023-03-06 10 Order granting Doc. 9, signed by Judge Albright
2023-03-06 11 Report on Patent/Trademark (35 U.S.C. § 290) sent to USPTO; case closed

Sources: PACER-derived docket reproduced at Patexia; Ex Parte AI docket (status: Closed); Stanford NPE Litigation Database, Case 257709.

2. Filing and Initial Pleadings

  • Asserted patents. The complaint pleaded three patents, not just the '790: U.S. 6,473,527 ("Module and method for interfacing analog/digital converting means and JPEG compression means"), U.S. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays," issued 2005-12-06), and U.S. 8,537,242 ("Host interface for imaging arrays," a divisional of the '790 application). This tracks Cedar Lane's standard three-patent camera/scanner package. See complaint analysis at Ex Parte AI; the '527 entry in the Stanford database also lists this case.
  • '790 theory. Cedar Lane alleged direct infringement under § 271(a) and induced infringement under § 271(b) based on Moxa's sale of image-capture/networking products and its customer instructions. The '790 claims recited a memory buffering imaging-array data at a rate set by clocking signals, a signal generator that signals the host processor "in response to the quantity of data in the memory," and a circuit transferring data out at a rate determined by the processor system (i.e., an on-chip FIFO/interrupt interface for CMOS sensors).
  • Notable pleading deficiency. The claim charts were incorporated by reference as Exhibits 4–6 but were not attached to the complaint as filed (Compl. ¶¶ 13, 15–16, 19, 24–25, 28) — a recurring Cedar Lane practice and an obvious early target for a motion to dismiss or a Rule 12(e) motion for a more definite statement.
  • Answer / counterclaims: NONE. Moxa's deadline was extended via waiver to 2022-11-28, but the case was dismissed before any responsive pleading was filed. There is no answer, no affirmative defenses, no invalidity or non-infringement counterclaim, and no declaratory-judgment claim in the record. The Stanford database likewise codes this case as "Declaratory Judgment: No."

3. Pre-Trial Motions of Substance — None

This is the defining feature of the case. The only motion filed was Cedar Lane's own dismissal motion.

  • Motion to dismiss: only Cedar Lane's Doc. 9 (voluntary dismissal). No Rule 12(b)(2)/(3)/(6) motion by Moxa; no § 101 motion.
  • Motion to transfer venue: none. (Had Moxa appeared, a § 1404(a) transfer motion would have been a likely defense given Moxa's U.S. operations in California — but nothing was filed.)
  • Motion to stay pending IPR: none (consistent with no IPR being identified — see § 8).
  • Summary judgment: none.
  • Procedural note. Because Moxa had not yet served an answer or a summary-judgment motion, Cedar Lane could have dismissed as of right under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i); instead it filed a motion with a proposed order, which required judicial approval under Rule 41(a)(2). The ~5-month gap between the motion (2022-09-26) and the order (2023-03-06) is consistent with the parties completing a confidential settlement/license and holding the dismissal open until terms closed — but the record does not disclose any settlement agreement, and the docket contains no stipulation or consideration recited. Treat the settlement inference as circumstantial, not documented.

4. Claim Construction (Markman) — Did Not Occur

The case was dismissed roughly two months after service was formalized and before any scheduling order, discovery, or Markman briefing. No claim construction order, no Markman hearing, and no Albright-form claim construction opinion exists for the '790 in this case. For practical purposes, Cedar Lane obtained zero precedential or persuasive claim-construction guidance on the '790 from this litigation.

5. Discovery Milestones — None of Significance

No Rule 26(f) conference, no scheduling order, no infringement or invalidity

Plaintiff representatives

Counsel of record for the plaintiff(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

I'll research the counsel of record for Cedar Lane Technologies in this case against Moxa.

Plaintiff's counsel of record — Cedar Lane Techs., Inc. v. Moxa Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00778 (W.D. Tex., Judge Alan D. Albright)

Bottom line: there is exactly one attorney of record for the plaintiff in this case — Isaac Phillip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who filed the complaint and every subsequent submission himself. No local counsel, no second firm, and no in‑house counsel ever appeared for Cedar Lane. The defendant (Moxa) never appeared at all; the case ended by voluntary dismissal.

Counsel table

Attorney Role Firm / office One-line note
Isaac Phillip Rabicoff Lead counsel and sole attorney of record (effectively also acting as local counsel by default — no separate local-counsel appearance was filed) Rabicoff Law LLC — sole practitioner/owner. Address of record in Cedar Lane's W.D. Tex. filings of this era: 5680 King Centre Dr., Suite 645, Alexandria, VA 22315; firm is now listed at 4311 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 315, Chicago, IL 60613 Serial patent filer and the near-exclusive outside counsel for Cedar Lane's nationwide assertion campaign (hundreds of suits, largely W.D. Tex. and E.D. Tex.), asserting acquired Intellectual Ventures imaging/compression patents — including the '527, '790 and '242 patents at issue here

Docket grounding

The entire plaintiff-side record in this case carries Rabicoff's electronic signature (source: Patexia docket reproduction for No. 6:22-cv-00778, https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-Moxa-Inc-id-165251/documents):

  • Dkt. 1 — Complaint, filed 7/13/2022 (Rabicoff, Isaac).
  • Dkt. 2 — Notice of Attorney Appearance by Isaac Rabicoff on behalf of Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (7/13/2022) — the operative appearance.
  • Dkt. 3 — Rule 7.1 Disclosure Statement (Rabicoff).
  • Dkt. 4–5 — Summons request; AO‑120 Patent/Trademark form (Rabicoff).
  • Dkt. 7 — Summons Returned Executed (Moxa served 7/19/2022) (Rabicoff).
  • Dkt. 8 — Waiver of Service Returned Executed, waiver sent 8/30/2022, answer due 11/28/2022 (Rabicoff).
  • Dkt. 9 — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal Without Prejudice filed as a motion to dismiss (9/26/2022) (Rabicoff).
  • Dkt. 10 — Order Granting Dkt. 9, signed by Judge Albright (3/6/2023); Dkt. 11 — Report on Patent/Trademark to USPTO. Case closed.

There is no pro hac vice motion, no designation of local counsel, and no additional notice of appearance anywhere on this docket. Cedar Lane's corporate disclosure statement (Dkt. 3) was also signed by Rabicoff, and no Cedar Lane in-house lawyer ever entered an appearance.

Supporting sourcing on Rabicoff / the firm

Caveats / what I could not verify

  1. Which office address appears in this complaint's signature block. I confirmed the Alexandria, VA address from contemporaneous (2021–2022) Cedar Lane W.D. Tex. filings and the Chicago address from later docket records. I did not retrieve page images of Dkt. 1 in this case, so the exact address used on 7/13/2022 is inferred, not confirmed. Rabicoff Law LLC is a one-attorney shop, so "office location" is a mailing-address question rather than a staffing one.
  2. Pro hac vice / bar admission. No PHV motion appears on this docket. Whether Rabicoff was admitted to the W.D. Tex. bar generally or proceeded under a standing admission is not something the docket shows; I am not asserting either.
  3. Patents asserted. The case metadata (and the Stanford NPE database entry) list only US 6,972,790. The complaint as analyzed in secondary sources also pleaded the '527 and '242 patents (see the Ex Parte complaint analysis for No. 6:22-cv-00778, https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/6:22-cv-00778/doc/analysis/1). This does not affect counsel identification but is worth reconciling in the case summary.
  4. Nothing is sealed on the plaintiff's side here — the docket is fully public; the gap is simply that Moxa never appeared, so there is no opposing counsel roster to compare against.

Defendant representatives

Counsel of record for the defendant(s): attorneys, firms, and roles (lead counsel, of counsel, local counsel).

Bottom line

No attorney ever entered an appearance for Moxa in this case. Cedar Lane Technologies, Inc. v. Moxa Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00778 (W.D. Tex., Judge Alan D. Albright), was filed 7/13/2022 and dismissed without prejudice on Cedar Lane's own motion roughly ten weeks later, before Moxa answered or appeared through counsel. The docket therefore contains no counsel of record for the defendant — no notice of appearance, no pro hac vice motion, no answer, no Rule 7.1 disclosure, and no motion practice by Moxa.

Docket evidence

The complete document list for the case (11 entries, closing 3/6/2023) is as follows:¹

Date Doc. Event Filer
7/13/2022 1–6 Complaint; Rabicoff appearance; Rule 7 disclosure; summons request; AO-120; summons issued Plaintiff / Clerk
8/23/2022 7 Summons Returned Executed — Moxa served 7/19/2022, answer due 8/9/2022 Rabicoff (Pl.)
9/9/2022 8 Waiver of Service Returned Executed — waiver sent 8/30/2022; answer due 11/28/2022 Rabicoff (Pl.)
9/26/2022 9 Motion to Dismiss (notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice) Rabicoff (Pl.)
3/6/2023 10–11 Order granting dismissal (Albright, J.); AO-120 sent to PTO Court / Clerk

Key points:

  • Every substantive filing in the case was made by plaintiff's counsel, Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC). No defense-side entry of any kind appears.²
  • The dismissal (D.I. 9, granted at D.I. 10) predates Moxa's answer deadline of 11/28/2022, so Moxa never had occasion to appear. This is the typical Cedar Lane "file-and-settle" pattern — the company obtained a reported ~96% settlement rate across its terminated cases³ — and it means there is no litigation conduct by Moxa in this docket to evaluate.
  • Caveat on the waiver form: D.I. 8 is the plaintiff's filing of the executed waiver. A signed waiver of service ordinarily bears the signature block of the person who signed on the defendant's behalf — frequently, but not always, defense counsel. The document image is not accessible through the free aggregators I could reach, so I cannot confirm whether an attorney name appears there. Even if one does, a signature on a waiver is not an appearance in the case, and I will not attribute counsel based on an unverified document.

What I could not verify

  • I found no Law360, Reuters Legal, or court-opinion coverage of this case naming Moxa's counsel; the case produced no opinion, no claim construction, and no IPR. No PTAB proceedings on the '790 patent naming Moxa as petitioner appear in the record.⁴
  • Secondary databases index the Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for the case,⁵ but these carry party and filing data only, not attorney records.
  • I did not locate a verified defense-side appearance in Moxa's other recent U.S. patent case (Fleet Connect Solutions LLC v. Moxa, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-01050, E.D. Tex., filed 12/14/2024); the portion of that docket I could retrieve shows only plaintiff's counsel (James McDonough, Jonathan Hardt, Carey Rozier). I therefore cannot responsibly name Moxa's regular outside patent counsel — doing so would be inference, not record evidence.

Context: plaintiff's counsel of record (for completeness)

  • Isaac Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago, IL) — sole attorney of record for Cedar Lane; he personally filed every paper in this case and is Cedar Lane's habitual counsel in its W.D. Tex. and D. Del. campaigns.¹ ²

Recommended next steps to confirm

If a definitive answer on the defense side is needed, pull D.I. 8 (executed waiver) and D.I. 9 from PACER for 6:22-cv-00778, and check whether Moxa's waiver signatory is an attorney and at which firm. That is the only place in this closed docket where a defense-side name could plausibly appear.

Sources

  1. Patexia Research, Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Moxa Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00778, Documents (full 11-entry docket listing) — https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-Moxa-Inc-id-165251/documents
  2. Ex Parte litigation analytics, case 6:22-cv-00778 (W.D. Tex., filed 7/13/2022, closed; Judge Albright) — https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/6:22-cv-00778/cedar-lane-tech-inc-v-moxa-inc
  3. IAM, "Examining the practice of Cedar Lane Technologies – America's top-filing NPE" (Mar. 20, 2023) (interview with Cedar Lane president Greg Benoit; 96% settlement rate among terminated cases) — https://www.iam-media.com/index.php/industry/hardware-devices-electronic-equipment?page=104
  4. Stanford NPE Litigation Database, U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790, case table (Cedar Lane v. Moxa, 6:22-cv-00778, W.D. Tex.) — https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6972790 ; case record — https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[257709](/patent/257709)
  5. Justia Dockets, Fleet Connect Solutions LLC v. Moxa, Inc., No. 2:24-cv-01050 (E.D. Tex.) — https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2024cv01050/[234861](/patent/234861)

No statement above is based on an attorney name I could not trace to a docket entry or firm publication; where the record is silent, I have said so rather than infer.

Record id: 6972790-cedar-lane-technologies-inc-v-moxa · edit in Admin