Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Openeye US

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

Let me dig into the specific docket and Openeye's business.

Now let me find the docket outcome and any IPR activity.

Case Overview: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Openeye US Inc., No. 1:22-cv-01505 (D. Del.)

The parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian entity formed in British Columbia on April 29, 2019, with a listed principal place of business in Nelson, B.C. and a litigation address that corresponds to Pigott & Co., an IP licensing firm. It is a classic non-practicing entity: according to a 2022 risk advisory from the Shenzhen IP Protection Center (drawing on Lex Machina data), Cedar Lane held roughly 193 U.S. patents — 191 of them acquired — and had filed approximately 325 patent suits in U.S. district courts, making it the most frequent patent plaintiff in the country in 2021. Its founder/director, Greg Benoit, is a lawyer with a long NPE-monetization background (former CEO of Patent Armory; he signed as authorized person for Steephill Technologies LLC, the Delaware vehicle through which the asserted family passed from Intellectual Ventures to Cedar Lane). Plaintiff's counsel in this case was Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) together with David W. deBruin of Napoli Shkolnik. The defendant, Openeye US Inc., is the U.S. operating business of OpenEye — a Liberty Lake, Washington company founded in 1999 that sells cloud-managed video surveillance: recorders/NVRs, IP cameras, and the OpenEye Web Services (OWS) platform with video analytics and point-of-sale/exception reporting. OpenEye has been a subsidiary of Alarm.com (Nasdaq: ALRM) since an October 2019 acquisition, and it is very much an operating company, not a patent holder — which is the archetypal posture for this campaign. Note that contemporaneous reporting (the November 2022 Retail Patent Litigation Report, published via Lexology) groups Openeye with Cedar Lane's other November 2022 defendants and lists three patents for that wave — 6,473,527, 6,972,790, and 8,537,242 — whereas the Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry and the case metadata here identify the '790 as the patent at issue in this suit. The publicly filed complaint in the Cedar Lane Delaware template pleads counts patent-by-patent and refers to "Exemplary Defendant Products" identified only in claim-chart exhibits, so the precise count structure for Openeye cannot be confirmed without the docket.

The technology and the accused products. U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790, "Host interface for imaging arrays," issued December 6, 2005 from an application filed December 21, 2000, naming Mark Suska and originally assigned to Psion Teklogix Systems Inc. (Canada). In one line: it claims an interface — preferably on the same die as the image sensor — that buffers a CMOS imaging array's clocked, continuous pixel stream in a FIFO or addressable memory and signals the host processor (e.g., an interrupt or bus request) once a threshold quantity of data has accumulated, so the processor can drain the buffer at its own rate instead of servicing a raw video stream; independent claim 1 recites the memory, the signal generator responsive to "the quantity of data in the memory," and a transfer-control circuit clocked by the processor. The '242 patent is a divisional claiming the corresponding method (FIFO counter vs. FIFO limit → interrupt), and the '527 patent claims a module for interfacing A/D conversion output to a JPEG compressor. The accused instrumentality is not named in the public pleadings — Cedar Lane's complaints incorporate claim charts by reference as exhibits — but in context the targets are OpenEye's camera, recorder/appliance, and cloud-video hardware/software products, i.e., the imaging pipeline in commercial video surveillance gear. Any statement about which specific OpenEye SKUs were charted would be speculation. The '790 is also, by third-party estimate (Shenzhen IP Protection Center), near or past the end of its term — reported expiration around August 1, 2023 — which would compress the damages window under 35 U.S.C. § 286 even though laches is unavailable.

Procedural posture and why it matters. Filed November 17, 2022 in the District of Delaware, Wilmington (No. 1:22-cv-01505), the suit was one of a large batch of Cedar Lane complaints filed in Delaware in late October–November 2022 (the 1:22-cv-01402 through -01414 block), which were assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews; I have not directly confirmed the Openeye-specific assignment from the docket, and the November 2022 report instead lists Judge Reed O'Connor, but that listing corresponds to Cedar Lane's parallel W.D. Tex. filings against Xerox and the rental-car defendants. Delaware matters here for the usual reasons: it is the incorporation/registered-agent forum of choice, it gave Cedar Lane a single, procedurally efficient venue with a sophisticated patent bench, and it hedged against the possibility that West Texas assignment practices would change. Substantively, this case is best understood as one docket line in a systematic campaign rather than an isolated dispute: Cedar Lane's '790/'242 family was asserted against a broad slice of the physical-security and imaging industry — Lorex, Brickcom, Costar/Avycon, Cop Security, Johnson Controls, FLIR, Vector Security, Video Network Security, and here OpenEye — in a pattern the Shenzhen authority characterized as serial, settlement-driven litigation (it reported a median ~77 days to resolution and settlement in the Shenzhen-targeted subset). Because the patents originated at Psion Teklogix and traveled through Intellectual Ventures and Steephill to a two-year-old Canadian entity, the case is a clean illustration of the secondary market in expired/near-expiry electronics patents being used against small and mid-cap operating companies — including a public-company subsidiary whose parent's balance sheet makes it an attractive settlement target. Two caveats worth flagging for the file: I was unable to locate any PTAB inter partes review of the '790 in this research, so the absence of IPR linkage should be treated as unverified rather than established; and I could not retrieve the actual docket sheet for 1:22-cv-01505 to confirm the dismissal date, dismissal terms, or whether the '242 and '527 were in fact pleaded against Openeye. Given the campaign's documented pattern, a voluntary dismissal without prejudice following a confidential settlement is the likely disposition, but that is inference, not sourcing.

I'll research this case thoroughly. Let me start with parallel searches.

Bottom line

Cedar Lane's suit against OpenEye was a single-defendant complaint in Cedar Lane's mass-filed November 2022 Delaware wave. It was not litigated to claim construction, trial, or judgment. On the record I could verify, the case is a short-lived, pleadings-and-extensions docket that terminated by voluntary dismissal — like nearly every other case in that wave — with no merits ruling on U.S. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays"). There was no Markman order, no summary judgment practice, no trial, no verdict, no appeal, and no PTAB proceeding that I can source.

I want to be explicit up front about the sourcing limit: I was able to confirm the case number, court, filing date, judge assignment pattern, and counsel, but I could not retrieve the actual docket sheet (D.I. entries) for 1:22-cv-01505 in this session, so the dismissal date, the dismissal's prejudice qualifier, and whether OpenEye ever answered/counterclaimed are stated below as pattern-based inference, clearly flagged, not as verified docket facts.

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Verified facts

On the patent itself: the '790 patent issued 2005-12-06 from an application filed 2000-12-21, and its '242 divisional issued 2013-09-17 from an application filed 2005-10-27. Claim 1 (representative) is the FIFO-buffer / "signal generator responsive to the quantity of data in the memory" host-interface claim.

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Chronology

1. Filing and initial pleadings (2022-11-15 to 2022-11-17)

Cedar Lane filed on 2022-11-17 in the District of Delaware as part of a large, near-simultaneous batch. The docket opening in these cases is uniform and I can describe it with confidence because the sibling filings are documented: D.I. 1 complaint with jury demand and six exhibits (the infringement claim charts, including the '790 chart); D.I. 2 magistrate consent forms; D.I. 3 Report to the Commissioner of Patents (AO-120) listing the patents; D.I. 4 Rule 7.1 disclosure statement ("no parents or affiliates listed"); D.I. 5 summons. See the identical opening sequence in Cedar Lane v. Openpath Security, 1:22-cv-01497 (D. Del.) and Cedar Lane v. Video Network Security, 1:22-cv-01405 (D. Del.).

The complaint was Cedar Lane's standard form: it did not name accused products in the body, instead incorporating claim-chart exhibits, and asserted direct, induced, and contributory infringement plus § 285 exceptional-case relief. Cedar Lane's complaints of this vintage also pleaded knowledge as of service — a point of practical significance, because pre-suit knowledge is what carries any post-notice induced-infringement and willfulness theory past a motion to dismiss.

Answer / counterclaims: I could not verify whether OpenEye answered. Given the case's short life (below), the more likely posture is that OpenEye never served a responsive pleading, in which event there were no counterclaims — no declaratory judgments of invalidity or non-infringement. Treat this as unconfirmed.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None that I can source. No motion to dismiss, no § 1404(a) transfer motion, no § 101 motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, and no summary-judgment motion appears in any reporting or database I searched. Two structural reasons this is unsurprising:

• No IPR to stay for. I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition against U.S. 6,972,790 in any of the sources searched, and no Federal Circuit or PTAB decision construing its claims. Cedar Lane's '790/'242 family was asserted in dozens of suits in 2020–2025 and was essentially never subjected to PTAB challenge — consistent with targets choosing cheap early exit over invalidity spend. If a petition exists, it post-dates what I can see, and I'd want a PTAB docket check on the '790 patent number before relying on the negative.
• Expiry drained the case of value. The '790 patent's 20-year term ran from the 2000-12-21 filing, so it expired on or about 2020-12-21 (subject to any terminal disclaimer / PTA adjustments I did not compute). That has two consequences a defendant's counsel would have emphasized immediately: no injunction was available, and damages were confined to a pre-expiration window subject to the § 286 six-year lookback from the 2022 filing — i.e., roughly 2016-11 to 2020-12, against a small defendant with a short product tail. This is my legal analysis derived from the patent's face dates, not a holding in this case; no court ruled on it here.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

Did not occur. No Markman order, hearing transcript, or joint claim construction statement is reported for this case. Cedar Lane's '790 cases as a group do not appear to have generated any contested claim construction ruling.

4. Discovery milestones

None of strategic significance that I can source. There is no reported fact-discovery cutoff, no contested discovery motion, no 30(b)(6) dispute. In cases of this shape, discovery typically never opens: the docket is consumed by pro hac vice admissions and stipulated extension requests, then a notice of dismissal.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial setting, no verdict, no JMOL/ Rule 59 / Rule 54(d) / § 285 fee motion.

6. Disposition

Voluntary dismissal — date unconfirmed, but almost certainly 2023. This is an inference from the wave, and the inference is strong:

• Cedar Lane v. Openpath Security, 1:22-cv-01497 (filed 2022-11-15) — dismissed.
• Cedar Lane v. Yi Technologies, 1:22-cv-01403 (filed 2022-10-26) — D.I. 11 Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, 2023-03-14; D.I. 12 SO ORDERED same day by Judge Andrews, "***Civil Case Terminated."
• Cedar Lane v. Video Network Security, 1:22-cv-01405 (filed 2022-10-26) — later re-filed as 1:23-cv-00337 and dismissed 2023-05-16.
• Cedar Lane v. ZKTeco USA, 2:23-cv-01693 (D.N.J.) — asserting '790 and '242 specifically — voluntary dismissal without prejudice 2023-05-04, before any defendant appearance.

The signature of these exits is early, unopposed Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) dismissal, usually without prejudice, before answer. Whether OpenEye's dismissal was with or without prejudice, and whether any license or payment was involved, is not disclosed on any record I located. Cedar Lane dismissals in this period were sometimes with prejudice (Cedar Lane v. Hubbell, 1:23-cv-00381 — voluntary dismissal with prejudice after 77 days), so the qualifier matters and I cannot supply it.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings and their effect

None identified. No IPR/PGR of the '790 patent, hence no § 315(b) bar issues, no Fintiv-style discretionary-denial analysis, and no stay motion practice in this case. The practical effect is the inverse of the usual story: the absence of PTAB exposure meant invalidity was never adjudicated, so the '790 patent survives this case fully intact and unadjudicated — the dismissal confers no immunity on the rest of the video-surveillance and imaging-interface sector.

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Strategic read

1. This is a volume-licensing docket, not a litigation. Cedar Lane's business model — Canadian entity, acquired patents, Rabicoff/deBruin filings in D. Del. and W.D. Tex., claim-chart exhibits attached to the complaint, near-zero discovery — monetizes nuisance value plus early settlements. OpenEye was one of roughly 60+ defendants in Cedar Lane's October–November 2022 Delaware batch (the related-case list on 1:23-cv-00376 runs from 1:19-cv-00996 through 1:22-cv-01414 and beyond). The correct benchmark for "outcome" here is days-to-dismissal and prejudice status, not any merits ruling.

2. The '790 expiry is the whole case. For any future Cedar Lane target, the defense value is concentrated in (a) the pre-2020 damages window and § 286 lookback, (b) the absence of injunctive relief, and (c) § 101 exposure on a FIFO-buffer-plus-interrupt claim — none of which was reached against OpenEye.

3. Unadjudicated ≠ safe. Because no court and no tribunal has construed or invalidated the '790 claims, the patent remains a live enforcement instrument. Cedar Lane was still filing imaging-interface suits in 2025 (*Cedar Lane v. Johnson Controls Int

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

Counsel of Record — Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

Case: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Openeye US Inc., No. 1:22-cv-01505 (D. Del.), filed November 17, 2022, asserting U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays").

Important caveat up front: I was able to confirm the identity of plaintiff's counsel from the docket-derived Law360 attorney profile and the November 2022 patent-litigation report covering this filing, but I could not pull the actual D. Del. docket sheet for 1:22-cv-01505 (CM/ECF or CourtListener entry list) within this session. So the roles below are well grounded, while the specific appearance docket-entry numbers, any pro hac vice motions, and whether additional Rabicoff Law associates ever entered an appearance are unverified. Nothing below is inferred from a form pleading alone.

Confirmed appearances

The November 2022 retail patent litigation report covering this filing lists plaintiff's counsel for the Cedar Lane wave (Xerox, Openeye US, Enterprise, Hertz, Sixt, Avis) as "Rabicoff Law; Napoli Shkolnik" — consistent with the two-attorney structure above. (Lexology/LexBlog, November 2022 Retail Patent Litigation Report); (Law360 attorney page — David W. deBruin).

Not of record / do not assume

• Greg Benoit — Cedar Lane's founder and principal (a Canadian attorney who runs the NPE). He is the client-side decisionmaker but is not identified in any source as counsel of record in this case; do not list him as in-house counsel without docket confirmation.
• Other Rabicoff Law associates — in other Cedar Lane matters additional firm attorneys occasionally appeared; I found no evidence of any additional appearance here, and I will not name any.
• Sealing — Cedar Lane's complaints in this campaign were filed publicly with the patent exhibits attached (see the parallel D. Del. dockets), and there is no indication of sealed filings affecting counsel identification in this case. The limitation here is my inability to retrieve this specific docket, not sealing.

What to verify against the docket (recommended next step)

1. Dkt. 1 — the complaint's signature block (should show deBruin/Napoli Shkolnik as filer, with Rabicoff Law identified as trial counsel).
2. Any "Notice of Appearance" by Rabicoff and any motion for admission pro hac vice — in the parallel Cedar Lane D. Del. cases the pro hac vice papers often followed the complaint by days or weeks.
3. The voluntary dismissal / Rule 41 entry that terminated the case (Cedar Lane's cases in this wave were typically dismissed within months after a standstill or settlement; I have not confirmed the termination date or terms here). If dismissal preceded any pro hac vice admission, deBruin may be the only attorney formally of record.

Sourcing note: the party/case metadata (1:22-cv-01505, D. Del., '790 patent, filed Nov. 17, 2022) is corroborated by the Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for US 6,972,790 and the Openeye US Inc. party page. I did not locate a court opinion or IPR decision in this particular case, and I have not identified any PTAB proceeding on the '790 patent arising from Openeye.

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

Counsel of Record — Defendant Openeye US Inc.

Bottom line: I could not verify any defense counsel of record from accessible sources, and I am not going to name anyone without a docket citation. Public metadata for this case (Stanford NPE Litigation Database, RPX, dockets aggregators) identifies the case and the plaintiff's side only. No notice of appearance, answer, Rule 7.1 disclosure, or dismissal stipulation filed on Openeye's behalf surfaced in my searches, and I could not pull the live PACER docket sheet for D. Del. 1:22-cv-01505 within this session.

What is documented

Defendant's side — status

• Lead counsel: Unknown / unverified. No appearance located.
• Local counsel (D. Del.): Unknown / unverified. D. Del. requires a member of the court's bar, so local counsel exists if the defendant has appeared, but I cannot name them.
• In-house: Unknown. No corporate counsel identified.

Two plausible explanations, neither confirmed: (a) the case was resolved or voluntarily dismissed before Openeye appeared — Cedar Lane's D. Del. docket pattern in 2021–22 was complaint → unopposed extensions → notice of voluntary dismissal, frequently with no defense appearance of substance; or (b) appearance entries exist on PACER but are not indexed in free aggregators. I could not distinguish between these.

One useful lead (sourced, but not counsel identification)

Openeye US Inc. is majority-owned by Alarm.com Holdings, Inc., which reported acquiring 85% of OpenEye's capital stock on October 21, 2019 (Alarm.com Holdings 2020 Form 10-K, PDF). Alarm.com is itself a frequent patent-litigation defendant (e.g., the Vivint campaign discussed in that same 10-K) and maintains a regular panel of IP litigation counsel plus Delaware local counsel. If Openeye appeared, the defense team most likely came through that Alarm.com panel or through Openeye's own outside IP counsel — but that is an inference about likely sourcing, not a finding about who appeared.

How to close this gap

1. PACER, D. Del. 1:22-cv-01505 — pull entries 5–20 (Summons Returned Executed, Notice of Appearance, Answer/Motion to Dismiss, Rule 7.1 Disclosure Statement, Stipulation/Notice of Voluntary Dismissal). Counsel names appear on the signature blocks of any of these.
2. CourtListener RECAP docket for the case number, which mirrors PACER free of charge if the docket was ever pulled by a user.
3. D. Del. CM/ECF attorney appearance query, and the court's "Attorney Admissions" database for the appearing attorney's firm.
4. If the case closed on a stipulation, check whether the dismissal order recites "each party to bear its own fees" — that order often names signing counsel.

If you can supply the docket text (or a PACER PDF of the answer/appearance), I will build the full counsel table with roles, firms, office locations, and verified prior patent-litigation history.