Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Ricoh USA, Inc.

I'll research this case and the asserted patent.

Let me pull the actual complaint, docket, and the patent's lineage/IPR history.

Case Overview — Cedar Lane Technologies, Inc. v. Ricoh USA, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-01119 (W.D. Tex., Waco Div.)

The parties. Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a non-practicing entity (NPE/PAE) organized under the laws of British Columbia, Canada, incorporated April 29, 2019, with its stated principal place of business at 560 Baker Street, Suite 1, Nelson, B.C.; its sole director/president is Gregory Benoit, a former Patent Armory executive who earlier handled IP at Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent (RPX, Nov. 2019; The Logic). Cedar Lane does not make or sell products; it assembled a portfolio of roughly 190+ mostly acquired patents — a large share sourced from Intellectual Ventures entities, often routed through Steephill Technologies — and monetizes them through high-volume, small-demand litigation handled by Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Alexandria, VA). By 2022 it was the most prolific patent plaintiff in the country: Unified Patents counted 82 Cedar Lane assertions in H1 2022 alone, and IAM profiled it in March 2023 as "America's top-filing NPE," reporting a ~96% settlement rate among its terminated cases. Defendant Ricoh USA, Inc. is the U.S. operating subsidiary of Japan's Ricoh Company, Ltd. — a large, mature office-imaging and electronics manufacturer (multifunction printers/copiers, scanners, projectors, production print) with a U.S. headquarters in Exton, Pennsylvania and substantial Texas operations. (Note: some trackers, e.g., IPWatchdog's filings roundup, mislabeled the defendant as "Ricoh Company Ltd"; the docket caption in 6:22-cv-01119 is Ricoh USA, Inc.)

The patents and the accused technology. The case metadata lists U.S. Patent No. 6,473,527 as the family-level patent, but the complaint (Dkt. 1, six exhibits = three patents plus three claim charts) and every case database confirm three patents asserted: (1) U.S. 6,473,527, "Module and method for interfacing analog/digital converting means and JPEG compression means" — inventor Wang Chia-Ying, originally assigned to Mustek Systems Inc. (Taiwan), filed June 1, 1999, issued Oct. 29, 2002, expired June 1, 2019; claims 1 and 8 cover a read-control/memory/output-control interface that feeds image blocks directly into a JPEG compressor's built-in buffer (means-plus-function apparatus claim + method claim); (2) U.S. 6,972,790, "Host interface for imaging arrays" — inventor Mark Suska, filed Dec. 21, 2000, issued Dec. 6, 2005, describing an on-die FIFO/interface that buffers CMOS image-sensor output at sensor clock rate and interrupts the host once a threshold of data accumulates (claims 1 and 15); and (3) U.S. 8,537,242, a divisional of the '790 application with the same specification, issued Sept. 17, 2013 (independent claims 1, 8, 14) (PatentDocs/Patsnap summary; Stanford NPE Database). The patents are essentially expired or expiring (Patsnap lists the '790 and '242 as "inactive," estimated expiry Aug. 1, 2023), so this is a damages-only case with a six-year lookback under 35 U.S.C. § 286 — the point flagged in a Shenzhen IP Protection Center risk alert about this campaign. The complaint does not name specific Ricoh products; it refers generically to "Exemplary Defendant Products" identified only in the claim charts (Exhibits 4–6), which are not in the public record I could review. Based on the campaign's pattern — parallel suits against Brother, Konica Minolta, Xerox, Lexmark, Pantum, Fujitsu, Motorola Solutions, and STMicroelectronics — the accused instrumentalities are almost certainly Ricoh's scanning/imaging-capable MFPs, printers, and camera modules, but I cannot confirm the exact model list from a public source and flag it as unverified.

Procedural posture and venue. Filed October 26, 2022 in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas and assigned to Judge Alan D. Albright — the docket entry states assignment was made "due to related cases," i.e., Cedar Lane's prior Waco filings (Dkt. 1–7; [UniCourt docket](https://unicourt.com/case/pc-d

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and the patent.

Let me verify the docket via CourtListener/PACER and check PTAB proceedings on the patents.

Cedar Lane Technologies, Inc. v. Ricoh USA, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-01119 (W.D. Tex.)

Bottom line

This case never reached any contested merits stage. It was filed 2022-10-26 and terminated 2023-03-06 — 131 days later — by Cedar Lane's own unilateral notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i), filed before Ricoh ever answered. There was no answer, no counterclaim, no motion to dismiss/transfer/stay, no Markman, no discovery of substance, no trial, no verdict, no appeal, and no PTAB proceeding on the asserted patents. The only docket activity of consequence was defense counsel's pro hac vice admissions.

---

1. Filing and initial pleadings (2022-10-26 → 2023-01-09)

Patents asserted. The case metadata in this prompt lists only U.S. Patent No. 6,473,527 ("Module and method for interfacing analog/digital converting means and JPEG compression means"). The docket as reported by third-party litigation databases shows three patents asserted: the '527, U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays"), and U.S. Patent No. 8,537,242 (divisional of the '790). See IPWatchdog's Nov. 2022 filing roundup listing 6:22-cv-01119 (Cedar Lane v. Ricoh) with 8,537,242 / 6,473,527 / 6,972,790; Stanford NPE Database entries for all three patents list this case; PatSnap's case page shows "3 patents asserted." I flag the discrepancy rather than resolve it: treat '527 as the lead asserted patent and '790/'242 as co-asserted on the docket.

Note on party name. IPWatchdog's docket table lists the defendant as "Ricoh Company Ltd," but the caption and every other source (PatSnap, UniCourt, Stanford) identify Ricoh USA, Inc. Per your metadata instruction, Ricoh USA, Inc. controls.

Nothing was ever filed by Ricoh on the merits. No answer, no Rule 12 motion, no counterclaims. Baker Botts' entire visible appearance was procedural (local counsel + three PHV admissions).

---

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None. There was no motion to dismiss (Rule 12(b)(3) venue or 12(b)(6)), no § 1404(a) transfer motion, no § 101 motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, and no summary judgment motion. Cedar Lane's dismissal notice affirmatively recites this: "Defendant has not yet answered the Complaint or moved for summary judgment." (quoted verbatim from the Rule 41 notice as reproduced by PatSnap).

This is unusual for W.D. Tex. patent litigation in 2022 and is itself the strategic story: Ricoh, a large operating company represented by Baker Botts, was gearing up (three PHV admissions in a single day, 2022-12-16) and the case resolved inside roughly 11 weeks of that appearance.

---

3. Claim construction (Markman)

The case never reached Markman. No scheduling order, no exchange of preliminary invalidity contentions, no Markman briefing, no claim construction hearing, and no claim construction order. No judicial construction of any term of the '527, '790, or '242 patents exists from this case.

Why that mattered prospectively. Third-party complaint analyses of the parallel '527 suits identify a serious § 112(f) exposure that Cedar Lane never had to litigate here: claim 1 recites "read control means," "memory means," and "output control means" — all means-plus-function limitations whose scope would likely be confined to the "read control device 22" structure in Figure 2 of the '527 and equivalents. Cedar Lane's later '527 assertions (e.g., against Huawei) focused on method claim 8, which avoids § 112(f) altogether — a pleading pattern consistent with awareness of that vulnerability. (Source: AI-based complaint analyses of the '527 family; this is secondary-source inference, not a court ruling.)

---

4. Discovery milestones

None of strategic significance. No Rule 26(f) conference, no joint discovery/case management plan, no scheduling order, no written discovery, no depositions, no expert reports. The case was dismissed roughly four months after filing, well before the W.D. Tex. Docket Control Order milestones that would have set claim construction and trial dates. Because no scheduling order ever issued, no trial date was ever set for this case.

---

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial, no verdict, no JMOL, no motion for new trial, no fee motion under § 285, no bill of costs. The dismissal notice expressly provides that "Each party shall bear its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees" — i.e., Cedar Lane walked away without a cost or fee award against it, and Ricoh recovered nothing.

---

6. Final disposition (2023-03-06)

Voluntary dismissal with prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i), effective 2023-03-06, no court order required. Verbatim from the filing as recorded:

"Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(i), Plaintiff hereby dismisses this action with prejudice. Defendant has not yet answered the Complaint or moved for summary judgment. Each party shall bear its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees."

Legal effect:

• Because it is with prejudice, the dismissal is a final adjudication on the merits for claim-preclusion purposes as between Cedar Lane and Ricoh USA on these patents. Cedar Lane cannot refile against Ricoh on the '527/'790/'242.
• No estoppel, issue preclusion, or invalidity ruling flows to any other defendant — the patents' validity and scope remain wholly unadjudicated.
• No appeal was taken (there was nothing appealable — a Rule 41(a)(1) notice is not a judicial act; Cedar Lane could not appeal its own dismissal, and Ricoh, as the prevailing party by the plaintiff's own act, had no adverse judgment to appeal).
• Present posture: closed. Docket terminated 2023-03-06; no reopened or remanded proceeding.

---

7. Parallel PTAB IPR/PGR proceedings

I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding against the '527, '790, or '242 patents — by Ricoh or anyone else. PatSnap's patent record for this family states "Validity challenges: None recorded," and no PTAB docket appeared in my searches for these patent numbers. The only Cedar Lane PTAB proceeding surfaced was Unified Patents LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies, IPR2020-00006 (filed 2019-10-03, instituted 2020-03-18), which concerns U.S. Patent No. 7,173,177 — a different patent, not asserted here.

Caveat on sourcing: the absence of IPR activity is supported by the litigation databases and PTAB search results I could reach, but PTAB docket coverage in free sources is imperfect. Treat "no IPR" as well-supported but not certified. What is certain is that no IPR affected this litigation — there was no stay motion, no institution decision, and the case closed five months after filing.

Why PTAB activity was unlikely (analytical inference, not docket fact):

• The patents were at or near expiry. PatSnap records an estimated expiry of 2023-08-01 for the '790 (priority 2000-01-21), which the '242 shares as a divisional. The '527 has an earliest priority of June 1999 and issued 2002-10-30, putting its 20-year term in roughly mid-2019 — i.e., already expired when this suit was filed in October 2022. An expired patent supports only past damages (six-year lookback under 35 U.S.C. § 286), no injunction, and gives a defendant far less reason to spend $500K+ on an IPR.
• Cedar Lane's whole campaign model — hundreds of suits, none tried — depends on cost-of-defense settlements, not on surviving validity challenges.

---

8. Strategic context: a batch-filing exit, not a litigation

• This case was one of a cluster of roughly 16+ Cedar Lane suits filed in W.D. Tex. in the week ending 2022-10-28, all by Rabicoff Law, all on the same three-patent imaging family ('527/'790/'242), and all assigned to Judge Albright "due to related cases" (Dkt. entry, 2022-10-26). Siblings included Motorola Solutions (6:22-cv-01111), STMicroelectronics (6:22-cv-01120), Zenitel (6:22-cv-01307), plus Delaware-filed suits against Adesso, Dynacom, Zicom, Turing Video, Autel Robotics, Video Network Security, and others.
• The with-prejudice character of the dismissal is the most informative data point. A pre-answer Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) dismissal is by default without prejudice; Cedar Lane affirmatively gave up its claims against Ricoh — the signature of a paid settlement or license, with the parties bearing their own fees. The consideration is not in the public record.
• Cedar Lane's parallel cases resolved identically and just as fast: Adesso (D. Del. 1:22-cv-01413) — stipulated dismissal with prejudice 2023-02-28; Dynacom (6:22-cv-00659) — Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) dismissal 2023-03-03; Zicom — same. Commentators (Seyfarth's "NPE Showcase") note Cedar Lane has never taken a case to trial; the campaign is nuisance-value settlement generation.
• Cedar Lane's credibility backdrop is relevant to how defendants priced these cases: in 2020, Judge Vince Chhabria (N.D. Cal.) sanctioned Cedar Lane and Mr. Rabicoff for positions that were "objectively frivolous" and taken "in bad faith," and referred Rabicoff to that district's Standing Committee on Professional Conduct.

---

9. Sourcing notes and gaps

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

Let me dig into the docket and counsel details.

Let me check the full docket sheet for any additional plaintiff appearances or pro hac vice motions.

Plaintiff's counsel of record — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Ricoh USA, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-01119 (W.D. Tex.)

Bottom line: Cedar Lane was represented by a single attorney of record in this case — Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC. There was no local counsel, no second plaintiff-side appearance, and no in-house counsel on the docket. Ricoh had not yet answered when Cedar Lane voluntarily dismissed the case with prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i), so the plaintiff-side appearance list never grew beyond that one entry.

Counsel table

Docket support

• Doc. 1 — Complaint for Patent Infringement, filed 10/26/2022 by Rabicoff on behalf of Cedar Lane (filing fee receipt ATXWDC-16683274), with Exhibits 1–6 plus civil cover sheet. The complaint asserted three patents — U.S. Patent Nos. 6,473,527, 6,972,790, and 8,537,242 (the '527 patent being the one flagged in the case metadata) — all "host interface / JPEG interface" image-processing patents originating in the Intellectual Ventures portfolio.
• Doc. 2 — Notice of Attorney Appearance by Isaac Rabicoff on behalf of Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. This is the operative appearance for plaintiff.
• Docs. 3–6 — Rule 7 disclosure statement, AO 120 patent form, summons request, and Notice of Related Case, all signed and filed by Rabicoff.
• Doc. 8 — Notice of Agreed Extension of Time for Ricoh to respond (to 1/9/2023), filed by Rabicoff (11/21/2022).
• Docs. 9–15 — Defendant-side appearances only: Jose Carlos Villarreal (Baker Botts, local/W.D. Tex.) plus pro hac vice orders for Robert L. Maier, Jennifer C. Tempesta, and Michael E. Knierim (Baker Botts). None of these are plaintiff counsel.
• Termination — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal with prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i); case closed 3/6/2023, 131 days after filing, with each party bearing its own fees and costs. Judge Alan D. Albright presided.

Sources: UniCourt docket mirror for No. 6:22-CV-01119 (listing Rabicoff as plaintiff attorney and reproducing Docs. 1–15) — https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-cedar-lane-technologies-inc-v-ricoh-usa-inc-[1324812](/patent/1324812); Patsnap litigation profile (counsel of record, three asserted patents, dismissal language quoted verbatim) — https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-v-ricoh-usa-imaging-patent-dispute-patsnap/; IPWatchdog Patent Filings Roundup, Nov. 3, 2022 (listing the '790 and '242 patents in this case) — https://ipwatchdog.com/2022/11/03/patent-filings-roundup-old-ip-edge-filings-explode-no-new-discretionary-denials-fortress-backed-divx-rolls/.

Practice context on Rabicoff (useful for deposition/negotiation framing)

• Rabicoff's signature block in contemporaneous Cedar Lane filings (e.g., the Konica Minolta dismissal, No. 6:22-cv-01074, dated 11/14/2022 — two weeks after this complaint) shows the Alexandria, VA address and isaac@rabilaw.com. See the filed PDF at https://www.action-intell.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Cedar-Lane-dismisses-suit-against-Konica-Minolta.pdf.
• Commentators have documented that Cedar Lane's campaign (Canadian NPE incorporated 2019, asserting acquired IV patents) is run almost entirely by Rabicoff, that cases rarely progress past pleadings, and that a 2020 N.D. Cal. decision by Judge Vince Chhabria sanctioned Cedar Lane and Rabicoff for frivolous positions taken in bad faith and referred him to that district's standing committee on professional conduct. See "NPE Showcase – Cedar Lane Technologies" (Oct. 6, 2022), https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/[1237392](/patent/1237392)/npe-showcase-cedar-lane-technologies.
• More recently, Law360 has reported W.D. Tex. rulings denying sanctions against Rabicoff (e.g., Canva's sanctions bid over a file-sharing patent), which is relevant to any "litigiousness" narrative you may be weighing.

Caveats / limits of sourcing

• No local counsel of record for plaintiff. The docket as reproduced in the public mirrors shows no W.D. Tex. local-counsel appearance and no pro hac vice motion for Rabicoff in this case (the only PHV motions, Docs. 10–12, were for Ricoh's Baker Botts lawyers). That is consistent with Rabicoff being admitted to practice in the Western District, but I could not verify his Texas bar/admission status from a primary source in this session — worth confirming directly against the W.D. Tex. attorney roll or PACER before relying on it.
• No other Rabicoff Law attorneys appeared here. Kenneth Matuszewski (Reg. No. 74,791), Rabicoff's customary backup counsel in PTAB matters, does not appear on this docket; nor does any Cedar Lane in-house lawyer (Cedar Lane, based in Nelson, British Columbia, appears to use no in-house litigation counsel of record).
• I could not pull the PACER docket sheet itself (paywalled) or a CourtListener RECAP copy of this specific docket; the document-level detail above comes from commercial docket mirrors. Given the case closed in March 2023 with a pre-answer dismissal, the risk of an unlisted plaintiff-side appearance is low but not zero — a PACER "attorneys" query would definitively close it out.

I'll research the counsel of record for Ricoh USA in this case.

I have the docket-level roster. Now let me verify each attorney's firm, office, and role.

Maier's Baker Botts bio confirms the representation. Now the remaining two.

Counsel of Record for Ricoh USA, Inc.

Posture caveat up front: this case never reached the pleadings on the defense side. Cedar Lane voluntarily dismissed with prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) on March 6, 2023 — 131 days after filing — expressly because "Defendant has not yet answered the Complaint or moved for summary judgment." Consequently there is no answer, no invalidity contentions, no protective order, and no sealed filing in this docket. The defense-side record consists almost entirely of appearance and pro hac vice papers. That materially limits what can be said about each attorney's role beyond appearance mechanics.

All four defense-side attorneys are Baker Botts L.L.P. No in-house Ricoh counsel entered an appearance, and no second firm appeared.

The appearances

All three pro hac vice orders were signed by Judge Alan D. Albright on December 19, 2022, with the standard W.D. Tex. directive to register for electronic filing within ten days.

Individual notes

Robert L. Maier — lead counsel. The strongest confirmation of his lead role is extra-docket: his Baker Botts bio affirmatively lists "Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Ricoh USA, Inc. (W.D. Tex.) — Representation of Ricoh in patent infringement case related to digital compression and storage technologies." He chairs Baker Botts' New York IP group, sits on the firmwide Executive Committee, and is Chambers USA Band 3 (NY, Patent). Registered patent attorney and former telecom software engineer (B.S. Computer Engineering, GWU; J.D. Fordham). Notably, his bio shows a standing Ricoh relationship across three W.D. Tex. matters — this case, Encryptawave Technologies LLC v. Ricoh USA, and Gladiator IP LLC v. Ricoh USA (multifunction printer technology) — which is the most probative signal of who was actually running the defense here. Source: bakerbotts.com/people/m/maier-robert; Chambers profile.

Jennifer C. Tempesta — merits team. Now Deputy Department Chair of Baker Botts' IP department firmwide; a first-chair patent trial lawyer (Chambers USA ranked for NY IP, 2021–2026). Representative work: Mastercard (first-chair in a NY jury trial), Fujifilm (ITC and district court), Lyft, NEC. Former Alexander Judicial Fellow to Chief Judge Randall R. Rader at the Federal Circuit — relevant here, since the Cedar Lane patents are § 112 / means-plus-function-heavy imaging-interface claims (the '527 patent claims recite "read control means," "memory means," and "output control means"). Chemistry B.S., Cardozo J.D. Source: bakerbotts.com/people/t/tempesta-jennifer-c.

Jose Carlos Villarreal — local counsel. As the sole Texas-bar attorney who entered an appearance, he was the Rule 83 / local-rule anchor and sponsored the three PHV applications — the classic W.D. Tex. local-counsel structure. He is a career patent litigator: B.S. and M.Eng. in electrical engineering (Florida, Cornell), Georgetown J.D., USPTO Reg. No. 43,969; founding member of the Hon. Lee Yeakel IP Inn of Court (W.D. Tex.); chaired the UT Law Advanced Patent Law Institute. IAM Patent 1000 (Bronze, litigation) 2026; Best Lawyers in America 2022–2027. His electronics/semiconductor background maps directly onto the CMOS-image-sensor subject matter. Currency note: Villarreal left Baker Botts for Jackson Walker's Austin office as a partner in September 2026, well after this case closed — so he is no longer at the firm that represented Ricoh. Source: jw.com/news/welcome-jose-villarreal; Baker Botts bio.

Michael E. Knierim — merits team support. He appears on the docket only via the PHV motion and order; I found no current Baker Botts attorney bio page for him, and I cannot confirm whether he remains at the firm, moved in-house, or left practice. What is well-sourced: he was listed as Baker Botts back-up counsel at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112 in USPTO filings in IPR2017-01356 (Aug. 14, 2018 Petitioners' Updated Mandatory Notices, alongside Robert C. Scheinfeld and Robert L. Maier) — i.e., part of the same New York IP trial team as Maier. Treat his current affiliation as unverified. Source: PTAB IPR2017-01356 mandatory notices.

What I could not verify

• A formal "lead counsel" designation. W.D. Tex. does not require a lead-counsel designation in the appearance papers themselves, and the case died before any case-management order or JAPS/P.R. 3-1 disclosures. My lead/local split above is inferred from (a) who filed the Notice of Appearance and sponsored PHV, and (b) Maier's own firm-bio claim of the representation. It is not a docket label.
• In-house Ricoh counsel. None appeared; if in-house lawyers worked the matter behind the scenes, that is not reflected in any public record.
• The asserted patents. Note a substantive wrinkle worth flagging for the family-level summary already on file: the complaint as described in third-party analyses asserted three patents — the '527 patent, plus the '790 and '242 "host interface for imaging arrays" patents. Cedar Lane dismissed all of them. Your case metadata lists only '527; the complaint-level record appears broader. Sources: Patsnap case page; docket mirror (UniCourt).
• Docket-source quality. My docket-level detail comes from UniCourt's PACER mirror (last synced 12/25/2022) rather than a live PACER pull. The entry numbers and dates for Dkts. 8–15 are consistent across two independent mirrors and corroborated by Patsnap's case record, but I have not personally verified the docket after December 2022; the March 2023 dismissal date is sourced to Patsnap and the Stanford NPE database, not to a docket image I retrieved.