Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Sensormatic Electronics, Inc.

I'll research this case across multiple sources to build a verified overview.

Case Overview: Cedar Lane Technologies, Inc. v. Sensormatic Electronics, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-01281 (D. Del.)

The parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian non-practicing entity (NPE/PAE) incorporated in Nelson, British Columbia in April 2019, whose sole director is Gregory Benoit, a patent-monetization consultant (Patent Armory; formerly Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent IP). Cedar Lane does not make or sell products; it assembles portfolios largely from patents acquired out of Intellectual Ventures entities and monetizes them through high-volume infringement filings — by various counts 200–370+ suits since 2019, with W.D. Tex. (Judge Albright, ~42%) and D. Del. (Judge Andrews, ~25%) as its dominant fora, and roughly 85% of its cases ending in settlement or dismissal rather than judgment (JD Supra NPE Showcase, https://www.jdsupra.com/post/contentViewerEmbed.aspx?fid=5bdcfb42-6bd0-4a05-8b0f-816f-329c; The Logic/Calgary Herald profile, https://calgaryherald.com/the-logic/b-c-firm-sues-torontos-ecobee-in-texas-court-thats-become-a-go-to-for-ip-litigation; Korean IP Office NPE Guide, https://www.ip-navi.or.kr/upload_data/npe_html/2022_NPE_GUIDE.pdf). Its most visible counsel are Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) and Napoli Shkolnik, with Delaware filings handled by David W. deBruin. Cedar Lane's litigation posture is transactional, not adjudicative: press reporting quotes Rabicoff making ~$95,000 opening demands bundled with portfolio-wide license offers. Sensormatic Electronics is the electronic-security business (EAS/anti-theft tags and pedestals, RFID, and IP video surveillance — Illustra cameras, VideoEdge recorders, access control), historically a Tyco company and now part of Johnson Controls International; note that the group's principal U.S. operating entity is Sensormatic Electronics, LLC, so the "Inc." designation in the caption may reflect a naming variance I could not independently confirm. Sensormatic is itself a seasoned patent litigant (e.g., Sensormatic Elecs., LLC v. Wyze Labs, Inc., No. 19-1543-CFC (D. Del.), where Judge Connolly granted Wyze's § 101 motion on the pleadings on Sept. 3, 2020, D.I. 97/98; and five Wyze IPRs, IPR2020-01486 through -01490), which is relevant context for why a fast exit may have been attractive to both sides.

The technology and patents. The asserted family is a very early-2000s CMOS image-sensor interface family: U.S. Patent No. 8,537,242, "Host interface for imaging arrays" (issued Sept. 17, 2013; application filed Oct. 27, 2005 as a divisional; earliest priority Jan. 21, 2000; inventor Mark Suska; prosecuted by McAndrews Held & Malloy; now assigned to Cedar Lane). The '242 claims an interface — preferably integrated on the same die as the image sensor — that buffers pixel data and clocking signals in a FIFO or addressable memory at the sensor's clock rate, asserts a signal to the host processor (interrupt or bus-request) in response to the quantity of data in the buffer, and then clocks data out at the processor's rate; in short, an asynchronous sensor-to-processor bridge/bus-master interface that lets a microprocessor talk directly to an imaging array without glue logic (see the '242 abstract and claim 1, as summarized in Cedar Lane's parallel complaints, e.g., https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/ded/1:23-cv-00337/doc/analysis/1). Cedar Lane's fall-2022 template complaints typically paired the '242 with U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 (the parent, "Host interface for imaging arrays," issued Dec. 6, 2005) and U.S. Patent No. 6,473,527 ("Module and method for interfacing analog/digital converting means and JPEG compression means," issued Oct. 29, 2002 — an ADC-plus-JPEG compression pipeline module). Flagging a discrepancy: the case metadata for this docket lists only the '242, while aggregator pages for 1:22-cv-01281 (PatSnap, https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-v-sensormatic-electronics-imaging-ip-patsnap-2/) report three patents (’790, ’242, ’527). I could not retrieve D.I. 1 or the D.I. 3 "Report to the Commissioner of Patents" for this specific docket to confirm, so treat the single-patent figure as authoritative per your metadata and the three-patent figure as plausible-but-unverified. The accused instrumentalities are likewise unverified: Cedar Lane's complaints in this campaign do not name products in the body text, instead incorporating claim-chart exhibits (Exs. 4–6) that in several cases were not publicly filed, so the accused products here were almost certainly Sensormatic's network IP cameras/recorders and imaging pipeline rather than any named model — an inference from the patent subject matter, not a documented fact.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Filed September 29, 2022 and assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews in the District of Delaware; terminated February 10, 2023 — 134 days later — by Cedar Lane's unilateral notice of voluntary dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i), with prejudice, each side bearing its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees, and no responsive pleading, claim construction, or merits ruling of any kind (verbatim dismissal text reproduced at https://www.patsnap.com/de/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-v-sensormatic-electronics-imaging-ip-patsnap/). Delaware matters for two reasons: it supplies general jurisdiction over the Johnson Controls/Sensormatic corporate family regardless of where the accused cameras were made or sold, and Judge Andrews is one of the district's most experienced patent jurists who had already handled dozens of Cedar Lane's cases (~49, the second-largest share after Judge Albright). The timing sits squarely in Cedar Lane's September–October 2022 filing surge — roughly sixteen W.D. Tex. suits in the week of September 12 alone, plus a parallel wave in D.N.J. and D. Del. (Unified Patents litigation portal, https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/8537242) — against CCTV/IP-camera and imaging-silicon defendants including Hanwha Techwin, March Networks, IC Realtime, 3xLogic, Infinova, Dallmeier, Provision-ISR, Zenitel, Motorola Solutions, PixArt, MediaTek, Renesas, DJI, and Parrot, which is consistent with (though not proof of) filers adjusting after the widely reported randomization of W.D. Tex. patent case assignments in mid-2022. The case's notability is therefore as a pattern datum rather than as precedent: (i) it illustrates tail-end assertion of ~2000-priority sensor-interface patents acquired from IV against a deep-pocketed security-industry incumbent — PatSnap's estimated expiry for the '242 is August 1, 2023, i.e., roughly six months after dismissal, which sharply caps damages and fits a low-demand, fast-settlement model; (ii) no PTAB challenge to the '242 appears in the public record ("validity challenges: none recorded" per PatSnap), so Sensormatic neither needed nor pursued an IPR — a contrast with the five Wyze IPRs it litigated in 2020–21; and (iii) because the case died on a Rule 41 notice, it produced no opinion, no claim construction, and no invalidity or infringement holding, so it contributes nothing to the substantive law on image-sensor interface claims or § 101. Industry observers tracking surveillance-sector NPE exposure should read this dismissal as one closed line item in a portfolio-wide licensing campaign, not as a resolution of the patents' merits; Cedar Lane's '790/'242/'527 family remained live against other camera and imaging defendants into 2023 (e.g., Cedar Lane Techs. v. Watts Innovations, No. 1:22-cv-01404 (D. Del.), dismissed with prejudice April 11, 2023; Cedar Lane Techs. v. Vector Security (W.D. Pa.); Stanford NPE Litigation Database entries for the '527, https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6473527).

Sourcing caveats. Not independently verified: the identity/state of organization of the specific "Sensormatic Electronics, Inc." defendant; the precise list of patents asserted on this docket (D.I. 1 and D.I. 3 were not retrievable); the specific accused products or claim

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

Bottom line

This is a short, no-merits case: Cedar Lane's '242 suit against Sensormatic lived 134 days and ended by Cedar Lane's own Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice of dismissal with prejudice on 2023‑02‑10, each side bearing its own costs and fees. There was no answer, no counterclaims, no Rule 12/transfer/stay motion, no Markman, no discovery, no summary judgment, no trial, no JMOL/fee motion, and no appeal. I found no parallel IPR/PGR on the '242 — and, importantly, the '242 was at or near the end of its term when the case was filed, which is the most plausible strategic explanation for the entire wave's behavior.

A threshold sourcing caveat: I could not pull the PACER docket line‑by‑line. The chronology below rests on (a) the case metadata supplied as authoritative, (b) PatSnap's PACER‑derived case record, including the verbatim text of the dismissal notice, and (c) secondary trackers for the surrounding Cedar Lane campaign. Where the record is thin, I say so rather than fill it in.

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1. Pre‑suit context (relevant to reading the docket)

• Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian patent‑assertion entity. IPWatchdog's filing roundups tag Cedar Lane as an "IV selloff" acquirer — i.e., it acquired an imaging/sensor portfolio (including the '790/'242 family and the '527) rather than developing it. See IPWatchdog, Patent Filings Roundup (2022‑09‑23), listing Cedar Lane v. Synectics, Tattile, TKH Security, Silent Sentinel, Vanguard, Vimar, etc., each asserting 6,972,790 / 6,473,527 / 8,537,242.
• The '242 ("Host interface for imaging arrays," issued 2013‑09‑17, filed 2005‑10‑27, earliest priority 2000‑01‑21, inventor Mark Suska) is a divisional of the '790 and shares its disclosure: a FIFO/addressable-memory interface on the image‑sensor die that asserts an interrupt/bus‑request signal to the host in response to the quantity of data in the memory.
• Cedar Lane ran a two‑front campaign in 2021–2022: W.D. Tex. (Albright) against camera/surveillance and imaging vendors, and D. Del. before Judge Richard G. Andrews (same judge as this case), where the Delaware complaints were filed in large batches in Jan., Mar., Apr., and Oct. 2022. Cedar Lane's Delaware counsel was David W. deBruin (Napoli Shkolnik LLC); Rabicoff Law appeared alongside in the Texas filings.
• Sensormatic Electronics, Inc. (a Johnson Controls/Tyco entity; EAS and video‑surveillance products) is not a passive target — it is itself a frequent patent plaintiff in D. Del. (e.g., Sensormatic Elecs., LLC v. Wyze Labs, Inc., No. 19‑1543 (D. Del.); Sensormatic Elecs., LLC v. Genetec (USA) Inc., No. 20‑760 (D. Del.)). It had the in‑house capability to fight, which matters for interpreting the fast exit.

Not verified: the specific accused Sensormatic products. I found no complaint exhibit or press account identifying them; do not assume Illustra/VideoEdge without checking D.I. 1 and its infringement‑contentions exhibits.

2. Filing and initial pleadings

Patent‑count discrepancy — flag this. The metadata supplied to me lists only the '242. PatSnap's PACER‑derived record says the docket lists three asserted patents and names 6,972,790, 8,537,242 and 6,473,527, and its "products & marks" field carries the titles of both the '790/'242 ("Host interface for imaging arrays") and the '527 ("Module and method for interfacing analog/digital converting means and JPEG compression means"). Every parallel Cedar Lane Delaware complaint in this wave (e.g., 1:22‑cv‑00344 v. 3xlogic; 1:22‑cv‑01405 v. Video Network Security; 1:22‑cv‑01406 v. Vantage Robotics) reported all three patents to the Commissioner. My working assumption is that the complaint pleaded all three and that the metadata reflects only the '242; verify against D.I. 1 and the Report to Commissioner. Nothing in the outcome turns on it, since the dismissal swept "all claims."

3. Pre‑trial motions of substance

None. There was no motion to dismiss, no § 1404(a) transfer motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, and no summary‑judgment motion. The docket never reached a scheduling order or claim‑construction stage. Senormatic's Rule 12 window appears never to have been exercised — the defense response was evidently handled off the docket (see §7).

4. Claim construction (Markman)

Did not occur. No Markman hearing, no claim‑construction order, no joint claim‑construction statement. Consequently there is no court‑authored construction of "in response to the quantity of data in the memory" — the limitation that, as Cedar Lane's own parallel complaints and third‑party analyses framed it, was the central technical battleground for the '790/'242 family. That gap is a real loss for later defendants: no Delaware or Texas court has given the claim terms a binding gloss in a Cedar Lane case I could locate.

5. Discovery milestones

None of record. No Rule 26(f) conference, no infringement contentions, no invalidity contentions, no document production, no depositions, no expert reports. With a 134‑day life and no answer on file, discovery never opened.

6. Trial, verdict, post‑trial motions

None. No trial setting, no verdict, no JMOL, no new‑trial motion, no fee motion — which is itself notable given that § 285 fee practice is the standard pressure point in NPE cases. Cedar Lane walked away from fees it might have sought, and Sensormatic walked away from fees it might have sought.

7. Final disposition — 2023‑02‑10 voluntary dismissal with prejudice

The operative event, quoted verbatim from the PACER record:

"Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, hereby provides notice that it dismisses with prejudice all claims by Plaintiff against Defendant Sensormatic Electronics, Inc. Each party shall bear its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees."

— Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, No. 1:22‑cv‑01281 (D. Del.), filed 2023‑02‑10.

Legal effect worth spelling out for a client:

1. Self‑executing. A Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice requires no court order; the case terminates on filing (the clerk's "voluntary dismissal" basis‑of‑termination code reflects that). PatSnap's caution that no "so ordered" endorsement appears is a red herring — none is required.
2. With prejudice by express terms. Rule 41(a)(1)(B) default would have made it without prejudice; the notice expressly contracted out. That forecloses Cedar Lane from re‑asserting the same claims against Sensormatic, and as a practical matter ends Sensormatic's exposure on the '242 (and, if pleaded, the '790/'527) claims asserted there.
3. No merits adjudication. Nothing was decided on infringement, validity, enforceability, or claim scope — so there is no issue preclusion and no estoppel flowing to other defendants from this case.
4. "Each party bears its own costs" is the standard hallmark of a negotiated, pre‑answer business resolution. The 134‑day pendency — long by Cedar Lane's Delaware standards (compare Cedar Lane v. Snap, 1:22‑cv‑00058, filed 2022‑01‑14 and dismissed 2022‑01‑25, 11 days; Cedar Lane v. Phytech, 1:22‑cv‑00054, dismissed 2022‑02‑15) — is consistent with licensing discussions running in parallel. A settlement or license is plausible but is not documented in the public record; do not assert one as fact.

Present posture: closed; no appeal, no reopened judgment, no Rule 60 relief. Terminated 2023‑02‑10.

8. Parallel PTAB proceedings on the '242

• No IPR or PGR on U.S. 8,537,242 was identified. PatSnap's patent‑standing field for the '242 records "Validity challenges: None recorded,"

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

Let me pull the actual docket and verify counsel.

Bottom line

Only one attorney appears as counsel of record for Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. in No. 1:22-cv-01281: David W. deBruin of Napoli Shkolnik LLC's Wilmington, Delaware office. He signed the complaint (D.I. 1, filed 2022-09-29) and the Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice of dismissal (filed 2023-02-10, D.I. ~7). No pro hac vice co-counsel, no in-house counsel, and no second law firm appears on the public record — consistent with a case that died 134 days after filing, before any answer.

Counsel table

That is the complete list. There is no basis in the record for naming anyone else as plaintiff's counsel.

What the record shows — and what it doesn't

Sourced:

• PACER-derived litigation databases list plaintiff counsel as "David W. deBruin," firm "Napoli Shkolnik LLC," for case 1:22-cv-01281 specifically (PatSnap case record; PatSnap alternate record).
• deBruin's Law360 attorney page identifies him as Napoli Shkolnik (Wilmington, DE) with a Delaware patent docket including Cedar Lane v. Openeye US (Nov. 17, 2022) — the same filing wave as the Sensormatic case (Law360).
• The firm's Wilmington address and his Delaware bar number are confirmed from the signature block he used on the contemporaneous Cedar Lane complaint in Cedar Lane v. Lexmark, 1:22-cv-01561 (D. Del. Dec. 1, 2022): "/s/David W. deBruin, David W. deBruin (DE # 4846), NAPOLI SHKOLNIK LLC, 919 North Market Street, Suite 1801, Wilmington DE 19801-3033" (complaint PDF).

Not sourced / caveats:

• I could not open the raw PACER docket sheet or the RECAP/CourtListener page for 1:22-cv-01281 itself in this session (PACER is paywalled and the RECAP page did not surface). The identification therefore rests on PACER-derived database entries plus deBruin's signature block in a sister case filed in the same court two months later, not on a direct read of D.I. 1's signature block in this case. It is highly reliable but should be confirmed against the docket image.
• No pro hac vice motions, appearances, or withdrawals are recorded for plaintiff in the available records. Nothing appears to be sealed — the file is a short, fully public one — but I cannot affirmatively rule out a sealed appearance.
• Defendant's counsel is not recorded in these databases, which corroborates that Sensormatic had not appeared before the February 2023 dismissal. That is context only; it says nothing about plaintiff's side.

Two disambiguation notes worth flagging

1. Do not confuse this David W. deBruin with David W. DeBruin, the Washington, D.C. appellate litigator (Jenner & Block; clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens; born 1955) whose biography surfaces in general web searches. They are different people; the Cedar Lane attorney is a Delaware-barred litigator practicing in Wilmington.
2. Firm affiliation changed after this case closed. In May 2023, Paul J. Napoli of Napoli Shkolnik filed letters with Judge Andrews in other Cedar Lane matters "regarding dissociation of Napoli Shkolnik LLC from Plaintiff's counsel" (e.g., Cedar Lane v. Video Network Security, 1:23-cv-00337, D.I. 11; v. Best Lighting, 1:23-cv-00380, D.I. 10). Cedar Lane's later Delaware and Texas filings were handled by Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC. For the period of this case (Sept. 2022–Feb. 2023), however, Napoli Shkolnik / deBruin is the correct attribution.

Suggested verification step

If you need courtroom-grade certainty for a brief or declaration, pull the D.I. 1 and D.I. 7 images from PACER for 1:22-cv-01281 and confirm the /s/ signature block and any "Notice of Appearance" attachment — that single check would convert the above from database-corroborated to docket-verified.

Bottom line

*No attorney has been identified as counsel of record for Sensormatic Electronics, Inc. on the public docket of Cedar Lane Techs. v. Sensormatic Elecs., No. 1:22-cv-01281 (D. Del.).* The case was opened 2022-09-29 and closed 2023-02-10 on Cedar Lane's Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice of dismissal — a mechanism available only before the defendant serves an answer or moves for summary judgment — so the record is consistent with Sensormatic never having entered an appearance, answered, or moved. Accordingly I cannot give you a name, firm, or office for defense counsel without inventing one, which I will not do.

What the record shows

The docket reconstruction published by PatSnap (a commercial litigation-data aggregator, useful but secondary) records the defendant's counsel field as "Not recorded" and states expressly that there is "[t]he absence of defendant counsel on the public record," attributing the case's 134-day life to pre-answer negotiation rather than litigation. Sources: PatSnap case page; PatSnap analysis page.

Note one data discrepancy: aggregators list three patents asserted in the case ('790, '242, '527), while the case metadata for this project lists only the '242. Per the project's operating rules I treat the metadata as authoritative on patents; the discrepancy is flagged only because it affects nothing about counsel.

Why the record is empty — and what that means practically

• A Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice is effective without court order, but only if served before the defendant's answer or summary-judgment motion. Cedar Lane used exactly that vehicle, so the file almost certainly contains no answer and no Rule 12 motion.
• It is possible a bare notice of appearance was filed and not captured by aggregators, or that counsel communicated with Cedar Lane's counsel off-docket (this is a high-volume, pre-suit-licensing NPE campaign — Cedar Lane filed dozens of '242 suits in 2022 against camera and security-equipment makers). I found no such entry in the sources I could reach. I could not complete a direct PACER/RECAP docket-entry pull within this session, so treat the "no appearance" conclusion as well-supported but not PACER-verified; the authoritative confirmation is the docket sheet for 1:22-cv-01281 in D. Del. (CM/ECF), which for a case of this length should contain only: complaint with exhibits, civil cover sheet, appearance of counsel and Rule 7.1 disclosure (plaintiff), summons, AO-120 patent report, and the dismissal notice.

Likely (but unconfirmed) defense-side representation

If you need a working hypothesis for follow-up rather than a record citation, Sensormatic's (Johnson Controls / Tyco) usual Delaware patent team, as shown in its own affirmative litigation, is:

Source: caption and signature block of the complaint in Sensormatic Electronics, LLC v. Prosegur Security USA, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-00022 (D. Del.), reproduced at Bloomberg Law.

Important caveat: those four attorneys are not shown anywhere in No. 1:22-cv-01281, and this is inference from a different case, not a record fact. Do not cite them as counsel of record here. If a notice of appearance does exist off-aggregator, Arent Fox Schiff (now ArentFox Schiff LLP after the 2022 combination) plus Young Conaway would be the highest-probability pairing given Sensormatic's litigation pattern and its status as a Johnson Controls subsidiary.

Suggested verification steps

1. Pull the PACER docket sheet (or the RECAP/CourtListener copy) for 1:22-cv-01281 and check entries D.I. 1–6 for "Notice of Appearance," "Waiver of Service," or "Stipulation."
2. If nothing appears, request the case jacket's attorney list from the Clerk's Office — CM/ECF retains attorney associations even where no filing was made; a Rule 83.5(d) pro hac vice or a pre-dismissal notice of appearance would show there.
3. Cross-check Sensormatic's in-house legal department (Johnson Controls, Milwaukee / Boca Raton) if the file was handled in-house without outside appearance — the record here is silent on that too.