Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Spotify USA

I'll research this case to verify the metadata and build a factual overview.

Case Overview and Background

Parties and posture. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Spotify USA Inc., No. 1:21-cv-00676 (D. Del.), was filed May 10, 2021. The filing, the parties, and the three asserted patents are independently corroborated by IPWatchdog's Patent Filings Roundup of May 21, 2021 (which lists "1:21-cv-00676 | Filed | Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. [Poss. Intellectual Ventures] | Spotify USA | 6526411, 6721489, 7610394") and by a Patexia case-record entry giving the May 10, 2021 filing date (IPWatchdog; Patexia). Cedar Lane is a non-practicing entity that the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies under "acquired patents"; a Korean IP-protection agency dispute record (KOIPA, via KOTRA) describes it as a Canadian NPE and Spotify USA as a Swedish-affiliated foreign defendant, with the case shown as pending at the time of that record (Stanford NPE DB; KOTRA/KOIPA record). Spotify USA is the U.S. operating subsidiary of the Swedish streaming service Spotify — an operating company, not an NPE. The case was filed in the District of Delaware, the venue Cedar Lane used for a large share of its campaign; the assigned judge and the docket's disposition are not verified in this session — I did not retrieve PACER, and no opinion or dismissal order surfaced in search, so the outcome should be confirmed on PACER before being relied on (the KOIPA record's "in progress" status is a snapshot, not a final disposition).

Accused technology. The complaint targeted Spotify's streaming service — the Spotify client/web player and its playlist and library functionality. Cedar Lane's parallel complaints on the same patent family describe the accused instrumentalities as players that let users create, edit, reorder and save playlists, present multiple streaming-content sources in a single display, and automatically play the next item in a queue; Law Street Media's coverage of Cedar Lane's LiveXLive complaint is the most detailed public sketch of the theory applied to a streaming music service, and its coverage of the Dish Network complaint summarizes the family as covering "playback of network audio on demand, creating and managing playlists, management of owned and unowned inventory, and translating a device command" (LiveXLive coverage; Dish coverage). The specific Spotify claim charts — e.g., whether "Spotify Connect," offline/download library features, or algorithmic radio/autoplay were charted — were not retrieved, so any assertion about which Spotify features were mapped to which claims should be treated as unconfirmed.

Patents asserted (one-line technical sketches).

• U.S. 6,526,411 B1 — "System and Method for Creating Dynamic Playlists" (inventor Ward; filed Nov. 15, 2000, claiming benefit of a Nov. 15, 1999 provisional; issued Feb. 25, 2003). Claims a hybrid content-based/collaborative-filtering engine that dynamically adds and subtracts items from a playback queue, so the "dynamic playlist" reorders and refreshes itself based on user preference and other users' usage rather than remaining a static list (patent PDF).
• U.S. 6,721,489 — Cedar Lane's public descriptions place the '489 patent in the "playback of network audio on demand" bucket of this family. Its formal title and claim text were not independently verified in this session, so treat the one-line sketch as provisional and check the patent face before relying on it.
• U.S. 7,610,394 — described in Cedar Lane's public campaign materials as relating to "translating a device command" (i.e., command/control translation across devices). As with the '489, the verified title and claim language were not retrieved here; also note that the "owned/unowned inventory" concept in the same family belongs to a different patent, U.S. 7,173,177, which is not asserted against Spotify.

Why this case matters. Three threads make it notable. First, the NPE assertion model: Cedar Lane was, by IAM's accounting, the most litigious NPE in the United States in 2022, filing hundreds of suits on acquired media/imaging patents, and its (and IP Edge's) subsequent pause in filing was a major driver of the reported ~21% drop in U.S. patent litigation in 2023 (IAM via LinkedIn summary). Spotify — a deep-pocketed, high-visibility subscription-streaming target — fits the campaign's pattern of asserting playlist/recommendation-era patents (priority dates around 1999–2000) against modern streaming platforms. Second, the Delaware venue dynamic: Cedar Lane's Delaware volume made it a focal point for Chief Judge Connolly's third-party-litigation-funding and ownership-disclosure orders, which IAM credits with a cooling effect on serial NPE filings — precisely the pressures that shape how a case like this one resolves. Third, IPR/PTAB linkage and patent quality: Unified Patents successfully invalidated a different Cedar Lane patent in the same general portfolio — U.S. 7,173,177, whose independent claim the PTAB held unpatentable in a Feb. 12, 2021 final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (Unified insight). That decision is strong context for evaluating the Spotify suit's exposure, but I found no IPR petition against the '411, '489, or '394 patents in this session; unless one exists, the invalidity story here would have played out in district court rather than at the PTAB.

Verification caveats: confirmed — case number, court, filing date, parties, and the three patents (IPWatchdog + Patexia + KOIPA). Not confirmed in this session — assigned judge, docket entries, the accused-feature claim charts, settlement/dismissal outcome, counsel of record, and the '489/'394 patent titles and claims. Those five items should be pulled from PACER/RPX before publication.

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

Let me get the actual docket from CourtListener/RECAP.

Let me pull the specific docket from CourtListener and Justia.

Research note and confidence key

I ran out of search budget before I could open the actual PACER/RECAP docket sheet for Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Spotify USA Inc., No. 1:21-cv-00676 (D. Del.). Everything below is tagged accordingly:

• [VERIFIED] — confirmed in the sources returned by search (IPWatchdog docket roundup, Stanford NPE database, Law Street Media, Unified Patents, docket mirrors for companion Cedar Lane cases, KOTRA/Korean IP Protection Agency litigation index).
• [UNVERIFIED — docket check needed] — consistent with the record but not confirmed for this docket number. I have not invented dates, entry numbers, attorneys or rulings for these.
• [ANALYTICAL INFERENCE] — my conclusion drawn from the campaign-wide pattern, clearly labeled as such.

I did not find any court opinion, Markman order, trial verdict, JMOL ruling, fee award, or Federal Circuit decision for this docket in any indexed source. That absence is itself a finding, and I explain its significance below.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

2021-05-10 — Complaint filed. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (British Columbia; an NPE formed 2019, directed by attorney Greg Benoit, holding patents acquired from Intellectual Ventures through Steephill Technologies LLC) sued Spotify USA in D. Del., asserting U.S. Patent Nos. 6,526,411, 6,721,489, and 7,610,394. [VERIFIED] — IPWatchdog's May 21, 2021 patent-filings roundup lists 1:21-cv-00676 | Filed | Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. [Poss. Intellectual Ventures] | Spotify USA | 6526411, 6721489, 7610394; the Stanford NPE Litigation Database and the Korean IP Protection Agency litigation index (which records an "occurrence date" of 2021.05.10) independently confirm the same three patents and parties. Source: https://ipwatchdog.com/2021/05/21/patent-filings-roundup-new-npe-solid-state-drive-suit-micron-western-digital-redfin-indemnitee-files-ipr-virtual-reality-tour-patents/

Subject matter of the asserted family. Per Mondaq/Bloomberg Law analysis of the campaign: the '411 and '489 patents are directed to "creating, managing, and storing playlists," and the '394 patent to "a web application that supports streaming media playback and playlists," with infringement theories aimed at media casting, playlist management, and remote-control features of streaming services. https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/[998106](/patent/998106)

Nature of the pleading. These complaints were template documents recycled across dozens of defendants, with per-defendant claim charts attached as exhibits and three parallel counts (direct, induced, contributory infringement) per patent. This is directly documented in the near-identical LiveXLive complaint filed the prior term by the same plaintiff, which recites the same patents and identical boilerplate Count language. https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/livexlive-media-sued-for-infringement-of-playlist-streaming-patents/ [VERIFIED — pattern; complaint wording for the Spotify docket itself UNVERIFIED]

Plaintiff's counsel. Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) plus Delaware local counsel Jacobs & Crumplar, P.A. — confirmed for the LiveXLive and JVCKenwood companion suits; almost certainly the same here. [VERIFIED for the campaign; UNVERIFIED for this docket]

Defendant's answer and counterclaims — not verified. No source I retrieved reproduces Spotify's responsive pleading here. In the one companion Cedar Lane case where the answer is visible in a docket snippet, Cedar Lane Techs. v. EPIX, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-00050 (D. Del.), the defendant filed an Answer with jury demand, affirmative defenses, and counterclaims on 2022-03-11 (D.I. 9), and the case was dismissed five days later. Expect Spotify's answer to have sought declaratory judgments of non-infringement and invalidity — but treat that as [UNVERIFIED] until you confirm on PACER. https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-cedar-lane-technologies-inc-v-epix-inc-[1116312](/patent/1116312)

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2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None verified. The motion practice reasonably expected in a Cedar Lane D. Del. case of this vintage, and which you should check PACER for by name, is:

• Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss targeting the induced/contributory counts and pre-suit-knowledge allegations. This was the standard defense play against this plaintiff: in Cedar Lane Techs. v. Blackmagic Design (N.D. Cal.), Judge Vince Chhabria granted dismissal of the induced and contributory infringement claims on 2020-10-01 and issued an order to show cause why the case should not be dismissed for failure to prosecute and why Cedar Lane's counsel should not be sanctioned. [VERIFIED as campaign history, not as to Spotify] https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/998106
• Motion to transfer venue — not confirmed. Spotify USA is a New York–based entity, so a § 1404(a) motion is plausible, but I found no evidence of one.
• Motion to stay pending IPR — not confirmed. Cedar Lane's Delaware cases were generally resolved by settlement long before IPR-driven stay practice would have ripened.
• Summary judgment — no evidence the case reached expert or dispositive motion practice.

Third-party litigation funding disclosure. One genuinely notable procedural overlay worth checking: in April 2022 Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly of the District of Delaware began requiring NPE plaintiffs to disclose third-party litigation funders and any entity with a pecuniary interest, and Cedar Lane was among the first and most prominent targets of that scrutiny. Reporting credits Connolly's disclosure requirements with a sharp drop in Cedar Lane's filing volume. [VERIFIED as a D. Del. development and as to Cedar Lane's exposure to it; UNVERIFIED whether the '676 docket was before Judge Connolly or whether a specific disclosure order issued there] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anupamdixit25_cedar-lane-and-ip-edges-us-patent-lawsuits-activity-7074325822618148864-8VsW

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3. Claim construction (Markman)

No Markman proceeding is documented. Given that this docket produced no indexed opinion while Cedar Lane's D. Del. cases were routinely terminated within 30–130 days of filing (verified examples below), the overwhelming likelihood is that the case was resolved before a Markman hearing, before claim-construction briefing, and before the Rule 26(f)/scheduling-order

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

Let me look at the specific docket for this case.

Let me find the actual docket sheet for this case.

Counsel of Record — Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Spotify USA Inc., No. 1:21-cv-00676 (D. Del.)

Important sourcing caveat up front. I was not able to retrieve the actual docket sheet (or the complaint's signature block) for No. 1:21-cv-00676 in this session. The public sources that surfaced for this case number — the IPWatchdog "Patent Filings Roundup" entry for the May 10, 2021 filing week and Korean IP-protection aggregator (KOTRA/KOIPA) records — confirm only the filing date, parties, and the three asserted patents (6,526,411; 6,721,489; 7,610,394). They contain no counsel information. CourtListener/Justia/UniCourt results for "1:21-cv-00676" returned unrelated matters (C.D. Cal., D. Nev., Tex. state courts) — the docket itself did not surface.

So rather than name attorneys I cannot place on this docket, I'm separating what is verified from what is a well-documented pattern in Cedar Lane's Delaware filings.

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Verified: Cedar Lane's Delaware-side roster (2021–2023 cohort)

These attorneys are confirmed by CourtListener party records, Law360 attorney pages, and docket-derived case summaries as counsel of record for Cedar Lane in D. Del. patent cases, but I cannot confirm their appearance in No. 1:21-cv-00676 specifically.

What this means for No. 1:21-cv-00676

• Most likely configuration: Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) as the filing/lead attorney with a Delaware-admitted local counsel signing the complaint and entering appearance to satisfy D. Del. Local Rule 83.5(d). That is the structural pattern across the entire Cedar Lane campaign in 2019–2022.
• Best candidate for the Delaware-signed appearance in the May 2021 window: David W. deBruin, who is the attorney CourtListener most consistently attributes to Cedar Lane in D. Del. during the 2021–2023 period. But this is an inference from adjacent dockets, not a verified appearance in 1:21-cv-00676.
• No in-house counsel should be expected: Cedar Lane is a British Columbia NPE (incorporated April 29, 2019; director Greg Benoit, tied to Pigott & Co. and Steephill Technologies LLC) with no litigation department reflected in any filing I found.

Verification steps I'd recommend (and could not complete here)

1. PACER docket for 1:21-cv-00676 — pull D.I. 1 (complaint signature block) and the first "NOTICE of Attorney Appearance" entries. Given the 2021 filing date and Cedar Lane's rapid-settlement practice, the case is likely closed by dismissal, in which case the dismissal stipulation will be signed by plaintiff's counsel of record.
2. Check whether the case was transferred or consolidated — Cedar Lane's parallel 2021 D. Del. matters were assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews; a related-cases disclosure letter (as deBruin filed in the EPIX matter) would name counsel.
3. Cross-check RPX Insight / Unified Patents portals for the 1:21-cv-00676 docket, which mirror PACER dockets for D. Del. and were not reachable in this session.
4. IPWatchdog's May 21, 2021 roundup confirms filing and patents but is not a source for counsel.

Bottom line: I can confirm the pattern and the pool of attorneys who represented Cedar Lane in Delaware patent litigation in this period, and I can tell you who is most likely to appear on this docket — but I will not represent any of them as counsel of record in 1:21-cv-00676 without the docket sheet in hand. If you can supply the docket entries (D.I. 1 and any appearance notices), I'll lock down the lead/local split and the pro hac vice admissions precisely.

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

Bottom line up front

I could not verify a counsel-of-record list for Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. Spotify USA Inc., No. 1:21-cv-00676 (D. Del.) from the sources reachable in this session. The public PACER docket sheet, CourtListener RECAP entry, and Law360/Reuters coverage for this specific case number did not surface in search, and secondary databases (Patexia, Stanford NPE database, Justia, Docket Alarm) index the case's existence and filing date (May 10, 2021) but not its attorney roster in the snippets available to me. Rather than guess, I'm flagging that explicitly per your instruction not to invent counsel.

What I can confirm about the case itself: Cedar Lane (a British Columbia NPE formed in 2019, operating out of Pigott & Co.'s address) filed on May 10, 2021 in D. Del. against Spotify USA Inc., asserting U.S. Patents 6,526,411, 6,721,489, and 7,610,394 — the playlist-management and streaming-media-playback family it wielded against streaming services (Deezer, LiveXLive, ViacomCBS, Disney, DISH) in the same campaign. (NPE Litigation Database; Mondaq/Bloomberg Law summary of the Cedar Lane campaign; KOTRA D.C. Delaware dispute record for 1:21-cv-00676)

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Spotify's counsel in adjacent, verifiable matters (NOT confirmed for this docket)

The following are attorneys documented in filed papers as representing Spotify USA Inc. in other proceedings. I am giving them to you as leads to check against the 1:21-cv-00676 docket sheet, not as counsel of record here.

Practical relevance: Sheppard Mullin's PTAB team (Batts/Ponder/Liang) is the only Spotify patent-side representation I could document, which makes that firm a plausible candidate for the district-court defense in a 2021 NPE suit — but that is an inference, not a docket-verified fact, and Spotify has used multiple firms (including Fish & Richardson, Kilpatrick Townsend, and others) across its NPE docket. Do not treat it as established for this case.

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Gaps you should close with a direct PACER pull

Because D. Del. requires local counsel under D. Del. L.R. 83.5 (as then in effect) for any party not admitted in the district, the docket for 1:21-cv-00676 will almost certainly show two Spotify entries: a Delaware firm (typical local-counsel shops in D. Del. patent cases include Young Conaway, Potter Anderson, Morris Nichols, Richards Layton, and Shaw Keller) plus lead trial counsel. On the plaintiff side, Cedar Lane's D. Del. filings in this era were signed by Isaac P. Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC), frequently with David W. deBruin as local counsel — see, e.g., the parallel Cedar Lane D. Del. matters indexed at LexDana, Cedar Lane v. TVL Int'l, 1:23-cv-00376.

Specific things to check on the docket sheet:

1. Docket entries 1–12 (May–July 2021) — the Rule 7.1 disclosure statement and the first notice of appearance usually identify both tiers of Spotify counsel.
2. Whether the case was stayed pending an IPR, voluntarily dismissed, or transferred — Cedar Lane's cases in this period overwhelmingly ended in early voluntary dismissal or consent judgment, and if it dismissed before an answer, no defense appearance may exist at all, only a waiver/stipulated extension. That is the single most likely explanation for the thin public record.
3. Any pro hac vice motions — those list lead counsel's firm, office, and bar admissions in one document.
4. Related PTAB proceedings: check whether Spotify petitioned for IPR on the '411, '489, or '394 patents, which would name the same litigation team.

If you can pull the docket PDF or the complaint/answer images, I can build the full counsel table with entry-level citations.