Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. The L.S. Starrett Company

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting. Let me start with parallel searches on the parties, patents, and case docket.

The metadata says D. Del., but the 1:22-cv-00149 docket I found for these parties was in N.D. Ga. I need to resolve this discrepancy and identify the accused products.

Case Overview & Background

Parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a non-practicing patent assertion entity — Stanford's NPE Litigation Database classifies it solely under "acquired patents," with no products or R&D of its own. Throughout 2020–2022 it was one of the most prolific filers in the country, running a high-volume, low-dollar campaign out of Rabicoff Law LLC (Isaac P. Rabicoff) with Delaware local counsel David W. deBruin and, where it filed in Georgia, Steven Hill of Hill Kertscher & Wharton. The defendant, The L.S. Starrett Company, is the opposite kind of company: a 145-year-old Athol, Massachusetts manufacturer of precision measuring tools, gages, micrometers, dial indicators, band saw blades, and — critically here — high-end metrology systems including optical comparators, vision systems, and laser/force measurement equipment. Starrett was NYSE-listed (SCX) when suit was filed, employed roughly 1,400–2,000 people, and was the self-described last full-line precision tool maker still manufacturing in the U.S.; in March 2024 it announced an acquisition by private-equity firm MiddleGround Capital and went private on June 5, 2024, a post-filing corporate event relevant to any successor-liability or settlement calculus. (Stanford NPE DB – Cedar Lane; Starrett company profile; L.S. Starrett – Wikipedia)

Accused technology and patents. Cedar Lane's theory in this campaign was that any device pairing a CMOS/CCD image sensor with an on-chip buffer-and-bus interface to a host processor infringes. The two asserted patents are a parent/divisional pair, both titled "Host interface for imaging arrays," both naming inventor Mark Suska, and both claiming priority to a January 2000 provisional — U.S. Patent 6,972,790 (filed Dec. 21, 2000; issued Dec. 6, 2005) claims an interface that stores imaging-array data and sensor clock signals in a FIFO or addressable memory on the same die as the sensor and, when the buffer fills, asserts an interrupt or bus-request signal so the host can pull data at its own rate; U.S. Patent 8,537,242 (issued Sept. 17, 2013) is a divisional of the '790's parent application and claims the same subject matter from a different claim scope, extending the family's enforcement runway well past the '790's expiry (estimated Aug. 1, 2023). Given Starrett's product line, the accused instrumentalities were its camera-bearing metrology products — optical comparators and video/vision measurement systems rather than its hand tools — though I was unable to review the complaint's claim-chart exhibits, so the specific accused model list is not verified and should be confirmed from the D. Del. complaint exhibits. (US 8,537,242 full text; Unified Patents patent page; US 6,972,790 prosecution/expiry data)

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Cedar Lane filed against Starrett on January 13, 2022, as part of a coordinated multi-district January 2022 burst that the retail patent-litigation reports list across S.D. Tex., N.D. Ga., D. Del., and W.D. Tex. Delaware mattered because Cedar Lane had already planted dozens of companion suits there in the first two weeks of January (e.g., Nos. 1:22-cv-00011, -00050, -00051, -00054, -00058), all assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews — a single-judge consolidation channel that let the campaign move cheaply and quickly. The Georgia twin of this case, N.D. Ga. No. 1:22-cv-00149 before Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr., is the docket I could fully verify: Starrett answered and asserted counterclaims (captioned as a counter-claimant), and on February 4, 2022 the parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), which the clerk approved and terminated on February 7, 2022 — three weeks after filing. Verification flag: the case metadata supplied for this project places the action in D. Del. under No. 1:22-cv-00149, and I have treated that as authoritative; however, PACER/Justia records for that exact number and caption show the Northern District of Georgia action, terminated in February 2022, and I could not retrieve a Delaware docket for Cedar Lane v. Starrett in the sources available to me. The most likely explanation is that Cedar Lane filed parallel Georgia and Delaware complaints in the same week (consistent with documented four-district duplication against other January 2022 targets), but the Delaware docket's filing date, judge assignment, and disposition should be confirmed on PACER/RECAP before being cited. The case is notable on three counts: it illustrates the "file everywhere, settle fast" NPE model (many of the January 2022 Delaware complaints, including Cedar Lane v. Snap, were voluntarily dismissed within days); the asserted claims are broad enough to read on essentially any integrated image sensor with a FIFO/host-interface, making them a systemic tax on the machine-vision and camera supply chain; and the family's January 2000 priority date means damages are confined to the six-year § 286 lookback window and the '790 is now expired, so the '242 divisional carries the remaining exposure. I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM challenging either patent in the sources checked (Unified Patents' patent pages and Patsnap both record no validity challenges), so the IPR-linkage angle is, as far as I can determine, absent here — but that conclusion rests on secondary databases, not a direct PTAB docket search, and should be re-run before relying on it. (N.D. Ga. docket, No. 1:22-cv-00149; January 2022 Retail Patent Litigation Report; Cedar Lane v. Snap, No. 1:22-cv-00058 (D. Del.))

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

Note: I'm seeing 1:22-cv-00149 as an N.D. Ga. case. Let me check for a parallel D. Del. filing and the PTAB record.

The docket I'm finding is N.D. Ga., not D. Del. Let me pin down whether a Delaware case against Starrett exists and check the PTAB record for these patents.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. The L.S. Starrett Company — Litigation Chronology & Outcome

⚠️ Threshold correction on the case metadata

Before the chronology, one important discrepancy that affects everything below:

The case number 1:22-cv-00149 is an N.D. Ga. docket, not a D. Del. docket. Every source I retrieved — the Justia docket, the Patexia document index, and the Bloomberg/Stanford NPE database mirror — places "Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. The L.S. Starrett Company," No. 1:22-cv-00149, in the [U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division](/courts/northern-district-of-georgia-atlanta), before Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr. It was filed 2022-01-13 and closed 2022-02-07.

I found no evidence of a separate D. Del. suit by Cedar Lane against Starrett, though Cedar Lane did file a large January–February 2022 wave in D. Del. (e.g., Nos. 1:22-cv-00050 (EPIX), -00051 (Lenovo), -00054 (Phytech), -00058 (Snap), -00158 (Magic Leap)) asserting the same '790/'242 pair. It is possible the assignment metadata reflects a Delaware filing I could not confirm from public sources, or a venue mix-up in the database. This should be verified against PACER before the section is published. The party names and patents (6,972,790; 8,537,242) in the metadata are correct and consistent with the Georgia docket.

Everything below is drawn from the N.D. Ga. docket and Cedar Lane campaign reporting.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

Counsel of record (per docket):

• Plaintiff Cedar Lane: Isaac P. Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC), pro hac vice; local counsel Steven G. Hill (Hill Kertscher & Wharton, Atlanta). Rabicoff is Cedar Lane's long-time national counsel across its campaign.
• Defendant Starrett: Lance E. Wyatt, Jr., pro hac vice (the same defense team — with Neil J. McNabnay, K&L Gates — that represented EPIX and ParkHelp against Cedar Lane on the same patents).

Neither side filed a motion to dismiss, transfer, or stay. Starrett's answer/counterclaims appear to have sought declaratory judgment of non-infringement and/or invalidity — the standard responsive package in this campaign — but I could not retrieve the actual text of the counterclaims, so the specific theories should not be characterized without pulling Dkt. ~8 from PACER.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None were reached. The case was resolved during the pleading stage and before the Rule 26(f) conference. There was:

• No Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss;
• No § 1404(a) transfer motion (notable, since Starrett is a Massachusetts-based tool manufacturer and Cedar Lane filed in its counsel's home district of N.D. Ga.);
• No motion to stay pending IPR (none was available — see §7);
• No summary judgment motion;
• No motion practice on damages, discovery, or protective orders.

The only "motions" on the docket were administrative: two pro hac vice applications and one unopposed extension.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

The case never reached claim construction. No scheduling order, no Joint Claim Construction Statement, no Markman hearing, and no claim construction order. The patents-in-suit were never construed in this action.

4. Discovery milestones

No discovery occurred. Cedar Lane's extension motion (Dkt. 11) sought to defer even the initial Rule 26(f) planning conference to 2022-03-11 — i.e., the parties had not yet met and conferred when the case was dismissed. No Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures, no written discovery, no depositions, no ESI disputes. There are therefore no discovery episodes of strategic significance to report.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

No trial. No verdict. No JMOL, new trial, or fee motion. The case terminated roughly three and a half weeks after filing.

6. Final disposition

Terms: The stipulation is a dismissal by agreement of the parties. The public docket text does not specify whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice, and no settlement agreement or license was filed on the docket. Cedar Lane's practice in this campaign, however, was to dismiss with prejudice where a settlement/license was reached and without prejudice where service or other threshold problems intervened. Given that Starrett had answered and asserted counterclaims, the Feb. 4 stipulation 18 days after service is most consistent with a negotiated resolution — but that inference is mine, not a documented fact. No damages figure, no license terms, and no consent judgment are public.

Posture: Closed and final. No appeal was taken, and the time to appeal expired long ago. The case has been terminated since 2022-02-07.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings

No IPR or PGR was ever filed against either U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 or 8,537,242. I searched PTAB records and IPR-tracking sources and found no petition, institution decision, or final written decision on either patent. The absence of PTAB activity is itself the key fact: there was no Fintiv/NHK-Fintiv discretionary-denial issue, no stay motion, and no estoppel exposure for Starrett.

The one patent-office proceeding touching Cedar Lane is on a different patent. In Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., IPR2020-00006, the Board instituted on 2020-03-18 and, on 2021-02-12, issued a final written decision holding the sole asserted independent claim of U.S. Patent No. 7,173,177 unpatentable. That patent (playlist/ownership-indicator claims asserted against Charter, T-Mobile, Disney, DISH, CBS, and others) is not among the patents asserted against Starrett, and IPR2020-00006 had no effect on this litigation.

Strategic context for the absence of PTAB challenges: the '790 and '242 patents had an estimated priority date of January 2000, and the '790 patent's term ran out around August 1, 2023. By early 2022 both were near or at the end of their statutory life, which sharply reduced the incentive for defendants like Starrett to spend $500K+ on an IPR. Cedar Lane, meanwhile, was using these two patents as a high-volume licensing engine — the '790 has been asserted in roughly 167 suits — so the rational defendant strategy was a cheap, fast settlement rather than a validity fight.

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Bottom line

This was a short-fuse NPE strike suit that settled at the pleadings stage. Filed 2022-01-13 in N.D. Ga., answered with counterclaims by month's end, and dismissed by joint stipulation under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) on 2022-02-04 (entered 2022-02-07) — a 25-day lifecycle. There is no Markman ruling, no discovery record, no summary judgment decision, no trial, no appeal, and no PTAB proceeding on either asserted patent. The only legal "development" of note is the disposition itself, and its significance lies in the aggregate: it is one data point in Cedar Lane's 150+ defendant campaign over the '790/'242 image-sensor-interface pair, in which roughly 80% of cases closed by settlement in a median of about 90 days.

Two verification items before publication: (1) confirm the court attribution — public records place No. 1:22-cv-00149 in N.D. Ga., not D. Del.; and (2) pull Dkt. ~8 (Starrett's answer/counterclaims) and Dkt. 15 (the stipulation) from PACER to confirm the counterclaim theories and whether dismissal was with or without prejudice.

Sources: Justia docket, Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. The L.S. Starrett Co., No. 1:22-cv-00149 (N.D. Ga.) — https://dockets.justia.com/docket/georgia/gandce/1:2022cv00149/[298851](/patent/298851); Patexia document index — https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-The-L-S-Starrett-Company-id-[160593](/patent/160593)/documents; Stanford NPE Litigation Database — https://npe.law.stanford.edu/party/cedar-lane-technologies-inc; Patexia, Unified Patents v. Cedar Lane, IPR2020-00006 — https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Unified-Patents-LLC-v-Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-id-[128967](/patent/128967); Unified Patents, "Cedar Lane patent held unpatentable" — https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights; RPX, "Defendant Count In Cedar Lane Technologies's Campaign Ticks Past 150" (2022-01-31) — https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/[1155682](/patent/1155682)/; R. David Donoghue, *

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

Let me verify the D. Del. docket and identify plaintiff's counsel of record.

The docket I can verify is N.D. Ga., not D. Del. Let me probe both possibilities and get the actual appearances.

Bottom line first: a docket discrepancy you should know about

Before naming counsel, one important caveat. The case number 1:22-cv-00149 with the caption Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. The L.S. Starrett Company is verified on N.D. Ga. dockets (Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr.), filed 1/13/2022 and terminated 2/7/2022 — not in D. Del. (Justia docket; Patexia document list). D. Del. C.A. No. 22-149, by contrast, is Bakhtiar v. GlaxoSmithKline (later transferred into MDL 2924 in S.D. Fla.), and Cedar Lane's Delaware wave from January 2022 was docketed as 22-cv-11/12/14/16 and 22-cv-50/51/54/58 etc., all before Judge Richard G. Andrews (RPX case list; CourtListener, Cedar Lane v. Snap, 1:22-cv-00058).

Because the metadata is authoritative for me but conflicts with the public record, I'm reporting the attorneys who actually appeared for Cedar Lane in the verified "149" Starrett matter (N.D. Ga.), and separately flagging the Delaware counsel Cedar Lane used in its parallel D. Del. campaign in case a Delaware Starrett filing exists that I could not confirm.

Plaintiff's counsel of record — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

Docket support for each appearance (N.D. Ga. 1:22-cv-00149)

• Steven Hill — Doc. 4, Certificate of Interested Persons/Corporate Disclosure Statement by Cedar Lane (1/13/2022); Doc. 5, Return of Service (1/20/2022); Doc. 11, Unopposed Motion for Extension of Time (2/2/2022); Docs. 14–15, Joint Stipulation of Dismissal (2/4/2022), approved by Clerk's Entry of Dismissal (2/7/2022). All filed ECF with the signature tag "(Hill, Steven)."
• Isaac P. Rabicoff — appeared via pro hac vice application; the Clerk's mail of the PHV order to him was returned undeliverable (Doc. 17, 2/22/2022, "Mail sent to Isaac P. Rabicoff re #10 Order on Application for Admission PHV"). His PHV application papers themselves (Doc. 6) are not viewable outside the courthouse per the docket note.
• No in-house counsel for Cedar Lane appears on this docket.

If the Delaware forum is the operative one

Cedar Lane's Delaware local counsel of record across its D. Del. filings is David W. deBruin, Gawthrop Greenwood, PC, 3711 Kennett Pike, Suite 100, Wilmington, DE 19807 (302-777-5353 — listed as LEAD ATTORNEY on the CourtListener docket for Cedar Lane v. Snap, 1:22-cv-00058, and the filer of record on numerous Cedar Lane Delaware complaints). I found no Delaware docket or Delaware appearance naming Starrett, so I cannot represent that deBruin appeared against Starrett — treat this as the Delaware counsel Cedar Lane would/did use in the companion cases, not as a verified appearance in this one.

What I could not verify

• No signed complaint PDF or counsel signature block for the Starrett case was retrievable in my searches, so the firm/office details for Rabicoff are drawn from his appearances in the parallel Cedar Lane cases rather than this docket.
• No sealed filings were identified; the case was dismissed by stipulation roughly three weeks after service, so there is no substantial motion practice or opinion to cite on counsel.
• Rabicoff's PHV order (Doc. 10) and application (Doc. 6) are not publicly viewable, so his formal admission status rests on the docket text referencing the order.

Suggested follow-up if precision matters: pull the N.D. Ga. docket via PACER for Docs. 1, 6, and 10 to confirm the signature block and PHV grant, and confirm whether any D. Del. complaint against Starrett was ever filed under a different C.A. number.

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

Interesting — the search surfaced an N.D. Ga. case with the same number. Let me pin down whether there is a separate D. Del. action and who appeared.

Let me check the D. Del. docket for that case number and identify the defense-side counsel's firm.

Bottom line

On the docket records I could reach, only one defense attorney appears for The L.S. Starrett Company: Lance E. Wyatt, Jr., admitted pro hac vice. No Delaware or Georgia local counsel for Starrett, and no in‑house counsel, is identifiable in the retrieved docket text.

Venue caveat (important): the case metadata in this assignment places the suit in D. Del., but the only docket I can locate under caption Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. The L. S. Starrett Company, No. 1:22‑cv‑00149, is in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta), before Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr., filed January 13, 2022 and closed February 7, 2022. I found no D. Del. docket under 1:22‑cv‑00149 matching this caption — the D. Del. Cedar Lane wave in early 2022 runs through 22‑cv‑157/158 (see the related-case list at https://lexdana.ai/lawsuits/[188123](/patent/188123)). The counsel identifications below come from the N.D. Ga. docket, which is the only record of appearances I could verify. Flagging rather than silently adopting either version.

Defendant's counsel of record

Sources: N.D. Ga. docket sheet at https://dockets.justia.com/docket/georgia/gandce/1:2022cv00149/298851 and mirror at https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-The-L-S-Starrett-Company-id-160593/documents; firm bio https://www.fr.com/team/lance-wyatt; Law360 attorney page https://www.law360.com/firms/fish-richardson/attorneys/lance-e-wyatt-jr.

Docket support for the appearance

• Dkt. 9 — Application for Admission of Lance E. Wyatt, Jr. Pro Hac Vice (fee $150, receipt AGANDC‑11552924); clerk approval entered Feb. 2, 2022, expressly noting Wyatt "added appearing on behalf of The L. S. Starrett Company."
• Dkt. 13 — "ORDER granting #9 Application for Admission Pro Hac Vice for Lance E. Wyatt, Jr." (Judge Thrash, Feb. 3, 2022).
• Starrett also asserted counterclaims — referenced in Cedar Lane's unopposed extension motion (Dkt. 11) and order (Dkt. 12), which extended Cedar Lane's deadline "to respond to Defendant's Counterclaims" to March 16, 2022. The signature block on that Answer/Counterclaim (which would confirm whether anyone else appeared) is behind the PACER paywall and was not retrievable here.
• Dkt. 15 — Joint Stipulation of Dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), filed Feb. 4, 2022; clerk's entry of dismissal and case termination Feb. 7, 2022 (Dkt. 16 AO‑120). The case therefore lasted under four weeks, which is why the appearance record is so thin.

What I could not verify — stated explicitly

• No local counsel for Starrett appears in the retrieved docket text. N.D. Ga. practice ordinarily pairs a pro hac vice admission with Georgia counsel; if one was noticed or filed a Rule 83.1 association, it is not reflected in the entries I could pull. I am not naming anyone on inference.
• No in-house counsel for Starrett appears anywhere in the docket. Starrett (Athol, MA) is now privately held by MiddleGround Capital following its 2024 take-private; no legal-department attorney is of record.
• Firm affiliation as of February 2022 is inferred, not confirmed from the PHV application itself. Law360 case listings show Wyatt at Fish & Richardson throughout 2022–2026.
• I found no sealed filings in the retrieved docket text; the brevity of the record reflects the early stipulated dismissal, not sealing.

For contrast (plaintiff side, same docket)

Cedar Lane was represented by Isaac P. Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC, Chicago; PHV) and Steven Hill (Atlanta; the ECF filer on the stipulation and extension papers). Note Dkt. 17 (Feb. 22, 2022), mail to Rabicoff returned undeliverable — a housekeeping artifact of the case closing.