Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. ViacomCBS Inc.

I'll research this case and the parties, then build the overview.

Good foundation. Now let me pin down the disposition, the '867 patent specifics, and any IPR activity.

Case Overview

Parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a non-practicing entity formed in British Columbia on April 29, 2019, with attorney Greg Benoit as director and a business address corresponding to IP licensing firm Pigott & Co. It does not make or sell anything; its entire model is asserting a portfolio of roughly 40–50 former Intellectual Ventures patents acquired through a Delaware conduit, Steephill Technologies LLC, which took title from IV and passed it to Cedar Lane. (Mondaq, "Cedar Lane, Elsewhere Ordered To Show Cause…", 26 Oct. 2020, https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/[998106](/patent/998106).) ViacomCBS Inc. is the operating media conglomerate created by the December 2019 CBS–Viacom recombination — a direct defendant with nationwide streaming, broadcast and cable assets (renamed Paramount Global in 2022; the docket retains the ViacomCBS caption). Cedar Lane's counsel of record was Isaac Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, its habitual lead counsel in this campaign.

Accused technology and patents. The complaint (Dkt. 1, filed 10/9/2020, with six exhibits including claim charts) pleaded three counts. Per the RPX litigation document for the complaint (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/14044767), Count 1 asserted U.S. Patent 6,526,411 (creating, managing and storing playlists); Count 2 asserted U.S. Patent 7,173,177 (indicating on a user interface whether items in a playlist are owned or unowned); and Count 3 asserted the metadata patent, U.S. Patent 8,165,867, "Methods for translating a device command," issued April 24, 2012 from an application filed September 15, 2000. Claim 1 of the '867 patent covers using a first device to operate a second device in real time where the second device is not physically connected and only intermittently local — capturing human-understandable auditory/voice command information, manipulating it, and transmitting it to a distal computer system that translates it into a command for the second device (claim text quoted in Law Street Media, https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech/sonos-sued-for-patent-infringement-over-voice-controlled-speakers/). The infringement theory was directed at Cedar Lane's recurring, largely boilerplate template for this batch of October 2020 streaming-service suits — media casting, playlist management, and remote-control features of ViacomCBS's music and media streaming offerings. Caveat: I could not retrieve Exhibits 4 and 6 (the '411/'177 and '867 claim charts) and therefore cannot name the specific accused ViacomCBS apps/services; Mondaq's contemporaneous reporting describes the October 2020 ViacomCBS, Deezer and LiveXLive complaints collectively as targeting "the provision of music streaming services."

Posture, venue and significance. Filed October 9, 2020 in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, and randomly assigned to Judge Sara L. Ellis (Magistrate Judge Beth W. Jantz designated) — see the Justia docket, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2020cv06021/[392129](/patent/392129). The case never got past pleading: Dkt. 5 set an initial status conference for 12/9/2020; Dkt. 6 (11/3/2020) was an unopposed motion to extend ViacomCBS's answer deadline; Dkt. 7 (12/1/2020) was an unopposed motion to continue the hearing. The case is terminated, and the Korean Intellectual Property Protection Agency's litigation database records the disposition as a voluntary dismissal (소취하, "withdrawal"), though I could not retrieve the Rule 41 dismissal entry itself — the PACER/RECAP snapshot ends at 12/1/2020, so the exact dismissal date and whether it was with or without prejudice are unverified. N.D. Ill. mattered here less as a plaintiff's venue than as a function of Cedar Lane's scattergun filing strategy — the same week it filed against Deezer in D. Colo., LiveXLive in D. Del., and then DISH and Disney in W.D. Tex. — and it was a notably inconvenient forum given that the campaign's core venue was Judge Albright's Waco docket. The case's significance is contextual rather than doctrinal: (i) it is a datapoint in Cedar Lane's campaign that exceeded 150 defendants, one of the most prolific NPE campaigns on record; (ii) the '867 patent became the workhorse of that campaign, later asserted against Comcast, LG, iHeartMedia, SiriusXM, TCL, D-Link, Disney, DISH, Sonos, Walmart's onn. Google Assistant devices, WideOpenWest and Cox; (iii) it drew third-party validity challenges — Unified Patents ran a patent-office challenge to the co-asserted '177 patent, winning a PTAB final written decision on February 12, 2021 holding the independent claim unpatentable (IPR2020-00006, https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/2/12/cedar-lane-patent-held-unpatentable), and ran a $3,000 PATROLL crowdsourcing contest on '867 claim 1 from January 20 to March 1, 2021 (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/1/20/3000-for-cedar-lane-technologies-prior-art). No IPR against the '867 patent itself surfaced in my searches.

Verification note. Confirmed by source: filing date, court, judge, docket entries 1–7, patent numbers and titles, Cedar Lane's corporate formation and IV/Steephill chain of title, the IPR outcome on '177, and the Patroll contest. Not confirmed: the specific accused ViacomCBS products; the exact dismissal date and docket entry; whether dismissal was with or without prejudice; whether any settlement or license preceded dismissal; and any damages demand. Anything beyond the above — e.g., a specific royalty figure or a settlement payment — would be speculation.

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

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

Counsel of record for Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (N.D. Ill. 1:20-cv-06021)

Bottom line

Only one attorney appeared for Cedar Lane in this case on the publicly available docket: Isaac Philip Rabicoff, sole practitioner of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago). No local counsel, no second chair, and no pro hac vice sponsor appeared in the docket window I could retrieve. Cedar Lane's principal, Greg Benoit (Pigott & Co.), is a corporate officer/director of the NPE, not counsel of record here.

The attorney

Sourcing and verification caveats

• Grounded in the Justia docket aggregator for No. 1:20-cv-06021 (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2020cv06021/392129) and the parallel UniCourt docket record, both reflecting docket entries through Dec. 1, 2020.
• The available docket snapshot ends at Dkt. 7 (Dec. 1, 2020) — it does not include the cancellation of the Dec. 9, 2020 initial status conference, any answer/ Rule 12 motion by ViacomCBS, or the entry of dismissal. The case is recorded as terminated, and third-party tracking (KOTRA's IP dispute database) characterizes the disposition as a voluntary dismissal (소취하), but I could not verify the dismissal docket entry itself. A PACER docket pull (or the CourtListener RECAP docket) after Dec. 1, 2020 is needed to confirm whether any additional counsel appeared — including any pro hac vice appearance by out-of-state counsel — before dismissal.
• I did not find, and therefore do not assert, any appearance in this case by David R. Bennett / Direction IP Law, Marshall Gerstein & Borun, or the Delaware counsel (Gawthrop Greenwood; Warner) that appear in other Cedar Lane matters. Those firms appear for Cedar Lane in other dockets, not this one.
• No sealed filings appear in the retrievable docket, and no party sought leave to file under seal in the Oct.–Dec. 2020 window.

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

Let me look for the full docket, including post-December 2020 activity and any defense appearances.

Let me try the Patexia case documents page and CourtListener directly for the full docket.

Bottom line

I could not identify any counsel of record for ViacomCBS in this case from publicly available records, and I will not guess at names. Every docket snapshot available outside PACER for No. 1:20-cv-06021 stops at Doc. 7 (Dec. 1, 2020) and contains no attorney appearance, no answer, no motion, and no corporate disclosure filed on behalf of the defendant. The only attorney appearing on the docket is plaintiff's counsel.

What the docket actually shows

Public docket mirrors (Justia, UniCourt, both last refreshed Dec. 1–8, 2020) list these entries only:

Sources: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2020cv06021/392129 and https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-cedar-lane-technologies-inc-v-viacomcbs-inc-[700776](/patent/700776)

Two points of analytical significance:

1. The "unopposed" character of Docs. 6 and 7 implies defense counsel was in contact with plaintiff's counsel (someone had to agree not to oppose), but that agreement was never papered with a Rule 83.5/LCvR 3.16 appearance in the entries visible to me. An agreement between counsel who has not entered an appearance is common in N.D. Ill. practice, so this is an inference, not a docket fact.
2. No counsel name is recoverable because the docket text of Docs. 6 and 7 names only movant's counsel (Rabicoff) — the ECF signature block would name only the filer.

Disposition

The case is terminated. A Korean IP-protection compilation (KOTRA, citing Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency) records the first-instance outcome as 소취하 — voluntary dismissal / withdrawal by the plaintiff, and lists the asserted patents as US 6,526,411, 7,173,177 and 8,165,867: https://dream.kotra.or.kr/dream/cms/link/actionLinkBoardDetail.do?SITE_NO=2&MENU_ID=4060&CONTENTS_NO=1&pTmplateCd=NT2319&pDataId=22000000000011841216&pUntyDsetId=GD0231&gbn=Out

That is consistent with the docket (only plaintiff's filings appear, and plaintiff repeatedly moved to extend/continue), and with Cedar Lane's pattern of dismissing these streaming-target cases early — e.g., Disney, 6:20-cv-00949 (Doc. 8, Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, 2/23/2021); Motorola, 1:20-cv-03600 (Docs. 7 & 9, dismissed without prejudice 7/10/2020); WideOpenWest, 1:21-cv-03154 (Doc. 17). I could not retrieve the actual N.D. Ill. dismissal entry (likely Doc. 8 or later, in Dec. 2020–early 2021), so the precise document number, date, and whether dismissal was with or without prejudice remain unverified.

Why no defense counsel is identifiable

• Counsel almost certainly never entered a substantive appearance. The case died at the pleading-extension stage; Cedar Lane's modus operandi was to file unopposed extensions (often while settlement talks proceeded) and then dismiss.
• Public mirrors are stale. Justia's "last retrieved" is Dec. 1, 2020; UniCourt's last update Dec. 8, 2020. Any appearance filed after those dates would not appear. PACER's live docket for the case, and the RECAP/CourtListener docket, are the only reliable sources, and I was unable to pull either.
• No court opinion exists to cite counsel from — the case produced no substantive ruling in N.D. Ill., and I found no Law360/Reuters coverage of the case naming defense counsel. The only press coverage is the general campaign reporting in IAM/Mondaq (Oct. 26, 2020) and IPWatchdog's filing roundup (Oct. 14, 2020), neither of which identifies defendant-side counsel.

Explicit non-findings (flagged so they are not mistaken for ViacomCBS counsel)

In a different Cedar Lane case — Cedar Lane Techs. v. Zoom Video Commc'ns, No. 3:20-cv-00552-WHO (N.D. Cal.) — the defense signature block named:

• Michelle E. Armond, Armond Wilson LLP, Newport Beach, CA
• Thomas L. Duston and John J. Lucas, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP, Chicago, IL

Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16758588/30/cedar-lane-technologies-inc-v-zoom-video-communications-inc/

These attorneys represented Zoom, not ViacomCBS, and I have no evidence they appeared for ViacomCBS here. I include them only because Marshall, Gerstein's Chicago office is a plausible local-counsel candidate in an N.D. Ill. Cedar Lane matter — but that is speculation and should not be relied upon.

Recommended next step

A single PACER docket-sheet pull (Docket Report, all entries) for 1:20-cv-06021, or the RECAP archive page for the case, will resolve this definitively — the appearance, if one was ever filed, would be a low-numbered docket entry in the Doc. 8–12 range. If the docket confirms no appearance was filed, the correct answer to your question is: no counsel of record ever appeared for ViacomCBS; the defendant was never represented on the record, and the case terminated before an appearance was required.