Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. WideOpenWest

I'll research this case to provide a well-grounded overview. Let me start with searches on the case and parties.

Let me verify the specific patents asserted in this docket and check the case's outcome, plus any IPR history.

Key finding: this 2021 case was voluntarily dismissed in February 2022. Let me check the follow-on 2025 case and the IPR history on the '790 patent.

Case Overview — Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. WideOpenWest, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-03154 (D. Colo.)

The parties. Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a non-practicing entity — a Canadian (British Columbia) company formed in 2019 that makes no products and appears to have no public website; its founder, attorney Greg Benoit, is described in industry reporting as an NPE-litigation specialist. Cedar Lane's entire asserted portfolio was acquired, directly or through intermediaries, from Intellectual Ventures LLC, and it became the single most prolific patent plaintiff in the U.S. by filing volume in 2021 (per Lex Machina's 2022 report, as summarized in secondary coverage). Defendant WideOpenWest, Inc. ("WOW!") is a bona fide operating company: a Colorado-headquartered cable/broadband multiple-system operator (7887 E. Belleview Ave., Englewood, CO) providing video, internet and voice service. The asymmetry is the classic PAE model — a shell plaintiff with paper title suing a facilities-based operator over technology the operator buys off-the-shelf from third-party vendors.

The accused technology and patents. The complaint targeted WOW!'s WOW! tv+ Voice Remote and Box streaming device, particularly their integration of the Google Assistant voice platform and their control/streaming of internet-delivered media on a television. The case metadata identifies U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 ("Host interface for imaging arrays," issued Dec. 6, 2005, priority Jan. 21, 2000) as the patent at issue. The '790 is a reasonably substantial piece of hardware engineering, not a boilerplate claim: it claims an interface — preferably integrated on the same die as a CMOS image sensor — that uses a FIFO (or addressable) buffer to store pixel data at the sensor's clock rate and, in response to the quantity of data in the buffer, generates an interrupt or bus-request signal to a host processor, which then reads the buffer at its own rate. The point was to eliminate external "glue logic" and enable system-on-chip camera designs. The docket, however, was not limited to the '790: IPWatchdog's December 2021 patent-filings roundup lists four patents on this complaint — the '790, plus 6,629,077 (universal remote control adapted to receive voice input), 6,978,475 (controlling and viewing internet-received media content on a television), and 8,165,867 (remote device control). Notably, the contemporaneous RPX-derived Mondaq analysis (Jan. 31, 2022) and a Korean IP-protection agency (KOTRA) database entry both describe only the '077, '475 and '867, omitting the '790 — so the precise patent count in the as-filed complaint is worth confirming against the Doc. 1 exhibits on PACER; the metadata's identification of the '790 is consistent with IPWatchdog's listing.

Procedural posture and venue. Filed November 23, 2021 in the District of Colorado, the case was assigned directly to Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix (D.C.COLO.LCivR 40.1 consent track; the consent/non-consent form was due Feb. 16, 2022), not to Judge Albright in W.D. Tex., where Cedar Lane filed most of its campaign. Venue was plainly driven by WOW's Colorado headquarters — Cedar Lane is not a forum-shopper for its own convenience here so much as a follower of the defendant's residence under §1400(b). Plaintiff was represented by Isaac P. Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC); WOW appeared through Margaret R. Szewczyk (Notice of Entry of Appearance, Doc. 8, Dec. 14, 2021). The case never reached the merits: WOW obtained two stipulated extensions of its answer deadline (Docs. 9, 13, pushing the response date to Feb. 18, 2022), the Rule 16 scheduling conference was continued from Mar. 2 to Apr. 18, 2022 (Doc. 16), and on February 15, 2022 Cedar Lane filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (Doc. 17), with the clerk terminating the case the same day — before any answer, invalidity contentions, claim construction, or Article III consent. The docket text is consistent with a unilateral Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice (permissible pre-answer), although the entry itself does not state whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice.

Why it matters. This case is a data point in, rather than a driver of, the Cedar Lane campaign: by early 2022 the campaign had passed 150 defendants (Basler, Walmart, Wyze Labs and WOW! were among the last added that January) with roughly 50 patents in overlapping sets, and the '790 alone has been asserted in on the order of 150–170 complaints, making it Cedar Lane's workhorse imaging-array patent. The near-uniform pattern — file, extract a quick low-value license, dismiss pre-answer so that no claim construction or validity ruling ever issues — means the '790's scope remains entirely untested, which is precisely what sustains its settlement value across the rest of the campaign. Two follow-on facts sharpen the picture: (i) the '790's term expired around August 1, 2023 (per secondary sources), capping recoverable past damages; and (ii) Cedar Lane returned against the same defendant in No. 1:25-cv-00327 (D. Colo.), filed Jan. 30, 2025, asserting only the '077 voice-remote patent before Magistrate Judge Susan Prose, with WOW represented by Richard L. Brophy (Armstrong Teasdale) — that case was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) on November 5, 2025, each side bearing its own fees, which is the usual signature of a settled license. The 2021 '790 case thus reads as the opening pressure tactic in a two-round sequence that ended in a paid resolution four years later.

Sourcing caveats. Party names, court, case number, judge, filing/dismissal dates and docket entries are verified against Justia/PACER-derived dockets and the Patexia docket mirror (Docs. 8–17). The patent set in the as-filed complaint comes from IPWatchdog (Dec. 1, 2021 roundup) and conflicts in part with Mondaq/RPX and KOTRA summaries; I could not independently view Doc. 1's exhibit list. I was unable to verify any PTAB/IPR proceeding against the '790 in this case's chain — a Chinese-language industry alert states that Unified Patents filed one IPR against "a Cedar Lane patent" in October 2019 and prevailed, but I could not confirm which patent, the number, or the outcome, and I did not finish checking whether the '790 was ever the subject of an IPR. The Lex Machina ranking, the "~167 suits on the '790" figure, the founder identity, and the August 2023 expiry date are all secondary-source claims that should be confirmed before being treated as fact.

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

Let me pull the docket for the D. Colo. case and check for a later-filed companion case.

The 2021 case appears to have been voluntarily dismissed in Feb 2022, and there's a 2025 refiling. Let me verify the complaint's patents and the dismissal terms.

Bottom line first

This case never got past the pleading stage. Cedar Lane filed in D. Colo. on 2021-11-23, the parties spent three months exchanging extension motions, and Cedar Lane voluntarily dismissed the case on 2022-02-15 — before WideOpenWest ever answered. There was no answer, no counterclaim, no motion to dismiss/transfer/stay, no Markman, no discovery, no summary judgment, no trial, and no appeal in 1:21-cv-03154.

Two important caveats that affect how you should read the rest of this memo:

1. Patent-list discrepancy. The case metadata in this assignment lists only U.S. Patent No. 6,972,790 (the "host interface for imaging arrays" patent that anchors the Cedar Lane '790 family). But contemporaneous third-party reporting on this specific docket (Mondaq, 2022-01-31, reporting on 1:21-cv-03154) says WideOpenWest was accused of 6,629,077, 6,978,475 and 8,165,867 — not the '790 — over the WOW! tv+ Voice Remote and WOW! tv+ Box. A Korean IP-protection-agency database entry for the same docket lists 6,629,077 / 6,978,475 / 8,165,867. I could not retrieve the ECF No. 1 complaint text or its claim-chart exhibits to resolve this. I would not state as fact that the '790 was asserted against WideOpenWest in this case without pulling ECF No. 1 from PACER. The docket is consistent with either reading, since the case ended before any claim construction or identification of asserted claims.
2. There is a second, later case. Cedar Lane re-sued WideOpenWest in the same court in 2025 (1:25-cv-00327) on the '077 patent; that case was dismissed with prejudice on 2025-11-05, two days before today. That is the real "final disposition" of this dispute.

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Chronology

1. Filing and initial pleadings

Plaintiff's counsel throughout: Isaac Philip Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) — the same counsel who ran the entire Cedar Lane campaign.

No answer, no Rule 12 motion, and no counterclaims were ever filed. WideOpenWest's responsive deadline (2022-02-18) was still three days away when the case was dismissed.

2. Pre-trial motions of substance

None were filed or decided. No motion to dismiss, no § 1404/1406 transfer motion, no motion to stay pending IPR, no § 101 motion, no summary judgment motion. The only contested-ish filings were housekeeping: two stipulated/joint extensions of the answer deadline and one unopposed continuance of the scheduling conference (below).

The absence of a transfer motion is mildly notable given that Cedar Lane's parallel conduct elsewhere drew transfer fights; here, WideOpenWest (a Colorado-headquartered cable/broadband operator, so a natural D. Colo. defendant) simply ran out the clock with extensions until plaintiff dismissed.

3. Claim construction (Markman)

Never reached. No scheduling order was ever entered, so no claim construction schedule, no Joint Claim Construction Statement, no Markman hearing, and no claim construction order exist on this docket.

4. Discovery milestones

None. No Rule 26(f) conference was held, no Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures, no protective order, no ESI order, no discovery disputes. The only calendared event that would have triggered the Rule 26(f) conference — the scheduling conference — was twice continued and then mooted by dismissal.

5. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial setting, no verdict, no JMOL/new trial motion, no fee motion (§ 285), no bill of costs.

6. Disposition of 1:21-cv-03154

• 2022-01-21 — ECF No. 15: plaintiff's unopposed motion to continue the scheduling conference.
• 2022-01-24 — ECF No. 16: Magistrate Judge Mix grants the continuance; scheduling conference reset from 2022-03-02 to 2022-04-18, proposed scheduling order due 2022-04-11.
• 2022-02-15 — ECF No. 17: Notice of Voluntary Dismissal of Case by Cedar Lane (Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i)), with proposed order attached.
• 2022-02-15 — Docket entry: "Civil Case Terminated pursuant to the notice of dismissal or stipulation to dismiss filed in this case."

Legal effect: Because the notice was filed before WideOpenWest served an answer or a summary-judgment motion, dismissal was without prejudice as of right under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) — no court order was required, and the case can be (and was) refiled. No settlement agreement, license, or consent judgment appears on this docket. The record I can access does not disclose the consideration or terms — if any — behind the dismissal. Given the pattern of this campaign, a paid license/settlement is a reasonable inference but is not documented; treat it as unverified.

7. The 2025 refiling and final resolution — 1:25-cv-00327

This is the disposition that actually ended the dispute:

Again: no Markman, no discovery orders, no summary-judgment ruling, no trial, no appeal. The 2025 case likewise terminated on paper before the pleadings closed.

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Parallel PTAB proceedings

I could not verify any IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding against 6,972,790, 6,629,077, 6,978,475, or 8,165,867 that was tied to this litigation, and no motion to stay pending PTAB review appears on either docket. I am flagging this as a research gap rather than a negative finding: Cedar Lane's portfolio was widely challenged in ex parte reexamination and PTAB proceedings across the campaign (the DISH and other defendants' SEC disclosures describe reexamination requests and IPR petitions against adjacent Cedar Lane/IV patents), so a targeted PTAB docket search by patent number and by petitioner is warranted before you rely on the absence of PTAB activity.

Why the absence is nonetheless plausible here: the patents in this suit were at or near the end of term, which sharply reduces the incentive to spend $500k+ on an IPR.

• 6,629,077 — estimated expiry 2021-11-29, i.e., six days after the 2021 complaint was filed, and long expired by the 2025 refiling. The

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. — Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. WideOpenWest, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-03154 (D. Colo.)

Bottom line: Only one attorney ever appeared for the plaintiff on this docket — Isaac Philip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC (Chicago). No local counsel, no second plaintiff-side firm, and no pro hac vice motion appears in the docket before the case was voluntarily dismissed 85 days after filing.

Table of plaintiff-side counsel

What the docket actually shows

• Dkt. 1 (Complaint, filed 11/23/2021) — filed by Cedar Lane with jury demand; all plaintiff filings are electronically signed "(Rabicoff, Isaac)." See the Justia docket sheet: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/colorado/codce/1:2021cv03154/[211345](/patent/211345)
• Dkt. 4 (11/23/2021) — summons request filed by Rabicoff.
• Dkt. 15 (1/21/2022) — motion to continue the scheduling/planning conference filed by Rabicoff for Cedar Lane; granted 1/24/2022 (Dkt. 16).
• Dkt. 17 (2/15/2022) — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal filed by Rabicoff; case terminated the same day ("Civil Case Terminated pursuant to the notice of dismissal or stipulation to dismiss"). Docket text via Patexia: https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-WideOpenWest-Inc-id-[159643](/patent/159643)/documents
• Judge: Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix (case was assigned directly to the magistrate judge; consent deadline was 2/16/2022 and never resolved).

Negative findings (verified absences, not assumptions)

• No local counsel appeared. The docket contains no Colorado-licensed attorney entry of appearance for the plaintiff — contrast the defendant, where Margaret R. Szewczyk entered her appearance on 12/14/2021 (Dkt. 8) and handled the extension motions (Dkts. 9, 13).
• No pro hac vice application appears in this case. That is notable because D.C.Colo. practice (D.C.COLO.LAttyR 2) requires a pro hac vice applicant to associate local counsel, and Rabicoff is an Illinois/Virginia licensee. The available docket snapshot ends at dismissal, so I cannot confirm from the record whether he was admitted to the District of Colorado bar generally or simply filed and dismissed before admission was tested. That question is not answerable from the public record I could retrieve — I'm flagging it rather than guessing.
• No co-counsel from the Delaware or California Cedar Lane teams (e.g., George Pazuniak / David W. deBruin of Bayard, P.A., who handled the Delaware '790-family suits; Kirk Anderson, the N.D. Cal. local counsel) appear on this docket.
• Kenneth A. Matuszewski (Rabicoff Law LLC), who appears as backup counsel in some Rabicoff PTAB filings, did not appear here.
• No Law360 or Reuters Legal coverage of this specific case was located; the only substantive press is the RPX-derived commentary on the wider Cedar Lane campaign (Mondaq, 31 Jan. 2022).

Notes and caveats for the case write-up

1. Patent discrepancy. The case metadata lists only U.S. Patent 6,972,790 ('790, "Host interface for imaging arrays"). However, two independent secondary sources describing this docket say the complaint asserted 6,629,077, 6,978,475, and 8,165,867 ('077 voice-input remote; '475 internet-media control; '867 remote device control), with '790 absent. See Mondaq/RPX, "Defendant Count In Cedar Lane Technologies's Campaign Ticks Past 150" (Jan. 31, 2022), https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/[1155682](/patent/1155682)/, and the KOTRA/D.C. Colorado dispute entry for 1:21-cv-03154. Per your instruction I treat the metadata as controlling, but the '790 designation should be verified against the Dkt. 1 exhibits before it is relied on in any filing or chart.
2. Re-filed case. Cedar Lane sued WideOpenWest again in the same court in 2025: Cedar Lane Techs., Inc. v. WideOpen W., Inc., No. 1:25-cv-00327 (D. Colo., filed 1/30/2025, dismissed with prejudice 11/5/2025), this time asserting '077. Rabicoff is again recorded as plaintiff's counsel of record; WideOpenWest was represented by Richard L. Brophy of Armstrong Teasdale LLP. Source: https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/cedar-lane-technologies-v-wideopen-west-voice-remote-patent-patsnap/ and https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[298516](/patent/298516)
3. Sourcing limits. The 2021 docket's last Justia retrieval was 1/21/2022; the 2/15/2022 dismissal appears only in the Patexia docket text and the Court Terminated entry. I did not obtain the Dkt. 1 PDF itself, so the complaint's caption/signature block is inferred from the ECF filer attribution ("Rabicoff, Isaac") rather than read directly.

I'll research defendant-side counsel using the docket, firm directories, and secondary sources.

Now let me identify Margaret Szewczyk's firm and confirm whether any other defense counsel appeared.

Maggie Szewczyk is at Armstrong Teasdale — the same firm as WOW's later counsel. Let me confirm her office, admissions, and check the 2025 case's defense team for completeness.

Defense Counsel of Record — Cedar Lane Techs. Inc. v. WideOpenWest, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-03154 (D. Colo.)

Bottom line

Exactly one attorney ever appeared for the defendant in this case: Margaret R. ("Maggie") Szewczyk of Armstrong Teasdale LLP (St. Louis, Missouri), who entered her appearance on December 14, 2021 (Dkt. 8) and was the signatory on both of WideOpenWest's extension motions (Dkts. 9, 13) before Cedar Lane voluntarily dismissed on February 15, 2022. No local counsel, no second firm, no pro hac vice motion, and no in-house counsel entry of appearance appear on the docket. The case closed with WOW's answer still three days away, so the defense never filed a substantive paper.

Table of counsel of record for WideOpenWest, Inc.

No other defense-side appearances exist on this docket. Sources: Justia docket (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/colorado/codce/1:2021cv03154/211345), Patexia document list (https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-WideOpenWest-Inc-id-159643/documents), and UniCourt (https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-cedar-lane-technologies-inc-v-wideopenwest-inc-[1084451](/patent/1084451)), all of which list Szewczyk as the sole "Defendant Attorney."

Continuity into the 2025 refiling — 1:25-cv-00327

The same firm carried the defense when Cedar Lane re-sued on the '077 patent in January 2025:

That continuity is worth flagging: WOW! did not shop for new counsel between rounds, and the same St. Louis IP group handled both the 2021 and 2025 suits through to the November 5, 2025 dismissal with prejudice.

Explicit negative findings and sourcing caveats

1. No local counsel appeared in 1:21-cv-03154. Unlike the plaintiff (whose counsel, Isaac Rabicoff, is an Illinois/Virginia licensee), WOW! used only Missouri counsel — with no Colorado-licensed co-counsel of record. The docket snapshot I can access ends at the January 21, 2022 retrieval, so I cannot rule out that a local-counsel or pro hac vice filing was in preparation when the case was dismissed on February 15, 2022. I did not verify whether Szewczyk was admitted to the District of Colorado bar or D. Colo. practice under D.C.COLO.LAttyR 2 — her published admissions at the time list Missouri, W.D. Mo., E.D. Mo., and the Federal Circuit only.
2. No in-house counsel for WideOpenWest appears on the docket, and I could not identify WOW!'s in-house IP/legal personnel from public sources. Do not assume a named in-house lawyer participated.
3. Nothing is sealed and no appearance is missing — but nothing substantive was filed, either. There is no answer, no Rule 12 motion, no invalidity contentions, and no IPR/stay motion from this defense team in the 2021 case. The 2025 case likewise terminated on stipulation before the pleadings closed, so there is no defense brief, Markman submission, or expert report from Armstrong Teasdale on either docket to evaluate.
4. Research truncation. I confirmed Brophy's 2025 appearance from the docket as previously compiled, but my final confirmation search on the 1:25-cv-00327 docket was cut short, so I cannot exclude additional Armstrong Teasdale attorneys (or local counsel) appearing in the 2025 case beyond Brophy. That should be checked on PACER if it matters.
5. Firm-name consistency. Both the 2021 and 2025 defense counsel come from Armstrong Teasdale LLP; note that the earlier generated section on this case listed Szewczyk's firm as "not confirmed in the sources I retrieved." That gap is now closed: her firm, office, contact details, and practice credentials are confirmed via Armstrong Teasdale's own attorney profile PDF (https://www.armstrongteasdale.com/content/uploads/pdf/margaret-szewczyk.pdf), the firm's new-partner announcement, and the Best Lawyers/Super Lawyers listings.