Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. WideOpenWest, Inc.

I'll research this case and its context before drafting the overview.

Let me verify the complaint details, the patent specifics, IPR history, and a possible 2025 refiling.

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

The parties. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. is a Canadian non-practicing entity based in Nelson, British Columbia, incorporated in 2019, that owns no operating business and monetizes a large acquired patent portfolio — overwhelmingly patents obtained directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC and earlier assignees such as eCable LLC — through high-volume assertion campaigns. Its litigation is run by Isaac P. Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC, who filed this complaint and appears as plaintiff's counsel on the docket (Justia docket; NPE Showcase – Cedar Lane Technologies, Mondaq, Oct. 2022). By the time of this suit, Cedar Lane's campaign — launched in May 2019 against Advert Tech — had passed 150 defendants and roughly 50 asserted patents, with overlapping sets of about six patents per complaint (Mondaq, "Defendant Count In Cedar Lane Technologies's Campaign Ticks Past 150," Jan. 31, 2022). The defendant, WideOpenWest, Inc. ("WOW!"), is a genuine operating company — a publicly traded U.S. cable/broadband and video provider headquartered in the Denver metro area (Englewood, Colorado) — which is why it was sued in its home district rather than in Cedar Lane's usual Texas or Delaware forums.

The accused technology and the patent. The complaint targeted WOW!'s "WOW! tv+" product line — the Android TV–based streaming box and its voice remote — specifically the integration of Google Assistant voice control and the delivery/viewing of internet-sourced media content on the television (Mondaq, Jan. 2022, describing the defendant as accused "through its endorsement of the Google Assistant at WOW! TV+ Voice Remote and Box Streaming Device"). The case metadata lists a single patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,978,475, Method and apparatus for internet TV — a one-line sketch: a telephone-interface and voice-recognition–driven "Internet browser" system in which a user's spoken command is converted into command signals that drive a server-side stack of computers to fetch internet content and deliver it to a cable or satellite television (Unified Patents portal, US-6,978,475; SumoBrain record). The '475 lists inventors David Kunin, Sergey Tolkachev, Robert Freidson, and Boaz Vinogradov, was originally assigned to eCable, LLC (Minneapolis), claims a Nov. 23, 1999 priority date, and issued Dec. 20, 2005 — a pre-AIA patent whose term was at or near expiration by the time of filing (Unified Patents lists an expiration date of 2022-04-21, which materially caps damages exposure). One discrepancy worth flagging: contemporaneous campaign reporting and the Korean IP-Dream/KOTRA dispute database both state that the WideOpenWest complaint asserted three patents — the '475, U.S. Pat. No. 6,629,077 (remote control with a microphone for receiving voice input), and U.S. Pat. No. 8,165,867 (translating a device command) — while the case metadata records only the '475 (KOTRA dispute record; Mondaq, Jan. 2022). I could not confirm the asserted-patent list from the PACER docket itself, so treat the three-patent account as well-reported but unverified; the metadata in this file controls for present purposes.

Procedural posture and why it matters. Filed November 23, 2021 in the District of Colorado (Denver), the case was assigned on consent-track to Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix under D.C.COLO.LCivR 40.1, with the consent/non-consent election deadline set for February 16, 2022 (Dkt. 10). The docket never progressed past pleading-stage housekeeping: the USPTO patent-report notice (Dkt. 7), entry of appearance by Margaret R. Szewczyk of Armstrong Teasdale for WOW! (Dkt. 8), a stipulated extension of WOW!'s response deadline to January 19, 2022 (Dkt. 9, granted Dkt. 12), a joint extension to February 18, 2022 (Dkt. 13, granted Dkt. 14), a scheduling order (Dkt. 11) and plaintiff's unopposed motion to push the Rule 16 conference from March 2 to April 18, 2022 (Dkt. 15, granted Dkt. 16), followed by Cedar Lane's Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (Dkt. 17, Feb. 15, 2022) and same-day termination — all before WOW! answered, moved to dismiss, or exchanged any infringement contentions (Patexia docket summary). The venue choice is the analytically interesting part: because WOW! resides in Colorado, venue was unassailable under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), forcing Cedar Lane to litigate in the defendant's home district instead of a plaintiff-friendly W.D. Tex. or D. Del. forum — and D. Colo., with a magistrate judge and a comparatively thin patent docket, offers no rocket-docket leverage. Substantively the case is notable as a textbook nuisance-value NPE assertion: a nearly expired, 1999-priority patent aimed at a feature (Google Assistant support in a streaming box) largely supplied by a third party, dismissed within ~12 weeks before any merits ruling, with no IPR petition on the '475 that I could locate (the § 315(b) one-year window never closed before dismissal). Cedar Lane's pattern is well documented — it rarely litigates past the pleadings and has no trial-stage cases — and its credibility has been judicially questioned: in 2020 Judge Vince Chhabria of the N.D. Cal. sanctioned Cedar Lane and Rabicoff for positions "objectively frivolous" taken in bad faith and referred Rabicoff to that court's standing committee on professional conduct (Mondaq NPE Showcase, Oct. 2022; I could not verify the underlying N.D. Cal. case number from primary sources). Finally, note a possible later chapter I could not fully verify: Justia's party index lists a further Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. WideOpenWest, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-00327 (D. Colo.), suggesting the dispute may have been re-filed in 2025.

Sourcing caveats. (1) The three-versus-one asserted-patent discrepancy above is unresolved on the record I could access. (2) No IPR/PGR number for the '475 was found; my search of PTAB and Unified Patents materials was not exhaustive of every Cedar Lane campaign docket. (3) The N.D. Cal. sanctions order and the 2025 refiling rest on secondary sources (law-firm commentary and a Justia index snippet), not on the orders themselves. (4) WOW!'s precise principal-place-of-business address and the specific WOW! tv+ hardware model numbers should be confirmed against the complaint exhibits, which I could not retrieve.

I'll research this case and the broader Cedar Lane litigation campaign to build an accurate chronology.

Now let me dig into the specifics: the complaint's asserted patents, the 2025 refiling against WideOpenWest, and any PTAB proceedings on the '475 patent.

Let me check PTAB proceedings on the '475 patent and the RPX litigation record for this case.

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

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

Bottom line: Only one attorney ever appeared for Cedar Lane in this case — Isaac Philip Rabicoff of Rabicoff Law LLC. There was no co-counsel, no local counsel, and no in-house counsel of record. The docket is short (17 entries) and entirely public; nothing on the plaintiff's side is sealed.

Plaintiff's counsel

Docket support

• Doc. 1 (11/23/2021) — Complaint for Patent Infringement against WideOpenWest, filed by Rabicoff; the CM/ECF text notes "Attorney Isaac Philip Rabicoff added to party Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.(pty:pla)." (Justia docket)
• Doc. 2 (11/23/2021) — NOTICE of Entry of Appearance by Isaac Philip Rabicoff on behalf of Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.
• Doc. 15 (01/21/2022) — Motion to Continue Scheduling/Planning Conference, signed by Rabicoff.
• Doc. 17 (02/15/2022) — NOTICE of Voluntary Dismissal of Case by Plaintiff Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., signed by Rabicoff; case terminated the same day. (Patexia document list)

Defendant WideOpenWest appeared through Margaret R. Szewczyk (Doc. 8, 12/14/2021), for context — she is not plaintiff-side counsel.

Caveats and things I could not verify

1. No pro hac vice motion appears on this docket. In D. Colo. Rabicoff would ordinarily need admission to this court's bar or a pro hac vice application plus local counsel under D.C.COLO.LAttyR 2. Neither a PHV motion nor a local-counsel appearance shows up in the 17-entry docket, which suggests he may have been admitted to the District of Colorado bar at the time. I could not confirm his D. Colo. admission status from a primary source, so treat that inference as unverified.
2. Exact firm office at the moment of filing. Both Chicago and Alexandria addresses appear across his 2019–2023 filings; the Chicago address is what appears in contemporaneous 2019–2021 D. Colo.-era filings I could locate, but I could not pull the signature block of Doc. 1 in this specific case to confirm which address he used on 11/23/2021.
3. No additional Cedar Lane counsel. Neither the Justia, UniCourt, Patexia, nor RPX dockets for 1:21-cv-03154 list any second plaintiff attorney. If a notice of appearance by additional counsel was filed and later withdrawn in the ~3-month window, it would be the only place one could be hiding — PACER's full docket text would settle it.

Relevance of counsel's history to this case

This case fits Rabicoff's documented pattern of file-and-dismiss Cedar Lane suits. Two items of record are worth flagging because they bear on the same practice:

• Cedar Lane Techs. v. Blackmagic Design Inc., No. 20-cv-01302-VC (N.D. Cal.) — Judge Chhabria sanctioned Rabicoff $1,000 under Rule 11 and referred him to the Northern District's Standing Committee on Professional Conduct (Order, Nov. 19, 2020), describing him as "a serial filer of patent lawsuits" who often "settles or otherwise dismisses the suits before his failure to seek admission or pay the fee is detected by the Court." (govinfo)
• The Standing Committee's informal resolution (approved Feb. 4, 2022 — one week before the dismissal here) required him to pay $9,193 in unpaid pro hac vice fees across 29 N.D. Cal. matters. A published Virginia State Bar public reprimand without terms followed (dated December 2022, per the VSB disposition document circulating online — I could not verify that directly on vsb.org, so treat the reprimand's exact date with mild caution).

Cedar Lane re-sued WideOpenWest in the same court in 2025 (1:25-cv-00327, asserting the '077 patent, closed Nov. 5, 2025), again with Isaac Philip Rabicoff / Rabicoff Law LLC as plaintiff's counsel (PatSnap case summary) — confirming he remained Cedar Lane's counsel of choice in this venue well after the 2022 dismissal.

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

I found the first defendant-side entry. Let me dig into the full docket and confirm her firm/role.

Let me pull the full document list and check for additional appearances or pro hac vice motions.

Counsel of record for Defendant WideOpenWest, Inc.

The short answer

The docket shows exactly one attorney appearing for WideOpenWest in this case: Margaret R. ("Maggie") Szewczyk of Armstrong Teasdale LLP (St. Louis, Missouri). No local counsel, no in-house counsel, and no second firm ever entered an appearance before the case was voluntarily dismissed on February 15, 2022.

Docket basis

• Doc. 8 (Dec. 14, 2021) — "NOTICE of Entry of Appearance by Margaret R. Szewczyk on behalf of WideOpenWest, Inc. Attorney Margaret R. Szewczyk added to party WideOpenWest, Inc. (pty:dft)." This is the only appearance filed by or for WOW. (Justia docket; Patexia document list; UniCourt)
• Doc. 9 (Dec. 14, 2021) — Stipulated Motion for Extension of Time to Answer or Otherwise Respond, filed by Szewczyk for WOW; granted Dec. 15, 2021 (Doc. 12), extending the response deadline to Jan. 19, 2022.
• Doc. 13 (Jan. 18, 2022) — Joint Motion for Extension of Time to Answer/Respond, filed by Szewczyk for WOW; granted Jan. 18, 2022 (Doc. 14), extending the deadline to Feb. 18, 2022.
• Doc. 17 (Feb. 15, 2022) — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal filed by plaintiff's counsel Isaac Rabicoff; case terminated the same day. WOW never answered or moved to dismiss, so the docket contains no substantive defense-side briefing from which to infer additional counsel or theories.

Practice details confirmed independently

• Firm and office are corroborated by her own signature block in filings in another matter: "Armstrong Teasdale LLP — Margaret Szewczyk | Attorney – IP Litigation, 7700 Forsyth Blvd., Suite 1800, St. Louis, Missouri 63105, mszewczyk@atllp.com." (D.N.J. filing excerpt, UMG Recordings v. RCN, No. 3:19-cv-17272)
• Patent/IP litigation experience: she appeared (admitted pro hac vice by order dated Jan. 28, 2020, ECF No. 38) for RCN in the RIAA's UMG Recordings v. RCN Telecom Services ISP-liability litigation in D.N.J., and later represented Haven Health Management in Papaya Media Corp. v. Haven Health Management, LLC (E.D.N.Y., No. 2:25-cv-02752), including a Rule 12(b) motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and improper venue. (PacerMonitor)
• Armstrong Teasdale's case-tracking profiles list the firm as defense-side counsel in this case number. (Patexia firm profile)

Things I could not confirm (flagged rather than guessed)

1. No pro hac vice motion appears on the docket. D. Colo. generally requires either general admission or a PHV application for out-of-state counsel, yet the Justia/Patexia/UniCourt docket extracts show none. The most likely explanation is that Szewczyk already held D. Colo. admission (Armstrong Teasdale has a Denver office), but I cannot verify that from the sources retrieved. It is also possible a PHV filing was docketed after the Jan. 21, 2022 docket snapshot and before dismissal — the free docket aggregators do not show entries between Doc. 14 and Doc. 15 other than Doc. 16.
2. No local counsel of record. Consistent with D. Colo. practice, no separate Colorado counsel appeared alongside her; nothing in the record suggests one existed.
3. No in-house attorney for WideOpenWest ever entered an appearance, and I found no source identifying WOW's general counsel as participating.
4. Nothing here is sealed — this was a thin, pleading-stage docket, so the absence of other counsel is a genuine absence, not a sealing artifact.
5. Armstrong Teasdale billing/engagement structure (e.g., whether WOW was a firm client relationship or matter-specific engagement) is not disclosed in any public filing I found.

Two contextual notes worth carrying forward

• Patent set caveat: Your case metadata lists only the '475 patent. RPX's campaign reporting indicates the complaint against WOW actually asserted three patents — the '475, the '077 (voice remote), and the '867 — targeting the WOW! tv+ Voice Remote and streaming box; the Korean IP-protection digest likewise lists US6629077, US6978475 and US8165867. (Mondaq/RPX, Jan. 31, 2022) If the counsel analysis matters for a broader Cedar Lane campaign question, the three-patent framing is the more accurate one.
• The litigation continued elsewhere: Cedar Lane re-sued WideOpenWest in D. Colo. in 2025 (No. 1:25-cv-00327, filed Jan. 30, 2025). That is a separate matter with its own defense team, which I did not verify — it would need its own docket pull, and the 2021 counsel lineup should not be assumed to carry over.