RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Seiko Epson Corp. et al.

I'll research this case across multiple sources.

Good grounding. Now let me dig into the broader campaign, Holub's background, and the later outcomes.

Case Overview & Background

RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Seiko Epson Corp., No. 6:10-cv-06710-CJS (W.D.N.Y.)

1. The parties

Plaintiff — RAH Color Technologies LLC is not an operating company. It is a licensing vehicle organized in New York, with an office at 261 Hollywood Avenue, Rochester, N.Y., formed in 2005 "as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program for companies whose products depend on Dr. Holub's innovations." RAHCT is wholly owned by Dr. Richard A. Holub, the sole inventor of every patent in the portfolio; in his own IPR declaration he states, "I am the sole member of RAH Color Technologies LLC" (Holub Decl., IPR2019-00646 Ex. 2121). This places the case in the "individual-inventor-started NPE" category rather than the mass-aggregator category — Stanford's NPE Litigation Database tags RAHCT as "Individual-inventor-started," and Unified Patents' portal classifies it as "NPE (Individual)" (Unified Patents litigation page). Holub is a genuine domain expert, not a paper owner: Ph.D. in neurophysiology (1977), then Eikonix/Eastman Kodak (1983–90), Agfa/Bayer (1990–93) and SuperMac (1993–94) working on device-independent color for prepress; a ten-year TAGA board member and officer; an RIT printing-sciences instructor; and founder of Imagicolor Corp. (1998), an unsuccessful attempt to commercialize a calibration/soft-proofing prototype. See the background allegations reproduced from the Ricoh complaint (RPX litigation document) and Holub's IPR testimony (Ex. 2238).

Defendants — the Epson entities. The complaint named four: Seiko Epson Corp. (Japanese parent, HQ Suwa, Nagano), U.S. Epson, Inc. (California; wholly-owned Seiko Epson subsidiary), Epson America, Inc. (California; subsidiary of U.S. Epson) and Epson Portland, Inc. (Oregon; subsidiary of Seiko Epson, alleged to "develop[], make[], import[], use[] and/or sell[] software that employs color management techniques in the U.S."). All four counterclaimed for declaratory judgment in April 2011. RAHCT was represented by Neal L. Slifkin (Rochester) and a Chicago team from Global IP Law Group — David Berten, C. Graham Gerst, Nicholas M. Dudziak and Elizabeth A. Koehn, admitted pro hac vice and paying the then-$300 fees in January 2011 — while Epson's team included Robert S. Hill and Vincent Pollmeier (pro hac vice, June 2011) (docket text quoted at the Unified Patents docket). Epson also retained Jeffrey Calabrese, who filed the settlement status reports.

2. The technology and the patents asserted

The complaint (Doc. 1, filed Dec. 21, 2010) asserted eight patents from a single family — the continuation-chain descendants of Holub's mid-1990s networked color-reproduction work (the family's PCT publication is WO 97/34409, per the EPO register):

• 6,995,870, 7,312,897, 7,710,560, 7,729,008, 7,791,761 and 7,830,546 — all titled "System for Distributing and Controlling Color Reproduction at Multiple Sites" (claims to networked nodes/sites, device-independent color transformation, "virtual proof" data structures, user interfaces for selecting sites and color preferences, and gamut operations);
• 7,280,251 — "System and Method for Calibrating Color Printers"; and
• 7,710,433 — "Method and Apparatus for Calibrating a Color Display."

The '761 patent — the only patent listed in the case metadata, though the complaint asserted all eight — issued September 7, 2010, roughly three months before suit. Its claims are narrower and more concrete than the "multiple sites" title suggests. Independent claim 7 recites a "method of color rendering on a printer having a plurality of non-neutral colorants and a plurality of neutral colorants," comprising transforming input color image data (expressible in device-independent units) into output data in units of those colorants with the aid of a processor; dependent claims add gamut operations "to improve color match between said reproduction and another reproduction" (see the claim text and specification discussion in Adobe's IPR2019-00646 petition and the Final Written Decision, Paper 119). In plain terms: **ICC-profile-style color management, including soft-proofing/gamut mapping and the

RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Seiko Epson Corp. — Litigation Timeline & Outcome

No. 6:10-cv-06710-CJS (W.D.N.Y., Judge Charles J. Siragusa) — filed 2010-12-21; closed 2012 by dismissal with prejudice after settlement. This was a short, settlement-driven case: no Markman, no summary judgment, no trial, no verdict, no appeal, and no PTAB proceeding during its pendency. The only PTAB activity on the '761 patent came seven years later, in the Adobe IPR, and had no effect on this case.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

Scope of the pleadings. Although this case is indexed to the '761 patent, the complaint actually asserted eight patents from Holub's color-management family: U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,999,870; 7,280,251; 7,312,897; 7,710,433; 7,710,560; 7,729,008; 7,791,761; and 7,830,546 ("System for Distributing and Controlling Color Reproduction at Multiple Sites," inter alia). Accused products were Epson hardware/software bundles — Stylus Pro proofing printers with SpectroProofer, scanners/all-in-ones, printer drivers, Epson Scan, Print Image Matching, ColorBurst, MonacoEZColor, and bundled Adobe Photoshop Elements. RAH pleaded direct, induced, and contributory infringement and willfulness, premised on pre-suit notice: a 2001 letter from Holub's counsel regarding U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,043,909 and 6,157,735 (same family) and an August 2006 licensing approach to Seiko Epson. The docket does not explain why the FAC was filed (the '546 patent had already issued 2010-11-09, before the original complaint), so the amendment's purpose is unconfirmed — the original complaint contained a mis-citation ("6,995,870") that the amendment may have corrected.

Counterclaims. Epson's April 2011 counterclaims ran to sixteen counts (Dkt. 11) — consistent with declaratory-judgment counts of non-infringement and invalidity for each of the eight patents. Epson also pleaded a set of affirmative defenses, several of which RAH later targeted. This is the point the prior case summary flagged as "specific disposition not confirmed" — it is now resolved: all counterclaims were extinguished by the dismissal with prejudice; none was adjudicated.

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2. Pre-trial motions of substance

The only substantive contested motion was RAH's motion against Epson's counterclaims and defenses — and it was never decided.

• 2011-04-27 — RAH files Dkt. 12: Motion to Dismiss Counterclaim Nos. 1–16 and Motion to Strike Affirmative Defense Nos. 1–3 and 5–7 in Epson's answers, with supporting memorandum and certificate of service. In substance this was an attack on the viability of Epson's declaratory-judgment counterclaims (a patentee-side challenge to DJ standing/ripeness and to duplicative invalidity pleading) plus a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f) motion to strike selected defenses.
• 2011-05-16 — Motion scheduling order: responses due 2011-06-17, replies due 2011-07-15, oral argument set for 2011-12-08 before Judge Siragusa.
• 2011-06-07 — Pro hac vice granted for Vincent Pollmeier (Epson side); Robert S. Hill enters an appearance for all defendants (2011-06-08).
• 2011-07-15/18 — RAH files its reply (Dkt. 19), plus an amended reply and a joint status report (Dkt. 18); exhibits filed later (2011-11-29 continuation of exhibits).
• 2011-11-29 (letter order docketed 2011-12-08) — Critical turning point: Judge Siragusa grants defendants' request that "the pending motion be adjourned without date pending settlement," ordering the parties to report on settlement status by 2012-01-20. The 2011-12-08 oral argument was therefore vacated.
• No motion to dismiss the complaint, no § 1404(a) transfer motion, no stay motion, and no summary-judgment motion were ever filed. (Note the contrast with RAH's later campaigns, where transfer and IPR-stay fights were central, e.g., Adobe's successful transfer to N.D. Cal. and the MDL 2874 consolidation.)

Claim construction: the case never reached Markman. No claim-construction order, no Phillips briefing, no technology tutorial exists on this docket.

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3. Discovery milestones

No discovery orders, protective-order disputes, or motion-to-compel practice appear on the docket. The only docketed milestones with strategic significance are procedural:

• 2010-12-30 / 2011-01-11 — out-of-state counsel admissions and pro hac vice fees, i.e., RAH staffing up with its Chicago patent-litigation team.
• 2011-07-15 (Dkt. 18) — joint status report (Rule 26(f)-type report), and an amended joint status report filed 2011-07-19 — the last case-management event before settlement talks took over.
• 2011-11-29 → 2012-03-16 — repeated status reports regarding settlement (2012-01-20; updated 2012-02-17; second updated 2012-03-16), signalling that the matter was resolved commercially rather than litigated. Discovery, if any, was truncated by the settlement timeline.

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4. Trial, verdict, post-trial motions

None. No trial date was set, no pretrial order, no verdict, no JMOL/new-trial motion, and no fee motion under 35 U.S.C. § 285. The case ended roughly 17 months after filing.

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5. Final disposition

• 2012-05-24 — Stipulation of Dismissal filed by RAH Color Technologies, with a proposed order (Dkt. entry entered 2012-05-24; Slifkin for RAH). Terms were not made public.
• 2012-05-29 — Order of Dismissal, Judge Siragusa (entered 2012-05-30): "ORDERED that the case is DISMISSED with prejudice, each party bear their own costs."
• No appeal was taken; the case is terminated/closed. There was no merits adjudication of infringement or validity of the '761 patent.

The settlement almost certainly included a patent license. RAH admitted in later

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

Let me pull the actual docket details and attorney filings.

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff RAH Color Technologies LLC

Confidence note up front: I could not pull the W.D.N.Y. CM/ECF docket directly (PACER is paywalled and the free mirrors I reached only partially indexed this 2010–2012 case). The roster below is reconstructed from the Justia docket summary for No. 6:10-cv-06710, the Unified Patents litigation portal's docket text for the same case, and later RAH Color Technologies dockets where the same lawyers continued to appear. Party names, case number, court, and the '761 patent are taken as authoritative from the case metadata.

Plaintiff's counsel

Corroborating docket facts

• The Unified Patents docket text for No. 6:10-cv-06710 records a pro hac vice fee receipt "for: C. Graham Gerst, Nicholas M. Dudziak, Elizabeth A. Koehn, and David Berten" and a "MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice of Nicholas M. Dudziak by RAH Color Technologies LLC (Slifkin, Neal)" — which is what places Slifkin as local counsel and the other four as the Chicago-based plaintiff's team (portal.unifiedpatents.com).
• The same docket shows a 5/29/2012 order before Judge Siragusa "confirm[ing] attorney admissions for 4, 5, 6, and 7 for the State Bar of Illinois" — consistent with four Illinois attorneys admitted pro hac vice for the plaintiff.
• The Justia docket summary for the case lists plaintiff-side counsel as David Berten, Nicholas M. Dudziak, Graham Gerst, Elizabeth A. Koehn, and Neal L. Slifkin (dockets.justia.com).
• The complaint (Dkt. 1, filed 12/21/2010) asserts eight patents — the '870, '251, '897, '433, '560, '008, '761, and '546 — and identifies Dr. Richard A. Holub as RAHCT's manager and the inventor. RAHCT's principal place of business at filing was 261 Hollywood Ave., Rochester, NY (later 7012 Colgate Dr., Alexandria, VA), which explains the W.D.N.Y. venue and Rochester local counsel.

Caveats

• Justia's "Represented By" list also shows a partial entry, "Jeffrey J." I could not attribute that truncated name to either side; the Epson defendants had their own multi-firm team, so it is likely a defense-side entry, but I have not confirmed it and am not counting it as plaintiff's counsel.
• No sealed-material issue appears in the counsel listings — the appearances here were public. What I could not confirm is any in-house counsel for RAHCT: RAHCT is a patent-holding LLC managed by Dr. Holub, and I found no indication an in-house attorney entered an appearance; Holub apparently participated as the company's principal/inventor rather than as counsel of record.
• Counsel rosters for this case will not have changed after termination; the same Global IP Law Group team (Berten, Dudziak, later joined by Irwin Park and Alison Aubry Richards) continued to represent RAHCT into the 2018–2019 MDL, which is a useful cross-check that the identification here is correct.

If you need the exact CM/ECF entry numbers and admission dates for each appearance (Dkts. 4–7, 13), that requires a PACER pull of the docket sheet for 6:10-cv-06710, which I could not access directly here.

I'll research the counsel of record for the Epson defendants in this W.D.N.Y. case.

I've found defendant-side names. Let me verify each against the docket and firm records.

Counsel of Record for the Epson Defendants — RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Seiko Epson Corp., No. 6:10-cv-06710-CJS (W.D.N.Y.)

Bottom line: The defense side in this case was a two-tier structure typical of W.D.N.Y. practice — Rochester local counsel from Harter Secrest & Emery LLP handling the docket, plus a California pro hac vice patent litigator from Quinn Emanuel. A third attorney, Robert S. Hill, entered a notice of appearance for all four Epson entities in June 2011. Below is what is documented versus what still needs PACER confirmation.

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1. Jeffrey J. Calabrese — local counsel (documented)

Docket grounding: Calabrese is the ECF filer for the defense-side papers. Specifically:

• Dkt. 13 — Motion to appear pro hac vice for Vincent Pollmeier, filed 5/16/2011 expressly "by Epson America, Inc., Epson Portland, Inc., Seiko Epson Corp., U.S. Epson, Inc.," with sponsor affidavit, attorney's oath, civility-principles oath, and CM/ECF registration attached; Order granting signed by Judge Charles J. Siragusa on 6/7/2011.
• The three successive Status Reports Regarding Settlement, filed 1/20/2012, 2/17/2012, and 3/16/2012, each captioned "by Epson America, Inc., Epson Portland, Inc., … Seiko Epson Corp., U.S. Epson, Inc." and each bearing Calabrese's ECF signature. (Unified Patents docket text)

Relevant experience: HSE partner and long-time leader of the firm's Labor & Employment group; Chambers USA–ranked (Band 1, Upstate NY Labor & Employment) since 2019; Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year," Employment Law–Management, Rochester (2021). His commercial-litigation practice expressly includes patent infringement litigation, which is consistent with a local-counsel role rather than first-chair patent work. (HSE bio; Chambers profile)

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2. Vincent M. Pollmeier — lead patent counsel, pro hac vice (documented, with one identity caveat)

Relevant experience: Quinn Emanuel's "Chief Technology Counsel" at the time; registered to practice before the USPTO. Unusual technical pedigree for a patent litigator — B.S. aerospace engineering (Iowa State), M.S. aerospace engineering (UT Austin), then ~12 years as a researcher at the University of Texas Center for Space Research and a Principal Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Voyager, Galileo, Mars missions; Deep Space Network) before earning his J.D. at Loyola Law School (2000). Litigation practice focused on high-tech patent and communications-system cases. (Quinn Emanuel-era bio via law.net; appearance in E.D. California / C.D. Cal. filings as Quinn Emanuel counsel, e.g., Case No. 5:08-cv-04733 and 3:13-cv-04700.)

⚠️ Caveat — verify the individual. An Iowa State engineering-alumni piece refers to a "Vincent M. Pollmeier" (B.S. aerospace engineering, 1986) who "passed away in 2000," with a memorial scholarship in his name. That conflicts with the Quinn Emanuel bar record (Cal. Bar No. 210684, admitted ~2000; J.D. 2000) and with the LTL Attorneys listing for the same bar number. These may be two different men, or the memorial item may be conflating records. I could not resolve this before exhausting my search budget — confirm the pro hac vice affiant's identity via the Dkt. 13 affidavit itself, which will contain his then-current firm, address, and admissions under oath.

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3. Robert S. Hill — notice of appearance for all defendants (partially documented)

• Docket grounding: "NOTICE of Appearance by Robert S. Hill on behalf of All Defendants," entered 6/8/2011 — i.e., the day after Pollmeier's pro hac vice order was signed, suggesting he was added as part of the same mid-case hand-off.
• Not confirmed: I could not verify his firm, office location, or whether he was Epson in-house counsel (Epson America is headquartered in Long Beach, CA) versus outside counsel. Do not treat his affiliation as established. This needs the W.D.N.Y. docket entry itself (the notice of appearance lists firm and address) or a check of his New York/California bar records. I found no matching patent-litigation profile in the sources I reached, so I decline to characterize his experience.

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Important disambiguation — do not attribute these to Epson

Justia's docket page for this case lists a "Represented By" block reading David Berten, Nicholas M. Dudziak, Graham Gerst, Elizabeth A. Koehn, Neal L. Slifkin. Those are plaintiff-side counsel, not Epson's:

• Berten, Dudziak, Gerst, and Koehn — Global IP Law Group, LLC, Chicago (admitted pro hac vice by Judge Siragusa on 1/5/2011, Dkts. 4–7; $300 PHV fee received 1/11/2011, receipt ROC004673). Berten is RAH's long-running lead across the portfolio litigation (e.g., RAH v. Adobe, N.D. Cal. 3:18-cv-03277; RAH v. Quad Graphics, E.D. Wis. 2:18-cv-00087).
• Neal L. Slifkin — Rochester local counsel for RAH; he filed the pro hac vice motions and the Stipulation of Dismissal on 5/24/2012.
• Likewise, Perkins Coie (Andrew Klein, Wing Liang, James Valentine, Christopher Hanewicz) appears in the later RAH matters representing Adobe, not Epson.

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Procedural context bearing on counsel's work

The case never reached claim construction or trial, so there is no merits opinion assessing either side's advocacy. Trajectory: complaint filed 12/21/2010 (Dkt. 1) asserting eight RAH patents — 6,995,870; 7,280,251; 7,312,897; 7,710,433; 7,710,560; 7,729,008; 7,791,761; and 7,830,546 (our metadata lists only the '761). Defendants answered and counterclaimed in April 2011; RAH moved to dismiss counterclaims 1–16 and strike affirmative defenses 1–3 and 5–7 (Dkt. 12), and the defense obtained a letter order on 12/8/2011 adjourning that motion without date pending settlement. After three joint settlement status reports, the case was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation, each party bearing its own costs (Order of Dismissal, Judge Siragusa, 5/29/2012).

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Open items for PACER verification

1. Dkt. 13 affidavit — confirm Pollmeier's then-firm and resolve the identity question above.
2. The 6/8/2011 notice of appearance — Hill's firm, address, and bar admissions.
3. The April 2011 Answer/Counterclaims signature block — identify who signed before Pollmeier's June 2011 PHV admission (a signature-block name I have not yet confirmed would explain the counsel change).
4. Whether any Epson in-house attorney (Seiko Epson, Nagano / Epson America, Long Beach) appeared of record — the docket text I retrieved shows no in-house notice of appearance, but I did not review every entry.