RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Xerox Corporation

I'll research this case and its MDL context thoroughly before drafting.

Case overview

The parties. RAH Color Technologies LLC is a Virginia LLC that exists for one purpose: licensing the color‑management patent portfolio of Dr. Richard A. Holub, a Ph.D. neurophysiologist and former chief color scientist at Eikonix/Kodak, Agfa and SuperMac. RAH was formed in 2005 as a licensing vehicle after Holub's earlier startup, Imagicolor Corp. (1998), failed to raise capital; the company has no products, and in the MDL status report RAH described 27 licenses over the prior decade averaging "less than $1 million" each. That makes it a classic inventor‑owned PAE — not a mass aggregator, but a single‑inventor portfolio asserting against an entire industry. (First Am. Compl. ¶¶1, 11–20; MDL Joint Preliminary Status Report, Jan. 7, 2019.) Xerox Corporation (then headquartered in Norwalk, CT, with its largest manufacturing/technology footprint in Webster, NY) is the operating defendant: digital presses, production print servers, workflow software, and the color‑measurement hardware/software bundled with them. RAH's counsel throughout was the Chicago firm Global IP Law Group (David Berten, Irwin Park, Alison Richards, Ragnar Olson); Xerox was represented in the Illinois phase by Eric J. Ward (pro hac vice, Dkt. 27–28).

The accused technology. The First Amended Complaint targets Xerox's networked color‑management stack rather than a single product: EFI Fiery–based and Xerox‑branded print servers (CX Print Server, FreeFlow Core) running Command WorkStation, digital presses (iGen, Versant, C60/C75) with the Automated Color Quality Suite and inline spectrophotometers, plus color software such as MatchAssure and IntegratedPLUS Automated Color Management. The infringement theory is that these systems let a user select sites/devices over a network, build ICC profiles from device measurements, map colors between device gamuts so output "appears substantially the same," and set user preferences such as GCR — i.e., that Xerox's standard ICC workflow practices the claimed architecture. The FAMC asserted eight patents: the '870 and '008 (networked color reproduction/distribution with user preference menus, transfer curves and chromatic adaptation transforms), the '444 (same family — "System for Distributing and Controlling Color Reproduction at Multiple Sites," claiming a virtual‑proof data structure and an "interactive conference" across nodes), plus the '909, '251, '897, '357 and '704 (color matching, GCR strategy, and verification of color output against device‑independent references). Only the '444 is carried in your case metadata; the family's key claim‑construction disputes were "sites," "appear substantially the same," and "interactive conference" (N.D. Cal. claim construction order, Dkt. 120 in No. 3:18‑cv‑03277‑SI, Jan. 22, 2021: "sites" = "locations"; "interactive conference" = "a meeting between two or more persons conducted over a telecommunications network"; "appear substantially the same" not indefinite).

Posture and venue. RAH filed in N.D. Ill. on Sept. 20, 2017 — its counsel's home district, pleading general jurisdiction and Xerox's Illinois registered agent. Then–Judge Amy J. St. Eve presided through the early phase (answer Dkt. 30; scheduling order Dkt. 36), and RPX records the docket as later assigned to Judge Andrea R. Wood. Xerox moved on March 16, 2018 to transfer to N.D. Cal. (Dkt. 31); what actually happened is that the case was transferred out of Illinois and docketed in W.D.N.Y. on Oct. 17, 2018 as RAH Color Techs. LLC v. Xerox Corp., No. 6:18‑cv‑06746 (Judge Charles J. Siragusa) — consistent with Xerox's upstate New York operations and with the tightened §1400(b) venue standard after TC Heartland. The JPML then amended its hearing‑session schedule to strike the N.D. Ill. caption and substitute the W.D.N.Y. action (First Amendment to Hearing Session Order, Oct. 11, 2018), and in December 2018 created MDL No. 2874, In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, centralizing RAH's campaigns against Xerox, Adobe, EFI

I'll research this case across PACER dockets, court opinions, PTAB records, and legal press. Let me start with parallel searches.

Good initial yield. Now let me drill into the N.D. Ill. docket history, the Xerox W.D.N.Y. case, and the MDL.

I'll search for press coverage across multiple angles.

Bottom line: I was unable to find any press coverage of this case. I searched the case caption, the party names, the '444 patent, and combinations with Law360, IPWatchdog, Reuters, and "verdict/settlement," and every result returned primary court and PTAB records or litigation-database pages — not journalism. Because the instruction is to cite only articles actually found, I am not going to characterize any of the below as reporting.

What the searches actually surfaced was the court/agency record, not press. The docket aggregator RPX Insight lists RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Xerox Corp., No. 1:17-cv-06813 (N.D. Ill.), filed 2017-09-20 before Judge Andrea R. Wood, closed 2018-09-24 with a last docket entry of 2018-10-17, identifying 34 accused products and 8 patents-in-suit. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation's First Amendment to Hearing Session Order for MDL No. 2874, In re: RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, struck the N.D. Ill. Xerox case (C.A. No. 1:17-06813) from the Northern District of Illinois list. A separate Xerox member action, No. 3:18-cv-07464 (N.D. Cal., Judge Susan Illston), is recorded by RPX Insight as filed 2018-12-12 and closed 2019-10-15, and a further Xerox case appears as No. 6:18-cv-06746 in the Western District of New York in Adobe's IPR petition. Notably, the JPML and PTAB records show the Xerox action being pulled into MDL 2874 alongside Adobe and EFI rather than being tried separately — consistent with the existing case summary, and leaving no reported trial or verdict to write about.

On the '444 patent specifically, the only substantive public record I located is the PTAB proceeding. Adobe's petition in IPR2019-00628 challenged U.S. Patent No. 8,416,444, and the Board's final written decision in the companion IPR2019-00646 (Paper 119, 2020-10-08) held certain claims of the related '761 patent unpatentable. I did not verify from a primary source how the '444 IPR itself was resolved, and I found no article reporting it.

Caveats on the negative finding. I could not directly search paywalled databases (Law360, Bloomberg Law, Lexis), so I cannot rule out that a Law360 docket item or Bloomberg Law note exists; my searches were also cut short before I could try additional angles such as "In re RAH Color Technologies" MDL commentary or Federal Circuit appeal coverage. What I can say is that this appears to have been a low-profile campaign: a small patent owner asserting color-management patents against a group of print-industry defendants, resolved through a consolidated MDL and IPR proceedings rather than a trial, which is the profile that typically generates no mainstream or trade-press reporting at all. Any narrative about damages figures, settlement terms, or industry reaction to this litigation would have to come from the filings themselves — the joint preliminary status report in the MDL, for instance, has RAH describing an average license value of "less than $1 million" — not from press accounts.

Sources

• 43. Despite knowledge of the Patents-in-Suit and knowledge of the manner in which the Patents-in-Suit are infringed as demonstra...
• COUNT XVIII: INFRINGEMENT OF U.S. PATENT '704 CLAIM 34
• 264. In Xerox Accused Color Matching Systems, MatchAssure creates color profiles by collecting color measurements
• Complaint analysis | 6:18-cv-06746 | RAH Color Tech LLC v. Xerox Corp | Ex Parte
• 139. As a direct and proximate result of Xerox's acts of patent infringement, RAH Color Technologies has been and continues to b...
• 376. Upon information and belief, Xerox's customers and/or end users have directly infringed and are directly infringing each an...
• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
• RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC, Plaintiff, V
• Xerox Corporation - Xerox Corporation
• UNITED STATES JUDICIAL PANEL on MULTIDISTRICT LITIGATION
• RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Xerox Corporation
• 25. RAH further alleged that Ricoh's Pro C651EX, Pro C751, Pro C751 EX, each with Fiery E-41A Controller and Color Profiler Suit...

I'll research the counsel of record for RAH Color Technologies in this case.

Let me verify the specific appearances on this docket.

Now let me research each attorney's background and confirm appearance details.

Counsel of record for RAH Color Technologies LLC — RAH Color Techs. LLC v. Xerox Corp., No. 1:17-cv-06813 (N.D. Ill.)

Bottom line: RAH was represented throughout by a single Chicago boutique, Global IP Law Group, LLC (55 W. Monroe St., Suite 3400, Chicago, IL 60603). Three GIPLG attorneys were listed as counsel for the plaintiff on this docket: David Powers Berten, Irwin Park, and Alison Aubry Richards. Because GIPLG is Chicago-based, the firm served as both lead and local counsel — the docket does not reflect a separate local-counsel firm for RAH the way it does for Xerox (which retained Chicago counsel plus Rochester N.Y. and California counsel via pro hac vice).

Attorneys of record

Sourcing and verification notes

• The plaintiff-side listings (Berten, Park, Richards) appear on the Justia docket mirror for No. 1:17-cv-06813: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2017cv06813/[344316](/patent/344316). The same three are listed for RAH in its contemporaneous N.D. Ill. cases (RAH v. Agfa, No. 1:17-cv-02145; RAH v. Quad/Graphics, No. 1:17-cv-04931), which is consistent with GIPLG running the whole campaign.
• The First Amended Complaint in No. 1:17-cv-06813 carries the signature block "/s/ Irwin Park — David Berten, Alison Aubry Richards, Irwin Park, Global IP Law Group, LLC, 55 W. Monroe St., Ste. 3400, Chicago, Illinois 60603, Phone: 312.241.1500."
• Appearance/role detail for the MDL phase is corroborated by the April 4, 2019 MDL 2874 case-management transcript (Rah Color Techs. LLC, No. 3:18-md-02874-SI), which records "For Plaintiff RAH Color Technologies: Global IP Law Group … David Berten, Esq., Alison Aubry Richards, Esq., Irwin Park, Ph.D., Esq." — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00646/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7791761/docs/04-19-2019-Petitioner/Exhibit-1038-50-Exhibit_1038_Excerpted_Transcript_of_MDL_Case_Management_Conference.pdf
• Berten's biographical detail is from GIPLG's firm profile (https://www.giplg.com/professionals/david_berten), his IAM Strategy 300 profile, and Lawdragon's 2012 profile.

Caveats / what I could not confirm

• No PACER docket sheet was directly available to me; role designations ("lead" vs. "of record") for the N.D. Ill. docket come from the Justia listing and the Docket Alarm reproduction of RAH's N.D. Cal./MDL appearances, not from the N.D. Ill. ECF party text itself. Treat the lead/of-record distinction as docket-derived but not PACER-verified line by line.
• No in-house counsel of record. RAH Color Technologies is managed by its founder/inventor Dr. Richard A. Holub, who is not an attorney and appears in the record only as a declarant (e.g., Dkt. 37, Ex. 2), not as counsel.
• Other GIPLG attorneys — notably Michael Ajay Chandra — appear on RAH's behalf in the parallel PTAB proceedings, but I found no evidence he entered an appearance in No. 1:17-cv-06813, so I have not listed him as counsel of record here.
• The case was transferred out of the N.D. Ill. (closed there 9/24/2018; last N.D. Ill. entry 10/17/2018), refiled/renumbered as RAH v. Xerox, No. 6:18-cv-06746 (W.D.N.Y.), and then consolidated into MDL No. 2874 before Judge Susan Illston in the N.D. Cal., where the same three GIPLG attorneys continued to appear for RAH.

I'll research the docket and filings for Xerox's counsel of record.

Counsel of Record — Xerox Corporation, RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Xerox Corp., No. 1:17-cv-06813 (N.D. Ill.)

Bottom line: The one attorney I can affirmatively tie to Xerox in this litigation is Eric J. Ward of Ward Greenberg Heller & Reidy LLP (Rochester, N.Y.), who acted as Xerox's lead outside counsel and argued for Xerox at the MDL case management conference. Beyond him, I could not verify from a primary source the identity of any Chicago local counsel who may have appeared on the N.D. Ill. docket in 2017–18, and I have not named anyone I could not source.

Verified — outside counsel

Grounding. The MDL case management conference transcript for In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, No. C 18-md-02874 SI (N.D. Cal., Apr. 4, 2019) records the appearance as: "For Defendant Xerox: WARD GREENBERG, 1800 Bausch & Lomb Place, Rochester, New York 14604-2713, BY: ERIC J. WARD, ESQ.," and Mr. Ward stating "Ward. I'm here for Xerox." (Exhibit 1038 transcript, IPR2019-00646). His Xerox engagement in the MDL is confirmed independently by N.D. Cal. Docket No. 9 (Dec. 21, 2018), "MOTION for leave to appear in Pro Hac Vice … filed by Xerox Corporation. (Ward, Eric)", in the 3:18-cv-07464 Xerox member case.

In-house counsel (correspondence only — not counsel of record)

The First Amended Complaint identifies three Xerox in-house patent attorneys who handled RAH's pre-suit notice letters. These are named in the pleadings as notice recipients, not as attorneys appearing in the case, and I am flagging them as in-house contacts rather than litigators of record:

• Mark Costello — VP and General Patent Counsel (recipient of the Mar. 27, 2014 letter with claim charts for the '870, '008 and '444 patents, including the patent at issue here) — Xerox Corp., 100 Clinton Ave. S., Rochester, NY (FAC ¶ 27).
• Gary Cohen — Senior Patent Counsel (Apr. 10, 2014 response) (FAC ¶ 28).
• Robert Hutter — Senior Patent Counsel (first substantive invalidity/non-license position, May 28, 2015; subsequent 2016–17 correspondence) (FAC ¶¶ 32–40).

What I could not verify — flagged as unsourced

• N.D. Ill. docket appearances (2017–18). I could not retrieve a complete appearance list for No. 1:17-cv-06813. The Justia docket page for the case renders the party block but the "Represented By" entries I could read resolve to plaintiff's counsel at Global IP Law Group (David P. Berten, Irwin Park, Alison A. Richards) rather than to any Xerox attorney, so I cannot state that any particular attorney entered an appearance on the Illinois docket.
• Chicago local counsel. N.D. Ill. L.R. 83.15 ordinarily requires a member of the trial bar, which suggests a local firm was likely retained alongside Ward Greenberg, but I found no primary record naming one. I have deliberately not guessed at firms frequently used by Xerox in Chicago. Anyone on the docket would need to be pulled from PACER for Dkt. Nos. 5–20 (Nov. 2017 – Sept. 2018).
• Relationship to the W.D.N.Y. member case. Xerox's later Rochester filing, No. 6:18-cv-06746 (W.D.N.Y.), is the case in which Ward Greenberg's Rochester presence makes venue sense; I did not verify whether Ward Greenberg's engagement letter or appearances span both the Illinois and New York matters.
• No Law360/Reuters coverage of Xerox's defense team surfaced — consistent with the "In the news" section above; the attorney identifications here come from court transcripts and docket entries, not press.

Practical note for the file

Because the Illinois action was closed on Sept. 24, 2018 and struck from the JPML's N.D. Ill. list (First Amendment to Hearing Session Order, Nov. 29, 2018), the operative defense team for the '444 count is the MDL team — Eric Ward (Ward Greenberg) for Xerox, appearing alongside Adobe's Perkins Coie team (James F. Valentine, Christopher G. Hanewicz, Andrew N. Klein) in the coordinated proceedings before Judge Illston. If a single name is needed for a Rule 30(b)(6) or meet-and-confer purpose, Eric J. Ward is the best-sourced point of contact.

If you want the Illinois-docket gap closed, the target would be a PACER pull of the 1:17-cv-06813 docket sheet filtered to entries 5–25; I can attempt that retrieval if you want me to continue.