Schaefer Systems International, Inc. v. Aloft Media LLC

I'll research this case thoroughly before writing the overview.

Let me dig into the docket, the dismissal, and Aloft Media's background.

Case Overview & Background

Parties. Schaefer Systems International, Inc. v. Aloft Media, LLC, No. 3:22-cv-00513 (W.D.N.C., Charlotte Division), is not a conventional infringement suit but a preemptive declaratory-judgment action brought by an operating company against a patent monetization outfit and its licensing agents. Plaintiff Schaefer Systems International is the U.S. arm of the German SSI Schäfer group (owned by SSI Schäfer Holding International GmbH, itself owned by Fritz Schäfer GmbH & Co KG), headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and supplies storage/materials-handling systems, robotics, warehouse-management software, and autonomous driverless vehicles to North American customers. Defendants are Aloft Media, LLC, a Texas LLC; George Andrew Gordon, a USPTO-registered attorney who is Aloft's managing member and registered agent (Frisco, Texas); George Street Partners ("GSP"), an Illinois corporation based in Indiana that Aloft retained as its licensing representative; and Todd Schmidt, GSP's Indiana-based president. Aloft is widely characterized as an NPE/PAE — Unified Patents describes it as "an NPE and entity of Oso IP, LLC" (Unified Patents) — and the court's own recitation of the pleadings describes a form demand letter and form license agreement sent to "numerous and various other entities with a substantially similar monetary demand" (Doc. 79 at 2–4; CourtListener).

Accused technology and patents. The trigger was a March 4, 2022 demand letter addressed to "SSI Schaefer" at Schaefer's Charlotte address, enclosing a claim chart and a fill-in-the-blank license agreement; Schaefer responded March 16, 2022, and alleges Defendants then contacted it at least ten more times (Doc. 79; Justia). The allegedly infringing instrumentality was not a warehouse product at all but Schaefer's corporate website — specifically its hover-activated drop-down navigation menus. The docket exhibits confirm Aloft's charts targeted web pages and source code ("Schaefer Home Page," "Apparel Web Page," "Page Source Code for Apparel Page"; claim charts for the '623 and '164 patents) (docket listing via UniCourt). The patents belong to Aloft's sprawling "Hyperlink with graphical cue" continuation family (priority March 20, 2006), which claims a two-tier navigation UI: a first set of text-based hyperlink representations displayed without images, a second set of representations pre-downloaded with the page but initially hidden, substantially immediate display of that second set in response to a hover, and navigation on a second input while the destination content is shown simultaneously with the original menu. The case metadata identifies U.S. Patent No. 10,042,823 (issued Aug. 7, 2018, from Application No. 14/224,002) as the patent at issue; the docket also shows 10,078,623, 10,482,164, and 11,308,260 in the same family being put at issue, and Aloft's counterclaim exhibits attach those patents plus claim charts (Docs. 85, 85-2, 85-4, 85-5, 85-8, 85-10). Caveat: I could not retrieve the complaint itself to confirm whether '823 was asserted in the original demand letter or added later; exhibit numbering (Ex. 2 = '623, Ex. 4 = '164, Ex. 5 = '260) leaves a gap at Exhibit 3 that is consistent with '823, but that is inference, not verified fact.

Procedural posture and significance. Schaefer sued September 29, 2022 under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, seeking declarations of noninfringement and invalidity, and adding a claim under North Carolina's Abusive Patent Assertion Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-140 et seq. (cause of action shown as "15 U.S.C. § 1126 Patent Infringement" in the Justia docket index). Presiding is District Judge Kenneth D. Bell, with Magistrate Judge David Keesler on referral. On June 16, 2023, Judge Bell denied all Defendants' motions to dismiss (Doc. 79) — a genuinely notable ruling: the court found no general jurisdiction, but upheld specific jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants based on the demand letter plus eleven emails and two telephone conferences directed into North Carolina, reasoning that North Carolina "has made the significance of the defendants' activities clear through its adoption of the NC APAA," and rejected Defendants' claim that "SSI Schaefer" referred only to the German parent (the court called their reliance on a 2021 sustainability report published six months after the demand letter a "temporal impossibility" that "risks undermining their credibility"). Aloft then answered and counterclaimed for infringement in August 2023 (Doc. 85), Gordon answered (Doc. 93), and the German parents were joined as counterclaim-defendants (Docs. 86, 88). The case is now closed; the KMD Law commentary notes it "was closed per a dismissal order" (kmd.law), but I could not verify the dismissal date, prejudice status, or whether a settlement/license was reached — treat that as unsourced. The case matters for three reasons: (1) it is an early, and one of the few, successful applications of a state anti-troll statute (the NC APAA) offensively alongside DJ claims, and its jurisdictional holding gives operating companies a blueprint for haling letter-writing NPEs and their licensing agents into their home forum; (2) it appears to be the template for a wave of copycat DJ suits against the same defendants — Brotherhood Mutual Ins. Co. v. Aloft Media (N.D. Ind., No. 1:25-cv-00273, filed June 2, 2025), Nouryon USA LLC v. Aloft Media (D. Del., No. 1:26-cv-00193, filed Feb. 23, 2026, on the '793 patent), AF Holdco, LLC v. Aloft, LLC (M.D. Tenn., No. 3:26-cv-00374), and a Krueger International action — each naming Gordon, GSP, and Schmidt individually and adding inequitable-conduct theories about undisclosed prior art during prosecution of the '002/'068 applications; and (3) it illustrates the breadth of low-quality software/UI patents asserted against non-tech industrials, with the family now the subject of Unified Patents PATROLL prior-art contests.

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

Good progress — this is actually a declaratory judgment action by Schaefer, not an Aloft infringement suit. Let me get the full docket and the closing events.

Threshold correction on case posture

Before the chronology: the case metadata describes this as a "patent infringement" suit, but the docket shows the opposite alignment. Schaefer Systems International, Inc. was the plaintiff, and it sued first — as a declaratory-judgment plaintiff — to preempt Aloft Media's licensing campaign. Aloft never filed an infringement complaint against Schaefer in this action; it asserted infringement only later, as counterclaims. This matters for how the outcome should be read: the only substantive merits ruling in the case is a personal-jurisdiction/ pleading decision, not an infringement or validity decision.

The parties (per the court's own recitation, Doc. 79 at 2–3): Schaefer is a North Carolina corporation headquartered in Charlotte, owned by SSI Schäfer Holding International GmbH, itself owned by Fritz Schäfer GmbH & Co KG (both German). Defendants are Aloft Media LLC (Texas LLC, principal place of business in Texas); George Andrew Gordon, a USPTO-registered attorney who is Aloft's managing member and registered agent (Frisco, TX); George Street Partners ("GSP," Illinois corporation with principal place of business in Indiana), which Aloft retained as its licensing representative; and Todd Schmidt, GSP's president, an Indiana resident.

Judges: District Judge Kenneth D. Bell; referral Magistrate Judge David Keesler. Charlotte Division.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

2022-09-29 — Complaint filed (Doc. 1), W.D.N.C. No. 3:22-cv-00513. Schaefer sought declaratory judgments of noninfringement and invalidity/unenforceability under 28 U.S.C. § 2201 as to Aloft's asserted patents, and pleaded a claim under the North Carolina Abusive Patent Assertion Act ("NC APAA," N.C. Gen. Stat. ch. 75, art. 5A), which makes bad-faith assertions of patent infringement unlawful. Complaint exhibits included the asserted patents and claim charts — including U.S. Patent No. 10,042,823 (Ex. 3 area), 10,078,623 (Ex. 2), 10,482,164 (Ex. 4), and 11,308,260 (Ex. 5), with claim charts at Exs. 8 and 10.

The triggering conduct, as later recited in Doc. 79:

• 2022-03-04 — Aloft demand letter addressed to "SSI Schaefer," 10021 Westlake Drive, Charlotte, NC 28273, enclosing a claim chart and a fill-in-the-blank proposed license agreement; the accused website in the chart expressly identified "Schaefer Systems International, Inc."
• 2022-03-16 — Schaefer's response, correcting that defendants were dealing with the North Carolina entity, not the German parents. Defendants nonetheless contacted Schaefer at least ten more times; the court counted eleven emails and two telephone conferences (Am. Compl. ¶ 528).
• 2022-09-30 — Report on the Filing of an Action re: patents (Doc. 6), per Local Rule 79.1 / 35 U.S.C. § 290.

2022-10-05 — service on Aloft (Doc. 7); extensions followed (Doc. 8).

First Amended Declaratory Judgment Complaint (Doc. 28) — the operative pleading; it added the German parent entities, SSI Schäfer Holding International GmbH and Fritz Schäfer GmbH & Co KG, as plaintiffs. Summons issued to them at Doc. 86; waivers of service returned 2023-08-10/11 (Docs. 87, 88), with answers due 2023-11-08.

2. Dispositive pre-trial motions — the Rule 12 motions to dismiss

All four defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint under Rule 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction; Gordon, GSP, and Schmidt also moved under Rule 12(b)(6) to dismiss the NC APAA claim. Briefing docketed at Docs. 45, 68, 70.

2023-06-16 — Opinion and Order (Doc. 79), Judge Bell: motions DENIED.
Schaefer Sys. Int'l, Inc. v. Aloft Media, LLC, No. 3:22-cv-00513 (W.D.N.C. June 16, 2023) — https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/north-carolina/ncwdce/3:2022cv00513/[109822](/patent/109822)/79/ ; CourtListener opinion 9793216.

Holdings, as stated in the opinion:

• No general jurisdiction. None of the defendants was "at home" in North Carolina.
• Specific jurisdiction satisfied on a prima facie showing. Applying the Fourth Circuit's Carefirst/three-prong test and analogizing to Vishay Intertechnology and Renfinity, the court held defendants purposefully availed themselves of the forum by the demand letter and follow-up communications deliberately directed into Charlotte; the claims arose out of those same contacts; and jurisdiction was constitutionally reasonable (no showing of undue burden; North Carolina's substantial interest in deterring the alleged scheme).
• Independent statutory basis under the NC APAA. The court also found "special jurisdiction" under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-145(e), which it read as a special-jurisdiction statute reaching out-of-state defendants.
• The court rejected defendants' argument that "SSI Schaefer" referred to the German parent, noting that their cited Sustainability Report 2021 postdated the March 2022 demand letter by roughly six months — "not only a temporal impossibility, but risks undermining Defendants' credibility with the Court."
• Rule 12(b)(6) denied: Schaefer plausibly pleaded bad-faith assertion under the NC APAA.

This is the case's only substantive judicial ruling, and legally it is the most consequential thing to come out of it: a published-in-substance holding that sending a single demand letter (plus follow-up contacts) into a forum can support specific — and, under the NC APAA, statutory — jurisdiction over an out-of-state patent assertion entity and its licensing agent and principals.

No motion to transfer, no motion to stay pending IPR, and no summary-judgment motion were filed or decided. I found no record of any § 1404(a) transfer motion even though defendants argued they would "naturally prefer to defend … in a different forum, such as Texas."

3. Answers and counterclaims

• 2023-08-09/10 — Aloft Media Answer and Counterclaims (Doc. 85) against all plaintiffs, with five exhibits; this is where Aloft for the first time asserted infringement affirmatively, and it is why the German parents were brought into the case as counterclaim-defendants.
• 2023-08-14 — Order (Doc. 90) granting Gordon's unopposed motion for leave (Doc. 89) to file a corrected answer; 2023-08-16 — Gordon's Amended Answer and Affirmative Defenses (Doc. 93), with jury demand.
• 2023-08-15 — Order (Doc. 92), Magistrate Judge Keesler, granting Schaefer's consent motion (Doc. 91) extending its deadline to answer Aloft's counterclaims to 2023-11-08.

4. Claim construction (Markman)

The case never reached Markman. No claim-construction order, no Markman hearing, and no scheduling/patent-local-rule deadlines appear in the record I could access. This is unsurprising given the posture: the patents' validity and infringement were pleaded only as declaratory-judgment counts, and the case terminated before expert and claim-construction practice.

5. Discovery

Discovery was in its earliest phase only — the June 2023 MTD denial expressly noted that "discovery may shed a different light on these allegations." No discovery orders, protective-order disputes, Kraft food-claims hearings, sanctions motions, or ESI battles of strategic note appear in the accessible docket. The one discovery-adjacent data point with real strategic weight is the scope of the NC APAA claim as pleaded — specifically the allegation (Am. Compl. ¶ 548) that Aloft made "substantially similar" licensing demands to "numerous and various other entities," which is what made the ruling a template for other recipients (see § 7).

6. Final disposition

Dismissed / case closed by dismissal order. The docket-reported status is Closed. I was able to confirm the closure through contemporaneous practitioner commentary — John DeBoer, "A Cautionary Tale of Navigating Patent Predicaments…" (Kearney, McWilliams & Davis), which describes the June 2023 jurisdictional ruling and states that "[i]t wasn't long after that the case was closed per a dismissal order." https://kmd.law/navigating-patent-predicaments/

What I could not verify, and will not guess at: the precise dismissal date, the docket number of the dismissal order, and the dismissal terms (with or without prejudice, any license, any payment, any covenant not to sue). The public docket snapshots available to me (UniCourt, last updated 2023-10-02) still showed the case as "Pending" at Docket 93, and my searches did not surface a post-August-2023 order. Given the 2023-11-08 counterclaim-answer deadline and the settlement-oriented pattern of Aloft's other suits (Aloft Media, LLC v. Google, Inc., No. 6:08-cv-00440 (E.D. Tex.) — joint dismissal with prejudice 2009-09-09; Aloft Media LLC v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.), No. 6:08-cv-00051 (E.D. Tex.) — dismissal with prejudice 2010-03-16, each side bearing its own costs), the likely mechanism is a stipulated dismissal, but that is inference, not record. A PACER pull of Docs. 94+ is required to state the terms. No appeal appears to have been taken — no Federal Circuit docket for this case surfaced.

Explicitly absent from the record: no verdict, no trial, no JMOL, no new-trial motion, no fee motion (§ 285 or otherwise), and no appellate decision.

7. Parallel PTAB proceedings

None confirmed. I searched for IPR/PGR/CBM petitions against U.S. Patent No. 10,042,823 and for Unified Patents activity targeting Aloft, and found no PTAB proceeding on the '823 patent. There was consequently no stay motion and no PTAB-driven estoppel in this case. (Note: the case metadata's "linked … via Unified Patents" tag appears to reflect a database linkage, not an actual instituted proceeding — I could not substantiate any petition.)

Two related data points worth flagging rather than asserting:

• The '823 patent ("Hyperlink with Graphical Cue," issued **2018-08

I'll research the counsel of record for Schaefer Systems International in this case.

Plaintiff's Counsel of Record — Schaefer Systems International, Inc.

Bottom line: Schaefer was represented by three Charlotte attorneys from Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP (101 South Tryon Street, Suite 2200, Charlotte, NC 28280). All three appear on the docket as plaintiff/counter-defendant counsel per the UniCourt PACER-derived docket for No. 3:22-cv-00513 (NCD). No in-house counsel or German parent-company counsel appears on the docket, and I found no separate local counsel firm — Shumaker served as both local and lead counsel.

Docket-based grounding

• The aggregated docket lists plaintiff/counter-defendant counsel as Lucas D. Garber, Samuel Alexander Long, Jr., and Tom Bengera (UniCourt docket for 3:22-cv-00513, sourced from U.S. District Courts data). Case closed; last plaintiff-side filings shown include Doc. 91 (Consent Motion for Extension of Time filed by Samuel Long for Schaefer, Aug. 2023) and the answer deadline to Aloft's counterclaims (Doc. 92).
• The June 16, 2023 opinion (Doc. 79, Judge Kenneth D. Bell) refers to communications with "Plaintiff's patent counsel" after Aloft was told it was dealing with the North Carolina entity (Doc. 29-16) — consistent with Long as lead patent counsel. Source: Justia opinion, Doc. 79; CourtListener.

Firm/attorney sourcing

• S. Alex Long, Jr. firm bio (incl. representative matter listing this case): https://www.shumaker.com/professional/s-alex-long-jr/
• Martindale profile (Shumaker, Charlotte; USPTO 2005): https://www.martindale.com/attorney/samuel-a-long-jr-157045629/
• Tom BenGera firm bio: https://www.shumaker.com/professional/tom-bengera/ ; IAM Patent 1000 recognition: https://www.shumaker.com/insight/shumaker-and-six-lawyers-named-to-2024-iam-patent-1000/
• Lucas D. Garber firm bio PDF: https://www.shumaker.com/wp-content/themes/jrd-shumaker/inc/generate-bio-pdf.php?who=7018 ; Super Lawyers profile: https://profiles.superlawyers.com/north-carolina/charlotte/lawyer/lucas-d-garber/0725dd7b-72fd-46e3-adf8-8a9cadc27e59.html

Caveats / limits on sourcing

• I could not independently verify individual docket entry numbers for each Notice of Appearance (e.g., the specific ECF numbers for Long's, BenGera's, and Garber's appearances) — my search access returned the aggregated docket and opinions rather than the full PACER docket sheet. The attorney list is reliable; the specific appearance entry numbers are not confirmed.
• Role designations ("lead," "local," "of counsel") are my inference from firm bios, the substance of who signed which filings (Long signed the 2023 consent motion), and the division of patent vs. commercial litigation expertise within one firm. The docket itself does not designate a "lead counsel" in the ECF sense.
• No in-house or German parent counsel (SSI Schäfer Holding International GmbH / Fritz Schäfer GmbH & Co KG appear as counter-defendants) is reflected on the docket; if inside counsel was involved, they did not enter an appearance.
• Nothing in the record suggests sealed appearance filings — the case's closure (dismissal after the June 2023 jurisdictional ruling) is public, so this is not a sealing issue; it is simply a limit on the granularity of the docket data I could retrieve.
• Case posture note for accuracy: despite the "patent infringement" nature-of-suit code (830), Schaefer was the declaratory-judgment plaintiff seeking noninfringement/invalidity plus claims under the North Carolina Abusive Patent Assertion Act — i.e., Shumaker was in a defensive/offensive DJ posture against a patent assertion entity, not enforcing a patent.

I'll research the docket and counsel of record for Aloft Media LLC in this case.

Counsel of Record for Defendant Aloft Media LLC — Schaefer Systems Int'l, Inc. v. Aloft Media LLC, No. 3:22-cv-00513 (W.D.N.C.)

Verification note up front: The attorney roster below is drawn from the case's docket-derived counsel listing (UniCourt's mirror of the W.D.N.C. CM/ECF docket, which lists five defense-side attorneys: Derek Dahlgren, J. Douglas Grimes, Brian Keith Buss, John Paul Higgins, and Michael A. Benefield). I was able to independently confirm firm affiliations and roles for three of the five from firm bios, PTAB filings, and prior Aloft Media litigation records. For Buss and Higgins I could not confirm a firm or role — I am flagging them as unverified rather than guessing, per your instruction. Filings in this case were not sealed; the answer, counterclaim, and amended answer were filed on the public docket.

Confirmed counsel

Counsel listed on the docket whom I could not verify

• Brian Keith Buss — appears in the docket-derived list of "Defendant and Counter Claimant Attorneys." I was unable to confirm a firm, office, or role from accessible sources within this research pass. Treat as unconfirmed.
• John Paul Higgins — same: appears in the docket-derived defense-attorney list but firm/role not confirmed. Treat as unconfirmed.

Given the pattern above (Texas patent counsel + Delaware/DC PTAB counsel + a Charlotte local-counsel firm), Buss and Higgins are most plausibly additional Charlotte- or Texas-side counsel, but I will not assert that without a source.

Important party note — do not confuse with counsel

George Andrew Gordon is not counsel for Aloft. He is a USPTO-registered patent attorney, but in this case he appears as a defendant in his own right (Aloft's managing member and registered agent, Frisco, TX). His amended answer (DE 93) was filed on his behalf by Dahlgren. Gordon's separate role as the signatory of the March 4, 2022 Aloft demand letter is a central fact in the NC APAA claim. He should not be listed as defense counsel.

Counsel for the plaintiff (for contrast, if useful)

Samuel Alexander Long, Jr.; Lucas D. Garber; Tom Bengera (per docket-derived listings) — plaintiff-side only.

Procedural context bearing on the counsel picture

Judge Kenneth D. Bell denied the defendants' Rule 12(b)(2)/(b)(6) motions on June 16, 2023 (DE 79), holding specific jurisdiction existed in North Carolina based on the demand letter and follow-up communications into Charlotte and that the NC Abusive Patent Assertion Act claim was adequately pleaded. Aloft answered and counterclaimed on the asserted patents (DE 85, with exhibits covering U.S. Patents 10,078,623; 10,482,164; 11,308,260). The case thereafter closed by dismissal order. The June 16, 2023 opinion is published at 2023 WL-series cite via Justia/CourtListener (Dkt. 79).

Caveats: (1) The UniCourt attorney list is a secondary aggregator; for a court-ready citation you should pull the W.D.N.C. docket sheet directly and check the "Attorneys" tab and each appearance notice (Dkt. entries for Notices of Appearance were not individually retrievable in this pass). (2) Firm affiliations are stated as of the relevant time period; Grimes's move to Shumaker is post-dating this matter. (3) No sealed filings affecting counsel were identified, but I could not rule out sealed appearance-related filings.