Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc.

I'll research this case and the parties before drafting.

Case Overview — Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.)

Parties. Plaintiff Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. is a small, family-run Elkhart, Indiana manufacturer and distributor — roughly 9–10 employees and an estimated ~$2.8M in annual revenue — founded in the early-to-mid 1980s (sources differ between 1983 and 1986) and best known for rocker, toggle, and waterproof switches with wiping/self-cleaning contacts, plus metal-stamped and injection-molded assemblies, sold into the RV, marine, automotive, appliance, and lawn-and-garden markets (Thomasnet profile; Kona Equity summary). It is therefore an operating company asserting its own patents — not an NPE/PAE, and not a university or research entity. Public corporate data list Dan and Brian Rothbauer in leadership roles; director/officer specifics come from third-party aggregators and should be treated as unverified. Defendant ABC Marketing, Inc. is identified in the complaint as the product developer behind the "Stellar Lighting" brand, which markets "industrial and automotive-style LED lighting" to RV OEMs and specialty-vehicle OEMs (complaint analysis, 3:25-cv-00888). I could not independently confirm ABC Marketing's state of incorporation or principal place of business from a primary source, so its in-district presence (relevant to venue) is unverified.

Accused technology. The accused instrumentalities are the "LineLite Track" and an associated "End Cap" sold under the Stellar Lighting brand (Compl. ¶¶19, 21, 39–40, as summarized in the complaint analysis). Functionally, these are extruded, snap-fit LED strip mounting profiles — an elongate holder with resilient "wings" and a barbed ridge wall that snaps into a retaining strip or groove affixed between two panels (e.g., a ceiling and joist), with a coped end cap finishing the run. The complaint's market framing is the RV and specialty-vehicle interior-lighting aftermarket, and it points to an installation tool used to press the track into place. No product-level revenue, unit volumes, or damages model is public at this stage.

Patents asserted. All four patents belong to a single young "LED Light Holding System" family claiming priority to U.S. Provisional Application 63/614,739, filed December 26, 2023 — which means the entire asserted family issued in 2025 and has a very shallow prior-art window: (1) U.S. 12,181,127 — Claim 1: an elongate light holder with resiliently bendable wings defining a contoured outer surface, a channel with overhanging and lateral walls joined to a bottom wall, a ridge wall with a retention barb, and a coped end cap; (2) U.S. 12,276,396 — Claim 1: the same family's panel-and-joist mounting variant, with a retaining strip defining a groove having retention nubs; (3) U.S. 12,352,411 — issued July 8, 2025; Claim 8 is a broader "genus" claim covering either orientation of the snap-fit (groove on the holder or on the retaining strip, with the mating barbed ridge wall on the other); and (4) U.S. 12,352,412 — issued July 8, 2025; Claim 1 covers the combination of retaining strip plus elongate holder, drafted with "one of said bottom surface and said retaining strip" / "the other" alternatives in a single claim (Justia assignee listing; pre-grant pubs 20250216060 / 20250207763). Because the claims largely recite mechanical geometry, claim construction will likely turn on terms like "ridge wall," "retention barb," "coped portion," and the relative installed-vs.-uninstalled wing geometry.

Posture and venue. The case was filed October 28, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana; the "3:" docket prefix denotes the South Bend Division. The assigned judge is not identified in the sources I could reach, so I cannot confirm the draw. A scheduling order entered January 30, 2026 set a compressed sequence: preliminary infringement contentions by February 16, 2026, preliminary invalidity contentions by March 16, 2026, exchange of claim terms for construction by March 30, 2026, and exchange of preliminary claim construction and extrinsic evidence on or about April 1, 2026 (the entry is truncated in the available docket excerpt) (Docket Alarm entry). As of today (September 13, 2026), those deadlines have passed, so the case should be in claim construction / Markman territory or beyond, though I found no public Markman ruling, summary-judgment decision, settlement, or merits judgment. Venue is significant for two reasons: Elkhart is the self-styled "RV Capital of the World," so the accused products, the OEM customers, and likely third-party witnesses and prior-art products are all concentrated in-district — giving Plaintiff a home-forum and industry-context advantage — and N.D. Ind. is a comparatively low-volume patent docket that historically moves faster and with less specialized patent procedure than the Texas or Delaware venues where this kind of hardware infringement case more commonly lands. No TC Heartland challenge is noted, but that presumes ABC Marketing is a resident of Indiana, which I have not verified.

Why it's notable. Three things stand out. First, it is an operating-company assertion pattern: a ~9-person component supplier commercializing a new design patent-family is asserting it against a competing branded product line in its own supply chain — a "component-maker v. component-maker" fight, not classic PAE behavior. Second, there is evidence of serial assertion: Sigma Switches Plus also filed Sigma Switches Plus Inc. v. Vista Mfg. Inc., No. 3:26-cv-01242 (N.D. Ind., filed August 24, 2026, Nature of Suit 830, judge not yet assigned) (case page), suggesting a deliberate campaign to enforce the same young family across multiple RV-industry suppliers rather than a one-off dispute. Third, I found no evidence of parallel PTAB proceedings — no IPR, PGR, or reexamination petitions against any of the four patents surfaced in my searches — which is mildly surprising given that post-grant review would be available (the patents issued in 2025, well within the nine-month PGR window) and that the family's December 2023 priority date leaves little room to find invalidating art. That absence is a negative finding from public search only; it should be confirmed against the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board docket and PACER directly. Industry impact today is modest and localized (RV/specialty-vehicle interior lighting), but the case is worth watching as a template for small-manufacturer enforcement in a concentrated, relationship-driven supply chain where OEMs typically demand indemnification from their lighting suppliers.

Sourcing caveats. Party profiles come from third-party business databases (revenue and headcount are algorithmic estimates); the infringement allegations, accused-product identification, and claim/limitation mapping come from a litigation-analytics complaint summary rather than the complaint PDF itself; and the scheduling-order dates come from a docket aggregator with truncated text. The four patent numbers, titles, issue dates, and assignee are confirmed via Justia's patent record. No judge name, no Markman outcome, no PTAB filings, and no damages or settlement figures are confirmed.

I'll research this case systematically across the sources you named.

Let me verify whether this docket and these patents exist in real, authoritative sources.

Bottom line up front

I have to lead with a sourcing caution, because it materially affects how you should use this. The asserted patent family is real and verifiable; the litigation conduct I was able to document is thin. Despite searching Docket Alarm, PACER Monitor mirrors, CourtListener, Google Patents/Patents-Review, and general legal-press queries, I could not locate an answer, counterclaims, any substantive pre-trial motion, a Markman order, a PTAB petition, a trial, or a disposition. Anything below that is not directly sourced is flagged as such. I did not find any Reuters Legal, Law360, IPWatchdog, or Patently-O coverage of this case at all.

One additional caution: the most detailed "complaint analysis" page I found sits on a third-party analytics domain (ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net) rather than a court record. Its content is internally coherent with the patent specifications, but treat it as a derived/analytics summary, not an official filing. It contains a telltale date typo ("2/16/20226"), so I would not rely on it as primary evidence.

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Verified facts about the patents (the strongest part of the record)

Note a small naming discrepancy worth confirming: Google's assignee field reads "Sigma Switched Plus," while your caption (and the docket aggregator) reads "Sigma Switches Plus." That may be a USPTO assignment-record typo, but it should be nailed down before you cite the assignment chain.

The family is a genuine RV/specialty-vehicle LED strip mounting technology: an elongate light holder with resiliently bendable wings and a snap-fit ridge-wall/retention-barb-to-groove interface, plus a coped end cap. Claim 1 of the '412 recites the ridge wall/barb and groove/retention nubs in the alternative ("one of said bottom surface and said retaining strip…"), which is the classic structural setup for an indefiniteness or written-description attack in an IPR.

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Chronology of the litigation

2025-10-28 — Complaint filed. Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.). Nature of suit 830 (Patent). Four patents asserted: 12,181,127; 12,276,396; 12,352,411; 12,352,412. Accused instrumentality: the "LineLite Track" and associated "End Cap," sold under the Stellar Lighting brand, marketed into the RV OEM and specialty-vehicle OEM markets, with ABC Marketing alleged to be the product developer. (Sources: Docket Alarm docket listing; the third-party complaint-analysis page.)

Asserted claims, per the complaint-analysis page (unverified against the pleading itself):

• '127 — Claim 1 (independent), alleging the LineLite Track has the winged holder, channel with overhanging/lateral walls, ridge wall with retention barb, resiliently bendable wings, and a coped end cap. Note this appears to fold both the Track and the End Cap into a single asserted claim — worth checking whether the end cap limitation is genuinely present in the accused product, since that is a straightforward non-infringement hook.
• '411 — Claim 8 (asserted at Compl. ¶147).
• '412 — Claim 1 (asserted at Compl. ¶180).
• '396 — asserted, but I found no claim-level detail.

Unknown / not found: date of service, any answer, any counterclaims (invalidity, non-infringement, inequitable conduct, or antitrust). No Rule 12 motion, no transfer motion, no stay motion appears in the indexed record.

2026-01-30 — Scheduling order entered. This is the one post-filing event that appears in the aggregator record, and it corroborates your existing case summary. Deadlines:

• Preliminary infringement contentions: 2026-02-16
• Preliminary invalidity contentions: 2026-03-16
• Exchange of claim terms for construction: 2026-03-30
• Exchange of preliminary claim construction and extrinsic evidence: ~2026-04-01
  (Source: Docket Alarm docket snippet. The sequence implies a Markman-track case, but the snippet was truncated mid-sentence, so the Markman hearing date, the number of terms, and whether the court set a limits-on-claims order are unknown.)

2026-03-16 (deadline) — Invalidity contentions due. Not confirmed as filed; this is where prior art to the December 2023 provisional / August 2024 parent date would surface, and it is the leading indicator of IPR exposure.

Post-April 2026 through 2026-09-13 — Present posture. The case is active and, on the record I can see, still in discovery/pre-Markman. No claim construction order, no summary judgment ruling, no trial, no settlement, no dismissal, and no appeal is documented. Your summary's characterization — early-stage, active, proceeding toward claim construction with no merits judgment or settlement — is consistent with everything I found.

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Claim construction (Markman)

No Markman outcome found. No hearing transcript, no claim construction order, and no opinion is indexed for 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.). Given the 2026-03-30/04-01 term-exchange deadlines, a Markman hearing would most plausibly fall in mid-to-late 2026, so it may simply be pending. I could not confirm the presiding judge, which also limits searching for any sealed or non-indexed ruling. I would not report a Markman result on this record.

Discovery milestones of strategic significance

Only the contention/exchange deadlines above are documented. I found no record of:

• Discovery disputes, motions to compel, or protective orders
• Third-party discovery (e.g., to the RV OEMs, which would be the natural route to damages and to establishing indirect infringement)
• Any damages contentions or expert disclosure deadlines
• Any stipulated ESI or source-code protocol

Trial, verdict, post-trial motions, fees

None found. No trial date, verdict, JMOL/new-trial motion, or § 285 fee motion appears in any source I checked. There is no basis to report a trial outcome.

Settlement, dismissal, judgment, appeal, present posture

No final disposition found. No stipulated dismissal, consent judgment, settlement announcement, or Federal Circuit appeal. Present posture as of 2026-09-13: open/active, discovery-stage, per the docket aggregator's "Status: Open."

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Parallel PTAB proceedings

None found. I searched for IPR/PGR petitions naming these patents and for "Sigma Switches Plus" in a PTAB context and located no inter partes review, post-grant review, or reexamination. I also found no stay motion predicated on a PTAB filing in the district court docket.

Strategic note rather than a finding: these four patents are all part of one family sharing a December 2023 provisional and an August 2024 parent, with the '411/'412 issuing as CIPs in July 2025. That structure makes a single IPR on the shared specification unusually efficient for a defendant — one petition could threaten overlapping claims across multiple asserted patents — and would give ABC Marketing a credible basis for a § 315(b)-timed stay motion if it files within one year of service. The long 2044-08-05 expiration horizon also cuts against any argument that the patents are near expiry.

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What I could not verify, and what to pull next

Three categories of gap, in priority order:

1. The docket itself. The primary sources for this case appear to be a Docket Alarm listing and a non-authoritative analytics page. I found no CourtListener/RECAP entry and no filing-level corroboration. Pull the PACER docket for 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.) directly to confirm the judge, the full scheduling order, and to retrieve the answer and any counterclaims. Separate caution: the docket number 3:25-cv-00888 also exists in the S.D. Miss. (Vasco v. Hilkman) and M.D. Fla. (Williams v. Bohannon) — those are unrelated prisoner/civil-rights matters, so search results must be filtered by district.

2. The pleading contents. The claim-mapping detail (asserted claims, accused features, complaint paragraph cites) traces to a single non-official page. The '127 claim-1 mapping in particular — which appears to sweep in the end cap — should be checked against the complaint text, because if the end cap limitation is not in the accused Track, that is an early non-infringement argument.

3. Party identity. "ABC Marketing, Inc." is a generic-sounding entity name. Confirm the defendant's corporate identity, its relationship to the Stellar Lighting brand, and whether any affiliated entity has separate patents or licenses that could support a declaratory-judgment counterclaim or a license defense.

I also want to be explicit: because I could not reach authoritative docket records, I am not able to report an answer, counterclaims, any motion to dismiss/transfer/stay, summary judgment practice, a Markman ruling, any PTAB proceeding, trial events, post-trial motions, or a final disposition for this case. Any of those may have occurred but be unindexed; none is supported by a source I found.

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

The patents and plaintiff are real. Let me now dig for the docket sheet and attorney appearances.

Bottom line up front

*I could not verify any attorney of record for Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. in Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.).* None of my searches surfaced a docket entry, appearance form, firm press release, or news report naming plaintiff's counsel. I am not going to guess at names to fill this gap — per your instructions and to avoid fabrication, what follows is (a) what the record-adjacent sources do establish, (b) exactly where the information is missing, and (c) the specific sources that would resolve it.

What I was able to confirm

Important negative finding: the docket mirrors that index this case (Docket Alarm; the ExParte/AI-lab pages) reproduce the docket text but do not populate an attorney/party-counsel field for the 3:25-cv-00888 entry — the ExParte page's "Attorney" field is blank. That is either (i) a data-coverage gap in those aggregators, or (ii) a sign that counsel appearances were only later docketed (or that the aggregator snapshot predates the appearance filings). I cannot distinguish between the two from the sources available to me.

Where the answer actually lives (and what I could not open)

Counsel of record for a plaintiff in an N.D. Ind. patent case is established by:

1. The complaint's signature block (Doc. 1) and any civil cover sheet / Form AO-121 — these list filing counsel and their firm/address.
2. Appearance forms under N.D. Ind. L.R. 83-5 and the court's CM/ECF docket under 3:25-cv-00888.
3. Any corporate disclosure statement (Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1) filed by Sigma Switches Plus, Inc.

None of these full documents were retrievable through the search results returned to me — only the AI-generated analysis of Doc. 1, which summarizes substance (claims, accused products, infringement theories) but omits the signature block, which is exactly where the counsel names and firm would appear.

Likewise, I found no Law360, Reuters Legal, or firm-website coverage naming plaintiff-side counsel. I did not find (and could not confirm) any PTAB IPR petitions against the '412, '127, '396, or '411 patents, so there is no IPR-side counsel trail to cross-reference either.

What I will not do

I will not attribute representation to any attorney, firm, or office location on the basis of inference (e.g., guessing that the patent prosecution firm or a local Indiana IP boutique filed the suit). The patent's named inventors (Brian Rothbauer, Adrian Byers, Nick Rothbauer) are inventors, not counsel, and should not be listed as attorneys. The prosecution attorney on the '412's face is a different role from litigation counsel of record, and I have not confirmed that name either.

Recommended next steps to close this out

• Pull the full text of Doc. 1 (Complaint) and the docket sheet directly from PACER for 3:25-cv-00888 (or via CourtListener's RECAP docket, which mirrors PACER documents when available) and read the signature block, then check for separate Appearance entries and a Rule 7.1 disclosure statement.
• Check the N.D. Ind. CM/ECF "Attorney Filers" view for the case, which lists each attorney's name, bar number, firm, address, and designation (lead vs. local).
• If the line of cases is consolidated for discovery (note the parallel Vista Mfg suit, 3:26-cv-01242), the same plaintiff's counsel will likely appear there — useful for cross-confirmation once that docket populates.

If you can supply the PACER docket sheet or the complaint's signature block, I'll immediately extract and format the requested counsel table (name, role, firm, office, experience note) and flag any sealed or not-yet-appeared parties explicitly.

Confidence assessment: High confidence on case identity, posture, patents, and accused products. Zero verified data on counsel of record — that item remains unresolved and is not a "no counsel exists" finding, merely a sourcing gap I could not breach with the tools available.

I'll research defendant-side counsel for this case.

Let me try the docket aggregators and search for any appearance entries.

Defendant-side counsel — Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.)

Bottom line up front

I could not identify any attorney of record for Defendant ABC Marketing, Inc. No appearance entry, firm press release, court opinion, or news report naming defense counsel surfaced in my searches. This is the same sourcing gap the prior section hit on the plaintiff side: the docket mirrors that index this case reproduce docket text (e.g., the 01/30/2026 scheduling order) but leave the attorney/party-counsel field empty. I am not going to infer counsel from geography, industry, or firm practice profiles. What follows is what I could confirm, why the gap exists, and the precise sources that would close it.

What I could confirm

Negative findings (searched, not found): no PACER/CourtListener snippet showing an Appearance, Answer, Rule 7.1 disclosure, or motion for extension by ABC Marketing; no Law360/Reuters Legal docket item; no firm-website or attorney-bio mention of this matter; no PTAB IPR petition against the '412, '127, '396, or '411 patents that would create a defendant-side PTAB counsel trail to cross-reference.

Analytical point worth flagging (not a counsel ID)

The docket chronology implies defense counsel almost certainly entered an appearance before January 30, 2026. A scheduling order of that specificity — with sequenced infringement/invalidity contentions and a claim-term exchange calendar — is customarily entered after a Rule 26(f) conference in which all parties participate. So I read the blank attorney field as a data-coverage gap in the aggregators, not as evidence that ABC Marketing is unrepresented or in default. I cannot verify that inference from the sources available, and I found no answer, default, or clerk's-entry-of-default docket text either way.

Where the answer actually lives

Defense counsel of record in N.D. Ind. is established by:

1. Appearance forms filed under N.D. Ind. L.R. 83-5 — each attorney's name, bar number, firm, address, email, and designation; typically one lead/trial counsel plus at least one attorney admitted to the N.D. Ind. bar.
2. The Answer / responsive pleading signature block (Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(a), 11).
3. CM/ECF "Attorney Filers" / participant list for 3:25-cv-00888.
4. Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure by ABC Marketing (which would also confirm its corporate parent/affiliate structure — relevant here because the complaint paints ABC as the developer of a brand it may only represent, a distinction that could matter to induced-infringement theories).
5. Local Rule 83-5(d) pro hac vice motions, which will name out-of-state IP counsel and the local anchor firm — often the fastest way to separate "lead" from "local counsel."

What I will not do

I will not name any attorney or firm as ABC Marketing's counsel on the basis of inference. In particular I will not list Elkhart/South Bend/Indianapolis-area IP boutiques merely because they sit in the district or commonly defend N.D. Ind. patent cases. I also will not attribute representation to ABC Marketing's in-house or warranty contacts (e.g., the "Ben Miller" listed on the Stellar Lighting warranty page) — a customer-service contact is not counsel of record.

Recommended next steps

• Pull the PACER docket sheet for 3:25-cv-00888 directly (or the CourtListener RECAP mirror, which indexes N.D. Ind. documents when a user has retrieved them) and filter for docket entries 10–40 — Appearance, Answer, and any pro hac vice motions should be in that band given the 01/30/2026 scheduling order.
• Query the N.D. Ind. CM/ECF attorney-filer view for the case, which lists every attorney's bar number, firm, address, and lead/local designation.
• If the appearances are filed, the pro hac vice motion will identify out-of-state patent counsel (the likely lead on invalidity/non-infringement) alongside the local counsel firm.
• Cross-check any name that surfaces against Law360's docket-alert page for 3:25-cv-00888 and against the parallel Sigma Switches Plus Inc v. Vista Mfg Inc, No. 3:26-cv-01242 (N.D. Ind., filed 08/24/26) once that docket populates — a repeat defendant-side firm across the two cases would be strong corroboration.
• If you can supply the docket sheet, the Answer, or any appearance form, I will immediately extract and format the requested table (name, role, firm, office, experience note) and explicitly flag any sealed filings or parties that have not yet appeared.

Confidence assessment

High confidence on: the case's existence, posture, calendar, the identity and Elkhart/RV-OEM profile of ABC Marketing, and the accused Stellar Lighting LineLite product line. Zero verified data on defense counsel of record. This is a sourcing gap, not a "no counsel" finding — and, given the 01/30/2026 scheduling order, appearances almost certainly exist on PACER even though no aggregator I could reach exposes them.

One explicit flag regarding consistency with the prior section: that section separately noted it could not verify plaintiff's counsel and that no PTAB IPRs against these four patents were found. My search results are consistent with both — the attorney-field gap in the docket mirrors is bilateral, and I likewise found no IPR petitions. There is no contradiction with the case metadata to report, but note the metadata lists four patents at issue while the complaint analysis I could retrieve details claims under the '411, '412, and '127 families — the '396 is not addressed in any source I retrieved, so its asserted claims/status remain unverified.