Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. Vista Mfg Inc

I'll research this case thoroughly. Let me start with several searches.

Case Overview & Background — Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. Vista Mfg Inc, No. 3:26-cv-01242 (N.D. Ind.)

The parties. Plaintiff Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. is a small, family-owned electro-mechanical component manufacturer at 4703 Wyland Dr., Elkhart, Indiana (founded 1983; roughly 9–21 employees; estimated revenue in the $2.8–3.5M range). It makes rocker, toggle, push-button and sealed switches and stamped/molded assemblies for the appliance, marine, automotive and RV markets — it is a practicing operating company, not an NPE/PAE, and it is the record assignee of the asserted patent. Notably, the named inventors on the LED-light-holding patent family — Brian Rothbauer, Adrian Byers and Nick Rothbauer — are Sigma personnel (Brian Rothbauer is listed as Sigma's owner/CEO and Byers as sales manager), so this is an inventor-owned-company assertion rather than an acquisition-driven campaign. Defendant Vista Mfg Inc (d/b/a Vista Manufacturing, Inc.) is a larger, family-owned Elkhart lighting and plastics manufacturer founded in 1979, headquartered at 53345 Columbia Dr., Elkhart (51–200 employees; ~$7.5–25M revenue), supplying LED strip/tube lighting and custom plastic extrusions to automotive, RV, marine, aviation and appliance OEMs; in 2021 it acquired American Vinyl & Rubber (now Vista Plastics, LLC) and in April 2024 publicly announced an expanded push into the RV OEM market with low-profile LED lighting. (Ex Parte docket; ThomasNet/Sigma; Kona Equity; vistamfg.com/about; RVBusiness, 4/22/2024.)

The technology and the asserted patent. The sole patent flagged for this docket is U.S. Patent No. 12,352,411, "LED Light Holding System," issued July 8, 2025 (family priority to provisional 63/614,739, filed Dec. 26, 2023, via application 18/794,130 filed Aug. 5, 2024, with later continuation-in-parts including app. 18/831,489, "Variable mount LED light holding system"). In one line: it claims a snap-fit mounting system for LED light strips in RV ceilings/walls — an extruded elongate light holder with resiliently bendable wings forming a contoured outer surface and an internal channel that grips the LED strip, plus a mating ridge-wall-with-retention-barb / groove-with-retention-nubs interface between the holder and a retaining strip fastened to a joist or between two panels, so the light snaps in and out without access above the ceiling. The complaint in this case is not yet publicly analyzed, so I could not verify from a primary source which claim(s) of the '411 patent are asserted against Vista or which Vista product is accused; the docket aggregator describes the cause of action simply as "Patent Infringement," and the defendant's accused line is most plausibly Vista's RV LED strip/track lighting or its custom extruded light holders — that inference is unconfirmed. The most directly relevant comparator is Sigma's sister case against a different Elkhart-area competitor, ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind., filed Oct. 28, 2025), in which Sigma asserted the same family — U.S. Patents 12,181,127, 12,352,411 (asserted claim 8) and 12,352,412 (asserted claim 1) — against the "LineLite Track" and end-cap components sold under the "Stellar Lighting" brand for the RV/specialty-vehicle OEM market; that complaint's claim charts walk through the wing/channel/retention-barb limitations almost element by element. (Ex Parte complaint analysis, 3:25-cv-00888; Google Patents US 12,352,412 B1; Patents-Review publication of the '130 application.)

Posture, venue and significance. The case is open, with judge assignment still pending; the aggregator records it as filed August 24, 2026, Nature of Suit 830 (patent), in the Northern District of Indiana — docket prefix "3" corresponds to the court's South Bend Division, which covers Elkhart County, where both parties are headquartered. Venue is thus uncontroversial under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) (defendant "resides" in the district) and TC Heartland is not implicated, and personal jurisdiction is a non-issue since the accused products are made in Elkhart and shipped to RV OEMs there. N.D. Ind. also operates under local patent rules that impose early disclosure obligations; in the sibling ABC Marketing case the court set preliminary infringement contentions, invalidity contentions, and claim-term exchange deadlines in the first half of 2026, so a comparable schedule should be expected here once a judge is assigned. Why it is notable: (1) it is the second suit in the same district by the same small operating company against an Elkhart RV-lighting supplier, indicating a deliberate serial-enforcement campaign over a freshly issued, narrowly spaced family (issued July 2025, priority only to December 2023) rather than a one-off dispute; (2) it sits at the intersection of two concentrated local industries — RV OEM lighting and plastic extrusion — where the parties are direct competitors and several of Vista's OEM customers are themselves Elkhart manufacturers, so injunctive exposure could ripple through RV supply chains; (3) the patents' tight priority window and crowded field (my search surfaced substantially similar LED lamp-holder art such as Ideal Industries' U.S. 9,146,027 and WO 2012/138596) make validity the likely battleground, though I found no PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR) involving the '411 or its siblings as of today — given service in late 2026, any § 315(b) one-year bar for Vista would not run until roughly late 2027, so an IPR linkage, if it comes, has not materialized. Sourcing caveats: I could not query PACER or paywalled dockets (Law360/Reuters/RPX) with the tools available, so the filing date, claim set, accused product and judge status above rest on the Ex Parte docket aggregator and the sibling-case analysis, not on the complaint PDF or a court order; the aggregate case summary's earlier doubt about whether the '411 patent is asserted is partially resolved — Sigma is the confirmed assignee of the '411 patent and asserted it in the ABC Marketing case — but the Vista complaint itself remains unverified, as does any answer, invalidity contention, or IPR filing.

I'll research this case across multiple sources. Let me start with several parallel searches.

Let me dig into the case dockets and the asserted patent.

Bottom line first

As of today (2026-09-20), this case is 27 days old and has no litigated history to report. The only verifiable record is the docket header. No answer, no motions, no Markman, no discovery, no PTAB proceeding, no disposition. I searched PACER-adjacent aggregators, PTAB/IPR databases, and legal-press sources and found no indexed activity beyond the initial filing. I am not going to invent docket entries to fill the chronological framework you asked for — below I give you (1) everything that is actually sourced, (2) a clear list of what does not exist yet, and (3) the timeline triggers to watch, with the sourcing caveats you need before using any of this in a brief or an investment memo.

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1. Chronology — what is actually documented

Pre-suit: patent issuance and a companion campaign

The instant case

PTAB / parallel administrative proceedings

None found. I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition naming US 12,352,411. The IPR hits my search returned (e.g., IPR2015-01242/1243/1244, Snap-on v. Milwaukee Electric Tool) are numerically coincidental — an unrelated 2015 battery-pack proceeding. Docket Alarm, IPR2015-01242

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2. What does not yet exist (so you can say so definitively)

Everything else on your list is not yet in the record:

• Answer / counterclaims — none indexed. A defendant served on or about the filing date would typically have 21 days under Rule 12(a)(1)(A); if service was effected in late August 2026, an answer could land in mid-to-late September 2026 — i.e., imminently. Nothing docketed as of my search.
• Rule 12 motions, transfer motions, stay pending IPR — none. A §1406/§1404(a) venue challenge or a §101 motion is the most likely early defense motion, but I have no evidence one was filed.
• Markman — not reached; no scheduling order exists yet, so no claim construction date has been set.
• Discovery — no Rule 26(f) conference, no initial disclosures, no scheduling order indexed.
• Trial, verdict, JMOL, new trial, fees — not applicable at this stage.
• Settlement, dismissal, judgment, appeal — none.

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3. Sourcing caveats you should carry forward

These matter more than usual here, and I want to be explicit rather than paper over them:

1. I could not reach PACER directly. The only "docket" content available is from aggregator sites on ai-lab.exparte.com and ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net (the latter labeled "Ex Parte" / AI-lab). These are not official court records and, for a case with no docketed activity, they may simply be rendering a header from a commercial feed. Treat the 2026-08-24 filing date as corroborated but not PACER-verified.
2. The case number collides across districts. "3:26-cv-01242" is also a live case number in the W.D. Tex. (Garmon v. El Paso SPC, filed 2026-04-29) and the M.D. Fla. (Smalls v. Murtazoev, filed May 2026). Aggregator/NOS confusion between these is a real risk and may be the origin of the "anomalous" filing data flagged in the prior case summary. habeasdockets.org, W.D. Tex. 3:26-cv-01242; PacerMonitor, M.D. Fla. 3:26-cv-01242
3. Red herring to avoid: an Emissive Energy Corp. v. Olight Store USA opinion construing a "'411 Patent" (paddle actuators, trigger guards, "perpendicular" hinge pin) surfaced in search. That is a firearm-light patent, not US 12,352,411 — different specification, different claim columns. Do not let the "411" number pull that construction ruling into this case. CourtListener, Emissive Energy v. Olight
4. I did not locate the actual complaint in 3:26-cv-01242, so I cannot independently confirm from the pleading that '411 is the asserted patent here. The metadata listing '411 is consistent with the companion case (same plaintiff, same court, same patent), which raises my confidence to moderate — but it is an inference, not a citation.
5. No counsel of record for either side is verified. I will not name attorneys I could not source.

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4. Timeline triggers to watch (analytical, not reported fact)

Because the case is at day 27, the highest-value output is the forward calendar. Flag these as expectations, not events:

• ~Late Sept.–Oct. 2026 — Answer and counterclaims. Watch for: (a) invalidity counterclaims, (b) declaratory judgment of non-infringement, (c) inequitable conduct or unclean hands if the plaintiff's prosecution history is vulnerable, and (d) §101 eligibility attacks (likely to be tried in Alice step-one framing textually, given the "groove/ridge/barb" mechanical recitation).
• ~Oct.–Dec. 2026 — Venue and Rule 12 motions. For a mechanical-goods defendant, §1406(a)/§1404(a) transfer (to a home district or a co-pending MDL-adjacent venue) is the standard early move. Any such motion also postpones the IPR clock calculus.
• IPR deadline: one year from service of the complaint on Vista — §35 U.S.C. §315(b). If service occurred on or about 2026-08-24, the §315(b) bar falls in late August 2027. This is the single most consequential date in the case: a SAS-style petition against claim 8 would need to be on file before then. Note the asymmetry — the ABC Marketing suit's service date does not bar Vista's petition (different party), so Vista's window is its own.
• Estoppel risk management. If Vista petitions and loses, §315(e) estoppel attaches to the district court case; if it wins, claim 8 is cancelled and this case collapses. Given that only claim 8 appears to be asserted (per the companion-case complaint analysis), a single-claim IPR is unusually efficient here — a one-claim petition can be fatal to the whole suit. That is the dominant strategic feature of this matter.
• Related-case consolidation. Expect a notice of related action and possible consolidation or coordinated scheduling with 3:25-cv-00888. Plaintiff's incentive is coordination; Vista's is to differentiate its accused product from ABC Marketing's "LineLite Track."
• Damages exposure. With a 2025-07-08 issuance, the damages window is short and pre-suit notice / marking practice under §287 will be a live, document-driven defense.

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5. Recommended verification steps (I could not complete these)

1. PACER — pull the 3:26-cv-01242 docket directly to confirm the filing date, judge assignment, and whether an answer has been entered in the last week. My aggregator-based date (2026-08-24) is the item most worth confirming.
2. USPTO Patent Center / Patent Assignment Search — confirm the '411 patent's current assignee (is Sigma Switches Plus the owner or an exclusive licensee with standing?) and pull the prosecution history for §101 rejections and any terminal disclaimers.
3. PTAB Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End — search by patent number (not by case number) for any petition filed in the last 30 days; my keyword search may have missed a very recent filing.
4. N.D. Ind. CM/ECF "related case" search — map the full set of Sigma Switches Plus filings to determine whether Vista is a Schedule A defendant or a distinct accused-product defendant.

If you want, I can re-run the docket checks and produce a clean, PACER-cited timeline once an answer appears — which on a normal Rule 12(a) clock should be within days rather than weeks. Any narrative asserting an answer, a stay motion, or a Markman date in this case today would be fabricated.

I'll research this case and its counsel. Let me run a series of targeted searches.

Let me pull the case docket pages and search for plaintiff's counsel in this and the related case.

I was unable to confirm plaintiff's counsel of record from the available sources, and I will not guess at names. Here is what the research did and did not establish.

Bottom line

No attorney names can be verified as counsel of record for Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. in Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. Vista Mfg Inc, No. 3:26-cv-01242 (N.D. Ind.) as of today (2026-09-20). The free/aggregator dockets for this case reflect a very recently filed, largely unpopulated docket, and no source I could access exposed an attorney-appearance entry or a complaint signature block with counsel listed.

Per your operating rules, I am flagging this as unsourced rather than supplying plausible-sounding names.

What the searches did confirm (case posture)

Source: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/innd/3:26-cv-01242/sigma-switches-plus-inc-v-vista-mfg-inc

Important corollary finding — a related, earlier Sigma Switches Plus suit

The same plaintiff filed an earlier N.D. Ind. patent case that does assert the patent identified in our case metadata:

• Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind., filed Oct. 28, 2025) — also NOS 830, "Semicond., Optic" sector, status open.
  • Patents asserted there include U.S. Pat. No. 12,352,411, "LED Light Holding System," issued July 8, 2025 (claim 8 asserted) — the same patent number listed in our case metadata. Also asserted: U.S. Pat. Nos. 12,352,412 and 12,181,127.
  • Accused product: the "LineLite Track" and associated end cap, sold under the "Stellar Lighting" brand, marketed to RV/specialty-vehicle OEM markets.

Sources: Ex Parte complaint analysis for 3:25-cv-00888 (https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/innd/3:25-cv-00888/doc/analysis/1) and the case page (.../3:25-cv-00888/sigma-switches-plus-inc-v-abc-marketing-inc).

Why this matters for your question: the earlier '888 case is the best available proxy for identifying who represents Sigma Switches Plus in its LED-holder patent campaign. The '242 case against Vista Mfg is docketed only days prior to my search window's coverage, so counsel may simply not be indexed yet — but I could not retrieve the '888 appearance entries either, so I cannot even infer counsel by name.

Why counsel is not yet resolvable

1. Docket is brand new and unpopulated in public aggregators. The only index entry available shows the complaint and no attorney-appearance, corporate-disclosure, or summons-return filings. Judges' reassignment practice in N.D. Ind. (see, e.g., the court's L.R. 40-1(f) reassignment orders) can also delay a stable docket sheet.
2. No PACER docket sheet was retrievable through the search tools available to me; PACER's docket-report and ECF "attorney appearances" tab require authenticated access.
3. No firm press release, Law360, or Reuters Legal coverage of the '242 filing surfaced.
4. No sealed-filing indication was found either, so I cannot attribute the gap to sealing — the more likely explanation is indexing lag on a case filed ~4 weeks ago.

How to close this out (recommended next steps)

• Pull the full docket sheet on PACER for 3:26-cv-01242, then open Dkt. 1 (Complaint) and look for the signature block — in N.D. Ind. patent complaints, local counsel's name, bar number, and firm address typically appear on the signature page, with any pro hac vice sponsor noted in a subsequent appearance.
• Check Dkt. 1-1 / Civil Cover Sheet (attorney block) and any "NOTICE of Appearance" or "APPLICATION for Admission Pro Hac Vice" entries, which usually name lead + local counsel.
• Do the same for 3:25-cv-00888; if the '888 complaint's counsel are the same firm, that likely carries over to the Vista Mfg case.
• The plaintiff's Rule 7.1 corporate-disclosure statement (if any) and any motion for TRO/preliminary injunction would also identify counsel quickly.

If you can supply the PACER docket sheet or the complaint PDF (or a PACER login-enabled retrieval), I'll extract the verified attorney roster — name, role, firm, office city, bar/pro hac status, and patent-litigation track record — and note any subsequent substitutions.

I'll research defendant-side counsel across dockets, firm sites, and legal press.

Bottom line

I cannot identify any counsel of record for Vista Mfg Inc in Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. Vista Mfg Inc, No. 3:26-cv-01242 (N.D. Ind.). No attorney appearance is indexed for the defendant, and I will not supply names that are not sourced.

The only docket-level record I can retrieve for this case continues to show a bare, unpopulated docket: filed 08/24/26, Cause of Action "Patent Infringement," NOS 830, Status "Open," and — critically for your question — "Pending Judge Assignment." (Ex Parte case page, 3:26-cv-01242)

Defendant counsel roster

There is no defensible entry to put in this table today. Specifically:

• No NOTICE of Appearance for any attorney on behalf of Vista Mfg Inc is indexed in any source I could reach.
• No Answer, Rule 12 motion, or Rule 7.1 corporate-disclosure statement is indexed — each of which would ordinarily name defense counsel in its signature block.
• No pro hac vice application or local-counsel designation is indexed, which in N.D. Ind. practice is the usual paired filing (local counsel appears; out-of-state lead counsel moves pro hac vice).
• No firm press release, Law360, Reuters Legal, or other trade coverage of the '242 filing naming defense counsel surfaced.

Because the docket still reflects "Pending Judge Assignment," it is entirely plausible that the case is at the very front end of its life: in N.D. Ind., appearances for a defendant typically arrive with the responsive pleading (Answer or Rule 12(b) motion) or shortly after service is effected and counsel is retained. On a Rule 12(a)(1)(A) clock running from late-August 2026 service, that window is roughly mid-to-late September 2026 — i.e., now — so an appearance could docket at any time. That timing inference is analytical, not reported fact.

Why the searches came up empty (and what the nulls actually tell us)

My queries for the case number and for Vista-side counsel returned only noise, which is itself informative:

1. Case-number collision. Searches for "3:26-cv-01242" surfaced a W.D. Tex. habeas matter, Garmon v. El Paso Service Processing Center (filed Apr. 29, 2026, before Judge Briones), and an M.D. Fla. case — not this litigation. (habeasdockets.org, W.D. Tex. 3:26-cv-01242) This confirms the number-collision risk flagged in the earlier sections and is a live trap for any automated counsel-matching.
2. "Elkhart + patent + Elkhart manufacturer" searches drift to unrelated vintage litigation. The responsive hits were Elkhart Brass Mfg. Co. v. Task Force Tips materials (U.S. Pat. 4,674,686, inequitable-conduct/unfair-competition bench trial) — an Elkhart patent case, but not this case and not these parties. Do not import its counsel into this matter. (CourtListener PDF)
3. No Vista-side patent docket history surfaced. I found no prior patent suit naming Vista Mfg Inc / Vista Manufacturing, Inc. as a party, and therefore no "usual counsel" to extrapolate from. Absence of a hit is not proof of absence of history — it means I have no sourced basis for a name.

The one inference worth flagging (and its limits)

The companion case, Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.), is the natural place to look for defense-side counsel in this campaign, because Elkhart-area RV-lighting defendants often retain from the same small pool of N.D. Ind. patent litigators. However, I could not retrieve appearance entries in the '888 case either. So this is a lead for verification, not a finding — and it would be improper to assume ABC Marketing's counsel represents Vista, since the two are separate, competing defendants with potentially divergent interests.

How to close this decisively (recommended, in order)

1. PACER docket sheet for 3:26-cv-01242 — newest-first. Look for: "NOTICE of Appearance," "APPLICATION for Admission Pro Hac Vice," "Corporate Disclosure Statement," "Answer to Complaint," "MOTION to Dismiss," or "MOTION TO DISMISS FOR FAILURE TO STATE A CLAIM."
2. Open Dkt. 1 (Complaint) — the N.D. Ind. signature block will give plaintiff's counsel (already unresolved per the prior section) and the civil cover sheet's attorney field; then Dkt. 1-2/1-3 often attach the corporate disclosure.
3. N.D. Ind. CM/ECF attorney query by party name "Vista Mfg" across all divisions — this catches appearances filed in a related or transferred matter.
4. Call the South Bend clerk's office (574-246-8000) for the assigned judge and the appearance list; the docket still shows no judge, so assignment may be imminent and will trigger the L.R. 40-1 reassignment flow.
5. USPTO/PTAB check on the '411 patent for a power of attorney or real-party-in-interest filing naming Vista's litigation counsel — an IPR petition's mandatory RPI/related-matters section would name defense counsel even before a district-court appearance. (No such petition existed as of the earlier sections.)

Sourcing caveats to carry forward

• I could not access PACER, Law360, Reuters Legal, or RPX with the tools available; every statement above rests on public aggregator pages and open-web searches.
• The filing date 2026-08-24 and the "pending judge assignment" status remain aggregator-corroborated, not PACER-verified.
• No counsel of record for either side is confirmed. Any narrative naming a defense firm in this case today — including any name that "sounds right" for an Elkhart patent defendant — would be fabricated.

If you can supply the PACER docket sheet or the complaint/answer PDF, I'll extract the verified defense roster — name, role (lead/local/in-house), firm and office city, bar or pro hac vice status — and add a grounded note on each attorney's patent-litigation track record.