Web 2.0 Technologies, Inc. v. Nulab Inc.

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

Key finding: the docket shows this case was voluntarily dismissed in March 2023, contrary to the "pending" metadata. Let me verify the campaign context and Nulab.

Now let me look for the complaint specifics, patent provenance, and any PTAB activity.

Case Overview

Parties. Web 2.0 Technologies, Inc. v. Nulab Inc., No. 1:23-cv-00339 (S.D.N.Y.), is one skirmish in a coordinated, multi-district assertion campaign. Plaintiff Web 2.0 Technologies is a non-practicing patent-holding entity — the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies the asserter family as "individual-inventor-started" and "acquired patents," and the patents on their face are assigned to Pennar Software Corporation, which appears as co-plaintiff in the amended complaints filed across the campaign (see Judge Maryellen Noreika's Oct. 2, 2023 oral order in the Delaware cases, D. Del. Nos. 1:23-cv-00042 & 1:23-cv-00345, Dkt. 16, noting Pennar as "the owner by assignment of 100% interest in the Asserted Patents"). Web 2.0 Technologies is best characterized as the licensing/enforcement vehicle built around a 2000-vintage Pennar family. Plaintiff's counsel here were Andrew Swanson Brown (docketed at Crow & Pitcher PLLC) and Christopher Laurence May (Devlin Law Firm LLC) — Devlin being the firm that ran the campaign nationally. Defendant Nulab Inc. is emphatically an operating company, not a shell: a Fukuoka, Japan–based SaaS developer founded in 2004 whose flagship products are Backlog (project/task management with wiki-based document handling, Gantt charts and role-based permissions), Cacoo (real-time collaborative diagramming/whiteboarding), Typetalk (business chat, being retired in December 2025), and Nulab Pass (ID/governance). Nulab listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market in June 2022 (ticker 5033) and operates a New York subsidiary, Nulab USA, Inc., established in 2014 — a fact central to the venue question below.

Patents and accused technology. The campaign asserted two patents from the same 2000 priority family (both naming Pennar Software Corporation as assignee): U.S. Patent No. 6,845,448 B1, "Online Repository for Personal Information" (filed Jan. 7, 2000; issued Jan. 18, 2005) — claim 1 covers a method of automatically disbursing a first party's personal information from a server to a second party, where the first party assigns granular security levels to individual information objects, requests are verified against those levels, and unauthorized requests are rejected; and U.S. Patent No. 8,117,644 B2, "Method and System for Online Document Collaboration" (issued Feb. 14, 2012) — claim 1 covers server-side collaborative document editing with identity verification, permission-scoped modification rights, and capture of which users approved or disapproved edits. The infringement theories, as pleaded against peers in the campaign, map generically onto SaaS permission architecture: administrator-defined roles/access levels controlling disclosure of personal data (the '448 theory) and multi-user document editing with version history and approval workflows (the '644 theory). Applied to Nulab, that points at Backlog's project/wiki permission tiers and Cacoo's shared-URL real-time co-editing and version control, but I have not reviewed the Nulab complaint itself, so the specific accused instrumentalities and claim charts for this defendant are unverified; the campaign complaints were template filings, which supports but does not confirm that inference.

Procedural posture and why it matters. Filed January 13, 2023 and assigned to Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, with Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein designated; an electronic summons issued January 17, 2023. Critically, this case is closed, not pending — the file reflects no answer, no appearance by Nulab, and no service. On March 29, 2023, plaintiff filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i), expressly stating that "Defendant Nulab Inc. has not yet been served with or answered the Complaint" and dismissing without prejudice (Dkt. 9); the AO 120 termination form issued March 30, 2023 (Dkt. 10). Plaintiff then refiled in the same court: Web 2.0 Technologies LLC v. Nulab Inc., No. 1:23-cv-02589 (S.D.N.Y.), with a First Amended Complaint filed July 12, 2023, which added Pennar as co-plaintiff (cited in Judge Noreika's Oct. 2, 2023 order in the Delaware actions). I could not confirm from a primary source how, or whether, the refiled 2023-cv-02589 action was resolved; that should be treated as an open question rather than assumed pending. Venue in S.D.N.Y. is best explained by Nulab's New York subsidiary and the forum's convenience relative to a Japanese defendant (plaintiff's counsel even coded the case "Out of State" in the civil cover sheet after an erroneous "Albany" entry) rather than by any N.D. Cal.- or E.D. Tex.–style patent docket advantage. The case's notability is threefold: it was part of a burst of roughly a dozen near-simultaneous January 2023 suits against collaboration/project-management SaaS vendors — 37signals/Basecamp (N.D. Ill. 1:23-cv-00230), Realtimeboard/Miro (D. Del. 1:23-cv-00004), Hive (1:23-cv-00002), Accelo (1:23-cv-00001), TaskWorld (1:23-cv-00042), Zendesk (D. Del. 1:23-cv-00105), Workzone (D. Del. 1:23-cv-00345), and Mango Technologies — with the campaign later pivoting to hospital systems in W.D. Tex. in 2025 (e.g., Advent Health Central Texas, Ascension Providence, Seton Medical Center Harker Heights); it landed months after Nulab's Tokyo IPO, exposing a mid-cap Japanese SaaS issuer to U.S. patent risk; and the patents' validity was substantially undercut by Judge John Robert Blakey's March 25, 2024 § 101 ruling in the 37signals case, which treated claim 1 of each patent as representative and held both directed to the abstract idea of storing information and controlling access to it, with no inventive concept — dismissing the complaint (VitalLaw/IP Law Daily, Mar. 28, 2024; Web 2.0 Techs. v. 37signals LLC, N.D. Ill. No. 1:23-cv-00230, Dkt. 43). That ruling is the closest thing to a merits assessment of the Nulab patents.

Sourcing caveats. (1) The case metadata supplied describes the action as "pending" as of a March 14, 2023 docket snapshot; the docket (Dkt. 9–10) shows voluntary dismissal without prejudice on March 29–30, 2023 — prefer the docket. (2) The metadata lists only the '448 patent, but litigation databases and the campaign's amended complaints assert both the '448 and '644; the metadata entry appears incomplete. (3) I found no PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) challenging either patent; Patsnap's record notes "no validity challenges recorded," but I was unable to complete an independent PTAB docket search, so treat "no IPRs" as likely-but-unverified. (4) Both patents appear expired or near-expired (20-year term from the Jan. 7, 2000 priority date), which would confine recovery to back damages within the § 286 six-year window and reduces the incentive for PTAB challenges — this is my inference from the face of the patents, not a holding I located. (5) The Patsnap summary of the 37signals case asserts a "with prejudice" dismissal, which conflicts with contemporaneous reporting of a without-prejudice dismissal with leave to amend; the discrepancy is unresolved in the sources I reviewed.

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

The S.D.N.Y. case was dismissed quickly, but a refiled/related case appears in the record. Let me dig into both tracks and the PTAB side.

Now let me pin down the PTAB track and the full docket of the refiled S.D.N.Y. case.

Bottom line

This litigation never produced a merits ruling. It ended twice by voluntary dismissal — first (2023-03-29) as an unserved placeholder suit, then (2023-08-02) pursuant to a settlement in the refiled action. There was no answer, no counterclaim, no motion practice resolved on the merits, no Markman proceeding, no discovery, no trial, no fee motion, and no appeal. The only substantive judicial engagement with the asserted patent family came in a different case in N.D. Ill. (§ 101 dismissal in March 2024), which is the practical reason the Nulab case was worth so little to plaintiff.

Two procedural notes before the chronology:

• The docket vs. the metadata. The case metadata lists only U.S. Patent No. 6,845,448. The AO 120 patent form filed at case opening in No. 1:23-cv-00339 reported two patents — U.S. 6,845,448 B1 and U.S. 8,117,644 B2 — and third-party litigation databases index both. I treat the metadata as authoritative for the case, but flag that the asserted patent family, as actually pleaded across the campaign, was '448 + '644.
• There are two Nulab cases. No. 1:23-cv-00339 was dismissed on 2023-03-29 and is the case in the metadata. The live controversy moved to No. 1:23-cv-02589 (Pennar Software Corp. et al. v. Nulab Inc.), also before Judge Engelmayer, filed 2023-03-27 and dismissed on settlement 2023-08-02. Any accurate account of "the outcome" has to cover both.

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Chronology

No answer, counterclaim, amended answer, or IPR-based stay motion ever appeared in either docket.

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Stage-by-stage detail

1. Filing and initial pleadings — plaintiff blinked first

The '339 complaint was a short-form § 271 pleading with no motion practice attached. The docket's last entries before dismissal are an appearance (Dkt. 8) and nothing else; the Justia docket snapshot (last retrieved 2023-03-03) and UniCourt's (2023-03-14) show no proof of service. Plaintiff's Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) notice affirmatively represented non-service — which is the only basis on which a plaintiff can dismiss as of right under that rule, since Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) requires dismissal "before the adverse party serves either an answer or a motion for summary judgment."

Strategic read: filing the replacement complaint in '2589 two days before dismissing '339 (2023-03-27 vs. 2023-03-29) is the signature of a deliberate substitution rather than a retreat — it avoids any lapse in coverage, drops the unserved "Inc." entity in favor of "LLC," and, critically, adds Pennar Software Corporation, the face-of-the-patent assignee. That joinder was the campaign's systemic defect: Judge Maryellen Noreika later ordered plaintiffs to explain exactly this discrepancy across the Web 2.0 cases (D. Del., 2023-10-02 oral order in Web 2.0 Techs., LLC v. Mango Techs., Inc., No. 1:23-cv-00107, Dkt. 16), noting that Pennar was omitted from most suits despite being "the owner by assignment of 100% interest in the Asserted Patents." The Nulab refiling appears to have pre-emptively cured that Article III/standing exposure.

2. Pre

Counsel of Record for Plaintiff Web 2.0 Technologies — 1:23-cv-00339 (S.D.N.Y.)

Threshold correction to the case posture: although the case metadata lists the matter as "pending," the docket shows it is closed. Plaintiff filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) on March 29, 2023 (Dkt. 9), and the Clerk entered the AO-120 case-termination form on March 30, 2023 (Dkt. 10). The notice recites that Nulab "has not yet been served with or answered the Complaint," so no defense counsel ever appeared, and the dismissal was without prejudice. That matters for your question: the plaintiff's side is the only side with counsel of record, and the appearances are thin — two attorneys, one of whom appeared only three weeks before dismissal.

Attorneys of record

What the record does not show

• No "lead counsel" designation, no pro hac vice motions, and no attorney admissions affidavits appear on the docket. S.D.N.Y. practice would ordinarily require a pro hac vice motion for out-of-state counsel of record; here the case died before any such motion was resolved, and none appears in the retrieved docket (Justia docket last pulled March 3, 2023; Patexia document list through March 30, 2023).
• No in-house counsel for Web 2.0 Technologies appeared. The Rule 7.1 statement (Dkt. 5) discloses "No Corporate Parent," which is consistent with a patent-holding vehicle rather than an operating company with a legal department.
• No sealing. Nothing in this docket was filed under seal; the gap is not one of sealed filings but of volume — two lawyers, nine docket entries, seventy-six days.
• Firm–attorney pairing caveat: the docket confirms both names and both firms appear in the case, but the retrieved sources do not quote an ECF signature block tying each name to each firm. The pairing above (Brown → Devlin; May → Crow & Pitcher) is the inference drawn from the litigation-database counsel table plus the Albany cover-sheet correction. Treat that specific pairing as moderately, not firmly, sourced — the underlying PDFs (Dkt. 1, 8, 9) would confirm it via their signature blocks.

Why this matters for the case analysis

The representation here was transactional-speed enforcement, not litigation. Plaintiff sued on the '448 patent (and, per Patsnap, also on the '644 patent — worth noting, since your case metadata lists only the '448) on January 13, 2023, as part of a same-day/same-week national burst of filings, then dismissed Nulab on March 29, 2023 before service. The counsel structure — a Delaware patent-monetization boutique filing, an Albany firm appearing late — is the signature of a licensing campaign using the courthouse as a demand-letter delivery mechanism. The subsequent history of the family confirms the strategy's limits: in Web 2.0 Techs., LLC v. 37signals LLC, No. 1:23-cv-00230 (N.D. Ill.), the court held both the '448 and '644 claims invalid under § 101 at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage (2024), and the D. Del. cases against Zendesk and others ended in dismissal or default-judgment postures. Brown and May did not appear in that Illinois matter.

Bottom line: two attorneys of record for the plaintiff — Andrew Swanson Brown (Devlin Law Firm LLC, Wilmington, DE; filed the case) and Christopher Laurence May (Crow & Pitcher PLLC, Albany, NY; appeared March 3, 2023 and dismissed it). No defense counsel, no in-house counsel, no lead-counsel designation, and no sealed filings in this docket.

I'll research defense counsel. The prior sections establish that no defense counsel appeared in '339 itself, so I need to check whether counsel appeared in the refiled '2589 action (where Nulab evidently moved to dismiss) and in any related matters.

The Justia docket for the refiled '2589 action lists a "Represented By" entry — let me run that down.

Confirmed the key appearance: Dkt. 13 in the refiled '2589 action. Now let me get the full docket and confirm her firm at the time, plus any co-counsel.

Bottom line

In the case named in the metadata — No. 1:23-cv-00339 — there is no counsel of record for Nulab at all. Plaintiff dismissed under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) before service, so no defense appearance, answer, or Rule 12 motion was ever filed (Dkt. 9, 3/29/2023; Dkt. 10, 3/30/2023). That part of the earlier "Plaintiff representatives" section is correct and I confirm it.

*Defense counsel appear only in the refiled action, No. 1:23-cv-02589 (Pennar Software Corp. et al. v. Nulab Inc., S.D.N.Y., also before Judge Engelmayer).* There, Nulab was represented by Baker Botts LLP's New York office, with two attorneys appearing of record:

A probable third name, which I flag as unverified: Eric J. Faragi (also Baker Botts NY) appears with Tempesta and Maier on Federal Circuit briefs and on the Autronic Plastics caption, and he is the kind of partner who would staff a case like this — but I found no docket entry naming him in either Nulab case and I am not listing him as counsel of record. Do not attribute him to the Nulab matter without checking the PACER docket and the motion-to-dismiss papers.

What the record does and does not show

• No lead-counsel designation and no pro hac vice motions. Baker Botts has a New York office, so Tempesta and Maier were admitted-in-state counsel and needed no local counsel; there is accordingly no separate "local counsel" entry (unlike the plaintiff side, where the Albany firm functioned as the local-facing appearance). No admission affidavits appear on the docket.
• No in-house counsel and no Japanese counsel of record. Nulab, Inc. is a Fukuoka/Tokyo-listed company with a New York subsidiary, Nulab USA, Inc.; nothing in the retrieved docket shows in-house or Japanese-law-firm counsel entering an appearance, and nothing was filed under seal.
• The motion to dismiss itself is not in the sources I retrieved. The earlier chronology notes a Nulab motion to dismiss was pending as of the June 21, 2023 order (Dkt. 19 in '2589), but the motion papers were not visible in the databases I could access, so which Baker Botts attorney signed the Rule 12(b)(6) motion — and whether it raised § 101 — is unverified. Given that this campaign's patents were later invalidated on § 101 in Web 2.0 Techs. v. 37signals (N.D. Ill., Mar. 25, 2024), a § 101 motion is the likely vehicle, but I cannot state that as fact for Nulab.
• No withdrawal, no sanctions or fee motion, no appeal. The case settled (Dkt. 25) and was dismissed without prejudice on 8/2/2023 (Dkt. 26), so Baker Botts' appearance simply lapsed with the case; no withdrawal motion was ever needed.

Correction to the prior section

The "Plaintiff representatives" section's statement that "no defense counsel ever appeared" is accurate only as to No. 1:23-cv-00339; read against the refiled action it is misleading. Nulab did retain AmLaw counsel — Baker Botts LLP, New York — and litigated for roughly four months in '2589 (appearance 4/13/2023 through settlement 8/2/2023), including a motion to dismiss and a negotiated briefing schedule. The metadata's "pending" status remains wrong either way.

To firm this up: pull the PACER docket for 1:23-cv-02589 and open Dkts. 13 (Tempesta appearance — confirms firm and address), 23 (Maier letter motion — confirms his firm from the signature block), and the motion-to-dismiss entry referenced in Dkt. 19. Those three documents would convert the Maier firm attribution and the motion-signatory question from inference to record.