Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has litigated one of the largest litigation campaigns ever, having sued over 330 defendants since May 2019. More than 50 patents, of disparate subject matter but all received from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), have been asserted against companies in various industries, with a concentration around products and services that involve image processing, in complaints filed in a wide variety of federal districts. The campaign has been conducted in file-and-dismiss fashion, with most cases ending relatively quickly, but one of several international defendants for which service of process has been a challenge has recently filed a document that reveals the amount of a Cedar Lane “settlement proposal”, while one of the few remaining domestic defendants has filed a motion to dismiss raising questions about whether the NPE actually owns the patents that it asserts.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has filed separate suits late in October against Adesso, Autel Robotics, Boston Dynamics, Brinc Drones, Imperx, Motorola Solutions, Ricoh, Security Camera Warehouse, STMicro, Teal Drones, Turning Video, Vantage Robotics, Video Network Security, Watts Innovations, and YI Technologies. That storm of complaints follows earlier October filings against BIO-KEY, iFlight Technology (DJI), Konica Minolta, Leica Camera, Luminator Technology Group, MediaTek, Parrot, PixArt Imaging, Qisda (BenQ), Renesas Electronics, Shuhair RaySharp Technology, Sigma, Socionext, Vantage Integrated Security Solutions, Wonwoo Engineering, Zicom Technology, and ZKTeco. The number of defendants in this “jumbo” litigation has now soared above 300—but it still has a hill to climb, despite this rage of new complaints, to move up, from third, on the list of largest NPE campaigns ever.

At its recent annual conference, RPX observed that a large portion of the peak NPE activity observed in 2010 through 2015 was due to “jumbo” litigation campaigns targeting dozens of defendants. For example, nearly one-fourth of all defendants added to NPE campaigns in 2011 were sued in a campaign that saw more than 30 defendants hit that year. Such campaigns are now rare—but not nonexistent. This past week, the only such “jumbo” campaign to launch since 2015 jumped into third place on the list of largest NPE campaigns ever, the seven companies sued (Aver Information, Dynacolor, Dynacom Communications, Fuho Technology, GeoVision, and Logipix) bringing the total number of campaign defendants just shy of 250.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has filed another round of cases in its long-running litigation over former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents, suing 3xLOGIC, Carrier Global, CBC America, Firstech, and VOXX in the District of Delaware; Infineon Technologies (Cypress Semiconductor), and NXP Semiconductors in the Western District of Texas; Logitech and Phytec America in the Western District of Washington; Navitar in the Western District of New York; ThorLabs in the District of New Jersey; and TI in the Eastern District of Texas. The plaintiff asserts four patents in overlapping sets, with the defendants accused of infringement through a wide variety of products including cameras, interface devices, multimedia processor units, and more. Since launching this, its first litigation campaign, in May 2019, Cedar Lane has sued over 200 defendants and asserted a total of 51 patents.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has filed another round of cases in its long-running litigation over former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents, suing HP (6:22-cv-00040), TI (6:22-cv-00047), Thorlabs (6:22-cv-00053), Qualcomm (6:22-cv-00046), and Verizon (6:22-cv-00043) in the Western District of Texas; Lenovo (1:22-cv-00051), Lionsgate (Epix) (1:22-cv-00050), Phytec (1:22-cv-00054), and Snap (1:22-cv-00058) in the District of Delaware; and L.S. Starrett (1:22-cv-00149) in the Northern District of Georgia. The 13 patents-in-suit are among over 50 assets (received either directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)) that the plaintiff has asserted against over 185 defendants since May 2019; the defendants are accused of infringement through the provision of a wide array of products, including cameras, smartphones, tablets, scanners, processors, and more.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has hit 2022 ground running with five new suits filed in its longest running litigation campaign. So far this month, the NPE has sued Excelitas Technologies (1:22-cv-00011), Illunis (1:22-cv-00012), MGM (1:22-cv-00014), and Novantas (1:22-cv-00016) in the District of Delaware and Generac (Ecobee) (6:22-cv-00018) in the Western District of Texas. The plaintiff asserts three patents in overlapping sets, with the defendants accused of infringement through the provision of a wide variety of products, including barcode scanners and cameras. Since launching this, its first litigation campaign, in May 2019, Cedar Lane has sued over 175 defendants and asserted a total of 50 patents (each received either directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)).

Basler (2:21-cv-05160), Walmart (6:21-cv-01234), WideOpenWest (1:21-cv-03154), and Wyze Labs (1:21-cv-01704) are the latest defendants to be added to the first litigation campaign of Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., launched in May 2019 with a suit against Advert Tech. The plaintiff asserts six patents in overlapping sets, one of which is newly asserted in litigation, with the defendants accused of infringement through the provision of a wide variety of products, including cameras and streaming products. At issue are a variety of features, ranging from image processing to the support of the Google Assistant platform. Over 150 defendants have now been sued in this campaign, while the number of asserted patents (each received either directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)) nears 50.

September 2021 has so far seen Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. add another 13 defendants to its first litigation campaign, suing Ametek, GoPro, and TKH Technologie Deutschland (Allied Vision Technologies) in the District of Delaware; Arashi Vision, Basler, Hasselblad, JVC Kenwood, Resideo Technologies, Seiko (Seiko Epson), and Thales (Thales E-Security) in the Western District of Texas; Funai Electric (Funai) in the Northern District of Georgia; LT Security in the Southern District of Texas; and Twin Point Capital (Frontpoint Security) in the Eastern District of Virginia. The plaintiff asserts five patents in overlapping sets, with the defendants accused of infringement through the provision of a wide variety of products, including cameras, document readers, and facial recognition software. Since launching its first litigation campaign in May 2019, Cedar Lane has now sued over 140 defendants and asserted nearly 50 patents (each received either directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)).

Arlo Technologies (1:21-cv-01206), Brother (1:21-cv-01207), and Philips (1:21-cv-01208) are the latest defendants to be added to the first litigation campaign of Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., launched in May 2019 with a suit against Advert Tech. The plaintiff asserts nine patents in overlapping sets, with the defendants accused of infringement through the provision of security cameras, scanners, and voice remotes and smart TVs, respectively. At issue are a wide variety of features, ranging from image autocropping to the support of the Google Assistant platform. Over 130 defendants have now been sued in this campaign, while the number of asserted patents (each received either directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)) nears 50.

In April, Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. passed 100 defendants sued in its first litigation campaign, which it launched in May 2019, after filing new suits against Avision (6:21-cv-00415), Bang & Olufsen (6:21-cv-00429), Broadlink (6:21-cv-00433), Hisense (6:21-cv-00436), Gosund (6:21-cv-00443), Hitachi (Hitachi Kokusai Electric) (6:21-cv-00423), HTC (6:21-cv-00420), Pantum (6:21-cv-00424), Skyworth Group (6:21-cv-00437), SONOFF (6:21-cv-00449), TCL (6:21-cv-00408), and Trip.com (6:21-cv-00426) in the Western District of Texas and Haier (1:21-cv-00528) and Whirlpool (1:21-cv-00529) in the District of Delaware. The plaintiff asserts 13 patents in overlapping sets, one of which is new to litigation; the defendants are accused of infringement through a wide variety of products and services: devices and systems that support the Amazon Echo and Google Assistant platforms, web platforms that feature interactive graphical maps, and various other devices (e.g., camera systems, multi-function peripherals (MFPs), smartphones, TVs, VR headsets, wireless printers and scanners, etc.). Roughly 120 defendants have now been sued in this campaign, while the number of asserted patents (each received either directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)) is approaching 50.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has expanded its first litigation campaign that it launched in May 2019 with March suits against Anker (Fantasia Trading) (6:21-cv-00195), AT&T (6:21-cv-00251), Best Western (6:21-cv-00247), Booking Holdings (6:21-cv-00221), Choice Hotels (6:21-cv-00246), Costco (6:21-cv-00232), Drury Hotels (6:21-cv-00235), Expedia (6:21-cv-00245), Extended Stay (6:21-cv-00236), Hilton (6:21-cv-00237), Hyatt (6:21-cv-00248), Jinjiang (Radisson Hospitality) (6:21-cv-00250), Marriott (6:21-cv-00234), NVIDIA (6:21-cv-00252), and Travelzoo (6:21-cv-00233) in the Western District of Texas; Airbnb (Hotel Tonight) (1:21-cv-00338) and Leviton Manufacturing (1:21-cv-00363) in the District of Delaware; and Azpen Innovation (2:21-cv-00078) in the Eastern District of Texas. The plaintiff asserts six patents in overlapping sets, one of which is new to litigation; the defendants are targeted over the provision of a wide variety of products and services, including e-commerce websites, mobile apps, security cameras, tablets, and more. Over 95 defendants have now been sued in this campaign, while the number of asserted patents (each received either directly or indirectly from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV)) has hit 40.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has added Lenovo (6:21-cv-00021) as a defendant to its longest running litigation campaign over former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents. Sued in the Western District of Texas, the defendant is accused of infringing seven patents, with infringement allegations targeting the provision of certain Lenovo-branded tablets and Motorola-branded smartphones. The number of defendants in this campaign is nearing 80, while the number of asserted patents approaches 40.

In November, Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. added three defendants to its longest running litigation campaign over former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents, suing Nanonets (1:20-cv-01534) in the District of Delaware, Sonim Technologies (6:20-cv-01047) in the Western District of Texas, and Webfurther (8:20-cv-02176) in the Central District of California. Nanonets and Webfurther are each accused of infringing a single patent through their respective content moderation services, while Sonim Technologies is accused of infringing five patents through smartphones with certain image capture and processing capabilities. The number of defendants in this campaign is approaching 75, while the number of patents asserted nears 40.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has filed suit in the Western District of Texas against Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) (6:20-cv-00988), targeting the provision of smartphone features related to image capture and processing, along with its T-Vision Streaming TV Service. Within this, the newest complaint in Cedar Lane’s ever-expanding campaign, ten patents have been asserted, each received (either directly or indirectly) from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV). The number of defendants in this campaign is approaching 75, while the number of patents asserted is just shy of 40.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. continues to add defendants to its earliest, and largest, campaign, begun in May 2019 and quickly growing to hit almost 70 defendants with overlapping subsets of nearly 40 former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents. The newest defendants, sued so far in October, are Deezer (1:20-cv-03037), LiveXLive (1:20-cv-01370), and ViacomCBS (1:20-cv-06021), over the provision of music streaming services, and DISH Network (6:20-cv-00947) and Disney (6:20-cv-00949), over the provision of media streaming services as well as related apps and products. While streaming services are the focus of these latest complaints, at its core, this campaign has targeted image capture and editing (by various devices), also hitting cable boxes, cloud-based conferencing, and flexible OLED displays along the way.

Last month, RPX reported that Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.’s campaign over former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents had topped 60 defendants following a round of separate suits filed against Bullitt Mobile, Huawei, and Royole. With USPTO records indicating that the NPE has picked up yet more IV patents this year—over 90 US assets plus foreign counterparts—the NPE shows no signs of slowing its roll.

So far in July, Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has added cases against three defendants to the sprawling litigation campaign over former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents, suing Bullitt Mobile (1:20-cv-04218) in the Northern District of Illinois, Huawei (2:20-cv-00948) in the Eastern District of Texas, and Royole (1:20-cv-04218) in the District of Delaware. The campaign spans multiple districts, with more than three dozen patents now having been asserted. At its core, the campaign targets image capture and editing (by various devices), but it has also targeted cable boxes, cloud-based conferencing, and flexible OLED displays.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. continues the expansion of its litigation of former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents, adding suits against Comcast (1:20-cv-00501), Enplug (1:20-cv-00634), and Liberty Media (SiriusXM) (1:20-cv-03635). This particular campaign has swallowed three other Cedar Lane campaigns, now with over three dozen patents asserted in multiple federal courts, including the Western District of Texas (Comcast), the District of Delaware (Enplug), and the Southern District of New York (SiriusXM). Comcast and SiriusXM are accused of infringement of multiple patents through the provision of media streaming services and related products; Enplug, through its Digital Signage Player media advertisement platform.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. continues to roll through cases in its first litigation campaign, suing Amazon (1:20-cv-00415), LG Electronics (1:20-cv-00413), and ON Semiconductor (1:20-cv-00414) in the Western District of Texas, Omnivision Technologies (1:20-cv-00541) in the District of Delaware, Panasonic (4:20-cv-01392) in the Southern District of Texas, and ­Skylum Software (1:20-cv-03128) in the Southern District of New York. The number of patents asserted in this campaign, in overlapping sets, is approaching half of the roughly 50 former Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) patents that USPTO records indicate that Cedar Lane holds. The patents-in-suit here generally relate to various aspects of image capture, display, and processing, with infringement allegations across the more than two dozen defendants targeting a range of products, from camera functionality in smartphones and tablets to photo editing software.

2019 has seen a burst of litigation activity by Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., which has launched its first four campaigns just since late May. In this month so far, the Canadian NPE has added three cases to that first campaign, suing BeFunky (1:19-cv-02258) in the District of Delaware and Acer (1:19-cv-01207) and ZTE (1:19-cv-01210) in the Western District of Texas over overlapping sets of patents, generally related to image capture and editing, from a portfolio of roughly 50 patents formerly held by Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV).

This year has seen the continued outflow of assets from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), including to NPEs, with IV at times retaining an economic interest in the assertion of its divestitures. Meanwhile, new NPE cases involving former IV assets continue to be filed in droves, and IV shows no signs of tightening up the spigot.

One of those less familiar “faces” litigating patents in 2019 belongs to Canadian firm Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., which this past week kicked off its fourth campaign of the year. The plaintiff asserts a single patent, generally directed to spreading information from a central source to a “plurality of remote user interfaces”, in separate suits against Dialpad (1:19-cv-01156), Genesis Digital (3:19-cv-02282), and Zoom Video Communications (1:19-cv-03340). Cedar Lane targets the ability within the defendants’ cloud-based conferencing systems (UberConference, WebinarJam, and Zoom Meeting, respectively) to launch the user’s applications at the scheduled start time of a meeting.

This past February, AVInnov LLC sued Charter Communications in the District of Delaware over four patents from a portfolio of more than three dozen that the Delaware NPE acquired in December 2018 from Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV). Before the deadline to answer, AVInnov voluntarily dismissed the case, in early August. Two months later, AVInnov assigned its entire portfolio to Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., a Canadian NPE already managing two litigation campaigns from its growing body of former IV patents, now numbering close to 100. It took Cedar Lane about a month to reassert the same four patents against Charter Communications (2:19-cv-00368), this time in the Eastern District of Texas, also suing Frontier Communications (2:19-cv-00269), also in the Eastern District, and Lions Gate Entertainment (Starz Entertainment) (1:19-cv-03189), in the District of Colorado. Accused are the defendants’ respective cable boxes.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has filed suit in the District of Delaware against Yulong Computer (Coolpad Technologies) (1:19-cv-01648), targeting the defendant’s provision of the Coolpad Illumina smartphone with six patents from a portfolio of roughly 50 patents formerly held by Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV). The NPE began this campaign in May and has since hit ten defendants with more than two dozen patents in multiple venues.

Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. has added an Eastern District of Texas suit against Panasonic (2:19-cv-00241) to the campaign that it began in May by suing first Advert Tech in the Northern District of Illinois and then Photonics Management and Teledyne Digital Imaging in the District of Delaware. The NPE had just received roughly 50 patents formerly held by Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV). In early June, Cedar Lane added to the campaign another Illinois suit, against 123RF, and another Delaware case, against PicMonkey. The complaint against Panasonic asserts three of those patents, all generally related to image capture or correction, targeting the defendant over the provision of the Lumix GX880, DMC-FZ100, and DMC-GH2 cameras.

Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV) has been divesting patent assets at an accelerating rate over the past couple of years, in batches both big and small. For example, as reported this week, Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC affiliate Vista Peak Ventures, LLC continues to assert a subset of over 1,200 former NEC patents that the NPE acquired from IV last year, and, as reported just last week, IV transferred a more modest set of patents, numbering around 50, to Steephill Technologies LLC, which passed them immediately along to Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. in apparent preparation for assertion. That assertion is simply “apparent” no longer. This week, Cedar Lane has accused Advert Tech (1:19-cv-03442) of infringing three of those patents in a new complaint filed in the Northern District of Illinois targeting the provision of Ex++ Series Network Cameras such as the “Long Range Bullet Camera”.