Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Alarm.com Holdings, Inc.

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.

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).

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.

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”.