Cedar Lane Tech Inc v. Maxim Group LLC

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (Canada)
  • Defendant: Maxim Group, LLC (New York)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 1:26-cv-00292, S.D.N.Y., 01/13/2026
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant is incorporated in New York, maintains an established place of business in the Southern District of New York, and has allegedly committed acts of patent infringement within the district.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s unspecified financial trading products infringe a patent related to electronic trading systems that generate conditional offers for semi-anonymous market participants based on their trading history.
• Technical Context: The patent addresses risk management in high-speed, anonymous electronic securities trading, where market makers seek to differentiate their pricing for sophisticated ("toxic") traders versus ordinary ("naïve") traders.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint does not reference any prior litigation, inter partes review proceedings, or licensing history related to the patent-in-suit. The allegations of knowledge for indirect and potential willful infringement are based on the filing of the complaint itself.

Case Timeline

II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis

U.S. Patent No. 8,577,782 - "Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants"

• Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 8,577,782, "Trading with conditional offers for semi-anonymous participants," issued November 5, 2013 (’782 Patent).

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: In modern electronic trading, the anonymity of participants prevents market makers ("liquidity providers") from adjusting their prices based on the identity or past behavior of a counterparty ("liquidity taker") (Compl. ¶9; ’782 Patent, col. 1:7-15). This exposes providers to losses when trading against informed or "toxic" traders who have superior knowledge about a security's future price direction (’782 Patent, col. 6:32-40).
• The Patented Solution: The invention describes a system where a trading entity is associated with a persistent but semi-anonymous identifier. A liquidity provider can track the trading history associated with this identifier, generate a "profile" analyzing that history (e.g., to determine if past trades with that entity were profitable), and then generate a conditional trade offer based on that profile. The offer is specifically directed only to the entity associated with the identifier, allowing for customized pricing without revealing the full identities of the trading parties (’782 Patent, Abstract; col. 3:1-15). Figure 1 illustrates this data flow, where a Liquidity Provider (12) analyzes data from a trade history feed (22) to create profiles (20) and generate targeted offers (26) (’782 Patent, Fig. 1).
• Technical Importance: The technology aims to reintroduce a level of counterparty risk assessment into anonymous electronic markets, potentially allowing market makers to offer better pricing to "naïve" traders while protecting themselves from losses to "toxic" traders, thereby increasing overall market efficiency (’782 Patent, col. 6:40-57).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts infringement of "one or more claims," identified as "Exemplary '782 Patent Claims" in an attached but unprovided exhibit (Compl. ¶11, ¶16). Independent claim 1 is representative of the patent's core method.
• Independent Claim 1:
  • associating one of a plurality of trading entities with an identifier using a processor;
  • acquiring trade history information including a history of trading transactions associated with said identifier;
  • receiving an offer to buy or to sell a trading item from a liquidity provider based on a profile generated from said trade history information;
  • the profile containing information that indicates whether said trading transactions associated with said trading entity would generate a profit;
  • said offer being only made to said trading entity associated with said identifier; and
  • said offer being processed through an exchange that processes trading transactions for items having a bid/offer spread.
• The complaint states that Plaintiff may assert infringement of additional claims, including dependent claims (Compl. ¶11).

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The complaint refers to "Exemplary Defendant Products" but does not name or describe any specific product, service, or method offered by the Defendant (Compl. ¶11).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of the accused instrumentality's functionality. All specific allegations are incorporated by reference from an exhibit that was not included with the publicly filed complaint (Compl. ¶16, ¶17).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint incorporates its infringement allegations by reference to claim charts in "Exhibit 2," which is not provided with the complaint (Compl. ¶16, ¶17). The narrative alleges that the "Exemplary Defendant Products practice the technology claimed by the '782 Patent" and "satisfy all elements of the Exemplary '782 Patent Claims" (Compl. ¶16). Without the referenced exhibit, a detailed element-by-element analysis is not possible.

No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

• Identified Points of Contention: Based on the language of the ’782 Patent and the general nature of the dispute, the infringement analysis may focus on several key technical and legal questions:
  • Scope Questions: A central question may be how an offer can be "only made to said trading entity" as required by claim 1, particularly if the accused system operates on a standard exchange where offers are typically broadcast. The interpretation of this limitation—whether it requires a private communication channel or a logical restriction within a broadcast system—could be determinative.
  • Technical Questions: The complaint's theory appears to require that the accused products generate a "profile containing information that indicates whether said trading transactions... would generate a profit" (’782 Patent, cl. 1). A key factual question will be what specific data and algorithms the accused system uses to analyze trading history and whether this analysis meets the claim's requirement for predictive profitability information, as opposed to merely tracking general statistics like volume or frequency.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "profile containing information that indicates whether said trading transactions associated with said trading entity would generate a profit"

  • Context and Importance: This term is critical as it defines the analytical output required before a conditional offer can be generated. The dispute may turn on whether the accused system's analysis of trading history is sufficiently sophisticated to meet this "profitability indication" requirement. Practitioners may focus on this term because it appears to require a specific, forward-looking assessment, not just a historical summary.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
    • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The claim language "indicates whether" may be argued to encompass any data that correlates with profitability, even indirectly, without requiring a precise calculation or guarantee of future profit.
    • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification provides a specific example of calculating a variable called "ACTPROF", which is "equal to the actual profit which the Liquidity Provider earned from past cases" (’782 Patent, col. 5:1-5). A defendant may argue this embodiment limits the scope of the term to profiles that contain a direct calculation of historical or projected profit/loss.

• The Term: "said offer being only made to said trading entity associated with said identifier"

  • Context and Importance: This limitation defines the exclusivity of the conditional offer and is central to the "semi-anonymous" trading concept. The infringement analysis will depend on whether the accused system's mechanism for targeting offers meets this "only made to" requirement.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
    • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification suggests that offers may be "broadcast through a centralized exchange" (’782 Patent, col. 4:5-8). A plaintiff could argue that an offer is "only made to" a specific entity if it is encoded with data such that only that entity's system can recognize and accept it, even if the offer data is publicly visible on an exchange feed.
    • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The summary of the invention states the "offer may only be accepted by the trading entity associated with the identifier" (’782 Patent, col. 2:42-44). A defendant might argue that "only made to" requires more than just a limitation on acceptance and implies a targeted, non-public transmission of the offer itself.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement, asserting that since the service of the complaint, Defendant has had knowledge of the ’782 Patent and has intentionally encouraged infringement by selling the accused products and distributing "product literature and website materials" that instruct customers on their infringing use (Compl. ¶14, ¶15).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint does not use the word "willful," but it alleges that Defendant gained "Actual Knowledge of Infringement" upon service of the complaint and has "continued to make, use, test, sell, offer for sale, market, and/or import" the accused products despite this knowledge (Compl. ¶13, ¶14). The prayer for relief requests that the case be declared "exceptional" under 35 U.S.C. § 285, which is consistent with an allegation of post-filing willful infringement (Compl. p. 5, ¶E.i).

VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case

• A core issue will be one of evidentiary sufficiency: Given the complaint's reliance on an unprovided exhibit, a primary initial question will be whether the Plaintiff can produce evidence demonstrating that the accused products perform the specific analytical and targeting functions required by the patent claims.
• A key legal question will be one of definitional scope: Can the claim term "profile... that indicates whether said... transactions... would generate a profit" be construed to cover general counterparty risk analytics, or does it require a specific, calculated profitability metric as detailed in the patent's embodiments?
• A central technical question will be one of functional implementation: How does the accused system technically ensure an offer is "only made to" a specific trading entity, and does that mechanism align with the patent's description of a semi-anonymous, targeted offer system within the context of a broader financial exchange?