Cedar Lane Tech Inc v. Bank Of America Corp

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (Canada)
  • Defendant: Bank of America Corporation (Delaware)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Rabicoff Law LLC
• Case Identification: 2:25-cv-01225, E.D. Tex., 12/17/2025
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant maintains an established place of business in the Eastern District of Texas and has committed acts of patent infringement within the district.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s unspecified financial trading products and systems infringe a patent related to methods for generating conditional trade offers in semi-anonymous electronic trading environments.
• Technical Context: The technology at issue addresses electronic trading systems, where market makers (liquidity providers) seek to price trades based on the historical behavior of counterparties (liquidity takers) without knowing their exact identities.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint does not reference any prior litigation, licensing history, or administrative proceedings involving the patent-in-suit.

Case Timeline

Date	Event
2010-04-08	’782 Patent Priority Date
2013-11-05	’782 Patent Issue Date
2025-12-17	Complaint Filing Date

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

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

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent's background describes a problem in modern electronic securities trading, where "increasing anonymity" prevents buyers and sellers from knowing the identity of their counterparties (Compl. ¶9; ’782 Patent, col. 1:11-15). This anonymity precludes the ability to set prices based on knowledge of a specific counterparty’s past trading behavior (e.g., identifying sophisticated or "toxic traders") (’782 Patent, col. 6:32-45).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a method and system for "semi-anonymous" trading. A trading entity ("taker") is associated with a persistent but non-identifying "identifier" (’782 Patent, col. 3:4-6). A market maker ("liquidity provider") can then acquire the trade history associated with this identifier, generate a "profile" analyzing that history (for example, to determine if past trades with that entity were profitable), and generate a conditional trade offer based on that profile (’782 Patent, Abstract; col. 4:46-50). The resulting offer is directed only to the specific trading entity associated with that identifier, allowing for customized pricing without revealing the entity's actual identity (’782 Patent, col. 2:26-31).
• Technical Importance: This approach allows market makers to mitigate risks associated with information asymmetry in anonymous markets, potentially enabling "better price matching, resulting in greater deal flow" by tailoring offers to specific, profiled traders (’782 Patent, col. 3:24-26).

Key Claims at a Glance

The complaint asserts infringement of "one or more claims" and refers to "Exemplary '782 Patent Claims" but does not specify them in the body of the complaint (Compl. ¶11). Claim 1 is the first independent method claim.

• Independent Claim 1:
  • Associating a trading entity with an identifier using a processor.
  • Acquiring trade history information associated with that identifier.
  • Receiving an offer from a liquidity provider that is based on a profile generated from that trade history.
  • The profile must contain information indicating whether the entity's past transactions "would generate a profit."
  • The offer is made "only" to the trading entity associated with the identifier.
  • The offer is processed through an exchange that handles transactions with a "bid/offer spread."

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

The complaint does not name any specific accused products, systems, or services (Compl. ¶11). It refers generally to "Defendant products identified in the charts incorporated into this Count below (among the 'Exemplary Defendant Products')" (Compl. ¶11). However, the referenced charts (Exhibit 2) were not filed with the complaint.

Functionality and Market Context

The complaint does not provide sufficient detail for analysis of the functionality of the accused instrumentalities. It alleges only that the "Exemplary Defendant Products practice the technology claimed by the '782 Patent" (Compl. ¶16). No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

The complaint incorporates by reference claim charts from an "Exhibit 2," which was not provided with the public filing (Compl. ¶17). The complaint itself contains no specific factual allegations mapping any feature of an accused product to any element of a patent claim. The infringement theory is stated in a conclusory manner: "the Exemplary Defendant Products incorporated in these charts satisfy all elements of the Exemplary '782 Patent Claims" (Compl. ¶16).

Identified Points of Contention

Given the limited information, the central dispute will likely involve both factual and legal questions.

• Factual Question: A threshold issue will be establishing the specific architecture and operation of Bank of America's accused trading systems. The complaint provides no factual basis for determining whether these systems use "identifiers" to generate trader "profiles" for creating conditional offers, as required by the claims.
• Scope Question: A key dispute may arise over the meaning of a "profile containing information that indicates whether said trading transactions... would generate a profit." The question for the court may be whether this limitation requires a specific, quantitative prediction of future profit or if it can be read more broadly to cover general counterparty risk assessments, such as those used to identify potentially unprofitable "toxic traders" as discussed in the patent's specification (’782 Patent, col. 6:32-34).

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

The Term

"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" (from Claim 1).

Context and Importance

This term is central to the invention, as it describes the mechanism for enabling "informed, semi-anonymous, trading" (’782 Patent, col. 1:59-62). The construction of this term will determine what kind of analysis of a trader's history is required to infringe. Practitioners may focus on whether this requires a specific calculation of predicted profit or encompasses broader risk categorization.

Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation

• Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification suggests the profile can be used to identify "toxic traders," whose trades are consistently unprofitable for the liquidity provider, implying a categorical or risk-based assessment rather than a precise numerical prediction (’782 Patent, col. 6:32-45). This could support a construction where any data indicating a trader's likely profitability (or lack thereof) satisfies the limitation.
• Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The detailed description provides a specific example where a "profile analyzer" creates a variable for "the actual profit which the Liquidity Provider earned from past cases" with an identified taker, and this analysis is used to generate offers (’782 Patent, col. 5:1-10). This embodiment could support a narrower construction requiring a direct calculation based on historical profitability.

VI. Other Allegations

Indirect Infringement

The complaint alleges induced infringement, asserting that since the filing of the complaint, Defendant has acted "actively, knowingly, and intentionally" by selling products and distributing "product literature and website materials" that instruct customers on how to use them in an infringing manner (Compl. ¶¶14-15).

Willful Infringement

The complaint's allegation of willfulness is based on post-suit knowledge. It explicitly pleads that "service of this Complaint... constitutes actual knowledge of infringement" and that Defendant's continued alleged infringement "Despite such actual knowledge" is willful (Compl. ¶¶13-14).

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

1. An Evidentiary Question of Operation: The immediate and central question is factual: What are the specific functionalities of the accused Bank of America trading systems? As the complaint lacks any technical description of the accused instrumentalities, the case will hinge on evidence produced during discovery that details how, if at all, these systems associate traders with identifiers, analyze their trade histories to generate profiles, and use those profiles to create conditional, targeted offers.

2. A Definitional Question of Scope: A core legal issue will be the construction of the claim term "profile... that indicates whether said... transactions... would generate a profit." The resolution of the case may depend on whether this phrase is interpreted to require a specific, quantitative calculation of historical or predicted profit, as detailed in the patent’s embodiments, or if it can be construed more broadly to cover any form of data-driven counterparty risk classification.