Digital Doors v. Colony Bank: Four-Patent Sheltered Harbor Infringement Claim Ends in Dismissal With Prejudice
Digital Doors, Inc. filed suit in the Northern District of Georgia against Colony Bank, asserting four patents covering Sheltered Harbor-compliant data security systems and methods. The parties stipulated to dismissal with prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) after reaching a private agreement — resolving all claims in 376 days.
Sheltered Harbor Patent Infringement Suit Settled on Confidential Terms
On December 5, 2024, Digital Doors, Inc. filed a patent infringement action against Colony Bank in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, assigned to Judge Victoria M. Calvert. The complaint asserted four patents — US10250639B2, US10182073B2, US9734169B2, and US9015301B2 — each directed to Sheltered Harbor-compliant systems and methods, a cybersecurity standard designed to protect financial institutions’ data vaults against catastrophic cyber events.
The case ended on December 16, 2025, when both parties filed a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) stipulation of dismissal with prejudice, citing a private agreement between them. Dismissal with prejudice is a final adjudication on the merits — Digital Doors cannot refile these specific claims against Colony Bank. Each party agreed to bear its own costs, attorneys’ fees, and expenses, suggesting neither side extracted a public fee-shifting concession.
A 376-day lifecycle from filing to closure is broadly consistent with a pre-trial negotiated resolution in multi-patent district court litigation. The confidential nature of the underlying agreement means any financial terms, licensing arrangements, or non-assertion covenants remain undisclosed. What drove settlement — claim construction risk, validity concerns over the asserted patents, or commercial compromise — cannot be determined from the public record.
Filing to Case Dismissed in 376 days
376 days from filing to closure — consistent with pre-trial settlement in patent infringement actions
Dismissed with prejudice by stipulation: what the terms mean for each party
Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) dismissal with prejudice explained
A Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) stipulated dismissal requires agreement from all parties who have appeared. When filed ‘with prejudice,’ it operates as a final judgment on the merits. This forecloses Digital Doors from refiling the same patent claims against Colony Bank — unlike a without-prejudice dismissal, which preserves the right to refile. The court need not approve the stipulation; it is self-executing upon filing.
Voluntary — binding on both partiesDigital Doors permanently closes its claims against Colony Bank
By agreeing to dismissal with prejudice, Digital Doors has permanently extinguished its infringement claims against Colony Bank under all four asserted patents. This is a significant concession of future litigation rights against this defendant. However, the confidential agreement may include licensing fees, a covenant-not-to-sue against future products, or other commercially valuable consideration not visible in the public record.
Claims permanently extinguishedColony Bank secures finality — but on undisclosed terms
Colony Bank obtains certainty that Digital Doors cannot reassert these four patents in future litigation. The ‘each party bears own costs’ clause is commercially neutral — Colony Bank did not secure a fee award, which courts typically reserve for exceptional cases. The private agreement’s terms govern what, if anything, Colony Bank conceded. The bank’s ongoing use of Sheltered Harbor-compliant systems appears uncontested going forward.
No fee award; finality achievedSheltered Harbor patent risk persists for other financial institutions
Digital Doors holds at least four patents in this Sheltered Harbor technology cluster and retains enforcement rights against third parties not party to this settlement. Regional and community banks adopting Sheltered Harbor-compliant data vault architectures should assess their exposure to this portfolio. The absence of any invalidity ruling means the patents remain in force and unchallenged on the public record.
Patents remain enforceable vs. third partiesFull party and counsel information
| Role | Name | Type | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plaintiff | Digital Doors, Inc. | Company | Cybersecurity patent assertion entity — holder of US10250639B2 and three related Sheltered Harbor patentsSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant | Colony Bank | Company | Colony Bank — regional financial institution alleged to use Sheltered Harbor-compliant data security systemsSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff counsel | Christopher A. Honea | Attorney | Counsel for Digital Doors, Inc.Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff counsel | Michael Scott Fuller | Attorney | Counsel for Digital Doors, Inc.Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff counsel | Randall Garteiser | Attorney | Counsel for Digital Doors, Inc.Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Plaintiff law firm | Garteiser Honea PLLC | Law Firm | Representing Digital Doors, Inc.Search in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant counsel | Kelly E. Ransom | Attorney | Counsel for Colony BankSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant counsel | Matthew Scott Knoop | Attorney | Counsel for Colony BankSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant law firm | Kelly Hart & Hallman, LLP | Law Firm | Representing Colony BankSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Defendant law firm | Polsinelli PC-Atl | Law Firm | Representing Colony BankSearch in Eureka ↗ |
| Presiding judge | Judge Victoria M. Calvert | Judge | Georgia Northern District CourtSearch in Eureka ↗ |
Official order — verbatim text
The stipulation cites ‘an agreement between the parties’ as the operative basis — confirming this is a privately negotiated resolution, not a merits adjudication. The with-prejudice designation is the legally consequential element: it bars any future infringement action by Digital Doors against Colony Bank on these four patents. The mutual cost-bearing clause is standard in patent settlements where neither party sought or obtained an ‘exceptional case’ fee award under 35 U.S.C. § 285. No claim construction order, validity ruling, or damages determination was issued.
US10250639B2, US10182073B2, US9734169B2 & US9015301B2 — Sheltered Harbor Data Security Systems
The four asserted patents — US10250639B2 (App. 14/597,345), US10182073B2 (App. 14/597,314), US9734169B2 (App. 13/900,728), and US9015301B2 (App. 11/746,440) — form a chronologically layered portfolio spanning applications filed across multiple years. The technology domain covers Sheltered Harbor-compliant systems and methods: architectures designed to allow financial institutions to securely store and recover critical data in the event of a catastrophic cyberattack or system failure. The Sheltered Harbor standard was developed collaboratively by major financial sector participants as a resilience framework.
For financial institutions, Sheltered Harbor compliance has moved from voluntary best practice toward a broadly adopted industry standard — making Digital Doors’ patent portfolio strategically significant. If the claimed methods and system architectures read on standard-compliant implementations, virtually any adopting institution could face infringement exposure. The portfolio’s age spread across four application numbers also suggests continuation or divisional relationships, potentially creating claim variation that is harder to design around.
Should your institution run an FTO against the Digital Doors Sheltered Harbor portfolio?
Any bank, credit union, or fintech provider implementing Sheltered Harbor-compliant data vault architecture should treat this portfolio as a live enforcement risk. Digital Doors has demonstrated willingness to litigate in federal court, and the settlement here resolves only Colony Bank’s exposure — the four patents remain enforceable against all other parties. R&D and compliance teams adopting Sheltered Harbor protocols should map their specific technical implementation against the claim sets of all four patents before deployment.
PatSnap Eureka’s FTO Search Agent can run automated claim-mapping across US10250639B2, US10182073B2, US9734169B2, and US9015301B2 simultaneously, flagging which independent claims most closely read on standard Sheltered Harbor architectures. Eureka’s prior art discovery layer can also surface invalidating references that could support an IPR petition — giving your legal team a defensible, pre-litigation position if a demand letter arrives.
Run a freedom-to-operate analysis on US10250639B2 to assess your product’s exposure
Run FTO in Eureka →Similar Sheltered Harbor & Financial Cybersecurity Patent Cases in Federal District Court
Explore related patent infringement actions involving data vault, cybersecurity resilience, and Sheltered Harbor-adjacent technologies litigated in U.S. district courts.
What this case signals for the financial cybersecurity IP landscape
A four-patent assertion targeting a Sheltered Harbor-compliant bank suggests a deliberate enforcement strategy across the financial sector.
Sheltered Harbor compliance may carry patent infringement exposure
Financial institutions implementing Sheltered Harbor data vault standards should be aware that Digital Doors holds an active patent portfolio specifically directed at those systems. The settlement here does not invalidate any claims — other banks using similar architectures remain potential enforcement targets based on the available public record.
Four-patent portfolios signal coordinated assertion risk
Digital Doors asserted four related patents in a single action, suggesting a clustered portfolio strategy. When an assertion entity files with multiple overlapping patents, defendants face compounded claim construction complexity. Early prior art searches and claim mapping against each patent in the cluster are advisable risk-management steps.
Digital v Colony — key questions answered
Digital Doors asserted four patents: US10250639B2, US10182073B2, US9734169B2, and US9015301B2. All four are directed to Sheltered Harbor-compliant systems and methods — cybersecurity architectures designed to protect financial institutions’ critical data against catastrophic cyber events.
The parties filed a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) stipulated dismissal with prejudice, citing a private agreement between them. Dismissal with prejudice is legally final — Digital Doors cannot refile these patent claims against Colony Bank. The specific terms of the underlying agreement were not disclosed in public court filings.
No. The stipulated dismissal binds only Digital Doors and Colony Bank. The four asserted patents — US10250639B2, US10182073B2, US9734169B2, and US9015301B2 — remain in force and enforceable against any third party. No invalidity ruling was issued, and no claim was held not infringed. Other Sheltered Harbor-adopting institutions retain independent exposure.
The mutual cost-bearing clause means neither party recovered attorneys’ fees, litigation costs, or expenses from the other. In patent cases, fee-shifting under 35 U.S.C. § 285 requires a finding that the case is ‘exceptional.’ The absence of a fee award here is consistent with a negotiated resolution rather than a judicial determination of misconduct or frivolous litigation.
Sheltered Harbor is a financial industry cybersecurity standard that specifies how institutions should store and recover critical customer data following a severe cyberattack. Because it defines specific technical architectures, patents claiming those architectures — like those held by Digital Doors — may read on standard-compliant implementations. Financial institutions adopting Sheltered Harbor should conduct freedom-to-operate analysis against the Digital Doors portfolio.
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