On September 10, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial in an IPR filed by Unified against all independent claims and several dependent claims of US Patent 9,979,981, owned by Velos Media, LLC. The ’981 patent is generally directed to techniques for encoding images that are in the 4:2:0 sampling format using the H.264/AVC coding format.

Velos claims to have and seeks to license patents allegedly essential to the HEVC / H.265 standard (such as the ‘981 patent). Unified filed this challenge as part of its ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone after independently determining that the allegedly standard essential ‘981 patent is likely unpatentable.

Unified is represented by David Cavanaugh and Theodoros Konstantakopoulos from Wilmer Hale in this proceeding. Visit Unified’s Portal for more information about its Video Codec landscape (OPAL) and standard submission repository (OPEN). To read the decision and review the case record, view IPR2019-00707 on the Portal.